Connecting my MBP to Sony Bravia TV

I have it connected via mini display adapter to HDMI and have downloaded and watched a TV Episode. But as a Mac newbie I have some questions and can't find the correct answers.

1. How to turn the MBPS display off. I have set Sys Pref/energy Saver to sleep display after 1 min and computer sleep for 3 hours. Display does not turn off during entire hour long tv episode set like this.

2. How to set up so TV can control its own brightness. As it is now, the only way I can control brightness is thru the MBP and that still is too dark.

Can anyone help?

Your display is not going to sleep while a video is playing on it.

Sounds like you're using mirrored mode.
Try turning off mirroring and use extended desktop mode.
You'll then drag the video to the TV screen. Unless it's changed - have not used 10.8 with my TV - when you put the video into full screen mode it will black out the MBP display. If not, then you can use the brightness key and turn it down all the way.

Brief description of using Extended Desktop see Post 2, Item 3:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/other-hardware-peripherals/193239-connecting-your-mac-your-tv.html

Thank you for responding. I do have mirroring checked. The link you attached confuses me about the extended desktop tho, I am an older very non tech person and I was so happy that I actually got the tv connected and was able to watch the tv show I ordered on the mac. And I cant turn the brightness down to black out the display because the tv screen is dependent on the mac for its brightness. I am going to have to live with a half ***** connection, I think. I guess that is better than a blank screen after going thru the motions of connecting LOL.

Follow what I said above.

Turn mirroring off.
Then you will drag the video from your MBP screen to the TV screen.

You can't learn unless you try and play around with it some.
Over 60 myself - so no excuses - just try it - you might like it.

Ok, ok , I know you're right. I have no idea where it is I drag from/to, that's my problem.

You know how to drag the window of an application around the screen to where you want it, right?

After you turn off mirroring

Start the video you want to watch - it's going to only be on your MBP screen now

Drag the video window to the TV screen

Then hit the button in the video window to go fullscreen


(And after you turn mirroring off - then the post I linked above for you will start to make more sense)

I have now turned the mirroring off, watched a movie that I bought from iTunes earlier today and everything is working as I needed it to be. I did not have to drag anything tho, dont know why. I just unchecked the mirror display button in Sys Pref and then went to iTunes, clicked on the downloaded movie, it came on, I looked at the MBP and it had a dark screen. I could then go into my Sony TV and control the brightness of the screen there. So Im happy, I learned something new and I thank you for your patience and the push you gave me.

Good deal.

You might want to subscribe to this thread if you're not - click on the 'Thread Tools' button right above your first post. Then you can always find it, by using the UserCP link at the top and then the 'List Subscriptions' link on the sidebar.

If something happens you don't quite understand with mirroring turned off - have another read of the link above and then you can come on back with more questions if you need.