I just brought home a new mac mini (core2duo, 2.0ghz, etc.)

At home I have a panasonic TH-50PHD7UY plasma, with a resolution of 1366x768.

Now, previous to the purchase I had read all about the issues, the custom resolution applications, etc., so to my great surprise and delight, it "just worked".

I took the mini out of the box, plugged it right into the plasma, and turned it on for the first time - and it just worked. OSX reports running at 1366x768 in preferences and everything looks perfect.

.... except ...

the desktop is wrapped ! I am not sure if there is a better, technical term for this, but basically what I see is the right-most 20 or 40 pixels of the desktop are actually on the far left of the screen itself.

So the entire desktop is visible - it's not cropped or chopped - but the far right of the desktop is actually wrapped around to the left. If I move my mouse all the way to the right, it ends up on the very left of the physical screen itself.

It's not much - again, 20-40 pixels, but obviously this is a problem.

Any idea what would cause this ? FWIW, when I play a DVD the DVD menu shows this screen wrap, but when I actually go in and play the movie itself I can't see the wrap.

So did I celebrate too soon ? Do I need to do all the custom resolution surgery anyway, and the fact that it seemed to work correctly out of the box at 1366x768 was just a red herring ?

Thanks.

I have no experience with the Panny, but just a few comments.

1. How are you connecting the mini to the Panny? If possible, use VGA, since I would assume that a VGA input would be more PC/Mac friendly.

2. If you don't have a VGA board, you might want to look into using DisplayConfigX or SwitchResX.

3. The thing that confuses me is that when the DVD movie plays, the "wrap" is gone. Perhaps the DVD Player.app changes the resolution to something more "supported" when in full-screen mode.

4. Have you tried different resolutions? Assuming you have access to 1920x1080 or 1600x1050, then might work better.

ft

I am connecting with DVI. Plain old dvi <-> dvi

DVI is a digital connection, so I definitely would not want to switch to VGA which is analog...

I will look more closely at what happens during DVD playback - because the wrapping occurs when the menu is being shown - perhaps the output of the dvd player is simply shrunk a bit, and so the wrap is happening, but I just don't see it ? I will find out.

I will try VGA just to see what the difference is - it might help troubleshoot this problem...

Maybe try using the screen position controls on the remote for the TV? I have the later version of your TV, the 8UK, and I haven't had any trouble with the DVI position but it may help in your case.

No, it's not a picture centering issue. The panels picture is centered perfectly.

Also, the problem is not there if I go to 1024x768 mode. But almost all other resolutions (1344x756, 1280x720) have the problem.

I tried connecting the mini to the panel with VGA instead of DVI, and a few things happened:

a) my 1366x768 choice went away, and I got some weird 1366x760 or 1360x768 or something ... I wasn't aware that they made panels in those pixel counts, but whatever.

b) instead of identifying me as a TY-42TM6D (the identification string on the DVI blade perhaps ??) it correctly identifies the panel as a TH-50P**7

c) the problem goes away, although I now have big wide black band on the far right, making it look like I now need to center the panel...

WHo knows. I am NOT going to run over VGA. I am NOT going to run at anything less than 1366x768. I guess I'll try one of those third party resolution apps and see if they can get me the 1366x768 resolution over dvi that the mac was supposed to be giving me all along...

I would try VGA. You might be surprised at the picture.

Can't hurt to try.

Josh

Does that panny have an HDMI blade? I run DVI->HDMI from my mini on a Pioneer 720p plasma. The mini reports 1360x768 resolution "out of the box" and the picture is centered, i.e. 3 black pixels on either side, which I find an acceptable compromise...

N
b) instead of identifying me as a TY-42TM6D (the identification string on the DVI blade perhaps ??) it correctly identifies the panel as a TH-50P**7

...

WHo knows. I am NOT going to run over VGA. I am NOT going to run at anything less than 1366x768. I guess I'll try one of those third party resolution apps and see if they can get me the 1366x768 resolution over dvi that the mac was supposed to be giving me all along...

Funny, on my 8UK the panel is identified as TY-42TM6D and I get 1366x768 and a perfectly centered screen. Maybe try to remove the DVI blade, power cycle the panel and reinstall it. I read somewhere that blades that become unseated can cause issues. Also what slot is the blade in? I have the DVI blade for my mini, the HDMI blade for my SA 8300HD cable DVR and use the VGA for my Xbox 360. They all look good and HD-DVD's look fantastic over VGA so I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, just use a good cable, it might not be a bad idea to try a different DVI cable for you current problem too - a bad one can cause all sorts of issues.