MacBook Pro/MacBook Air HDMI on your Flat Screen TV

How to Connect a Mac to a TV with HDMI for Full Audio & Video Support

Ever wanted to connect a Mac to a TV screen? Maybe you want to use the TV as a giant external monitor, to play games on a big screen, or just for video playback and movie streaming? It’s actually quite easy to do, and we’ll cover the entire process from start to finish. We’re going to focus on connecting any newer Mac to any fairly modern TV by way of a physical HDMI connection, thus, a few third party accessories will be necessary for the task. The result will be the Mac exporting both video and audio signals to the TV.

HDMI is really the best way to connect a MacBook Air, Pro, iMac, or Mini to an HDTV screen, whatever your intended usage purpose is. Yes, the AirPlay feature can also export a screen to show up on a TV through an Apple TV box, but the HDMI method has several distinct advantages; it’s cheaper, resource usage is considerably less, there are no slowdowns, the video quality does not depend on network latency, and it’s just generally much more versatile, making the only real downside to the HDMI approach being the physical cable connectivity. Lets get started and cover the basic requirements first.

Requirements:
Virtually every semi-modern Mac will fit the bill, but you will need the following:

1. Mac with Mini-DisplayPort, Mini-DVI*, or Thunderbolt port

2. Mini DisplayPort/Thunderbolt to HDMI Adapter with Audio Support

3. HDMI cable 

4. HDTV with HDMI input, just about any modern HDTV. 

• Note about HDMI adapters and audio support: there are many options available on Amazon and some are very cheap, many of which will not actually carry audio despite advertising that they do. Generally, the adapters that cost a little bit more tend to be more reliable, so be sure to read the reviews and make sure that audio does indeed work for the adapter you are ordering. I’ve had the best experience with the Monoprice brand, but your mileage may vary. Also note that for 2010 and older Macs, the Mini-DVI to HDMI adapters do not carry audio at all, thus you will need a separate audio output option that we won’t cover here (external speakers, separate audio cable, etc). If you plan to control the TV using your Mac from a distance, spend a couple extra bucks on a longer HDMI cable. 15 feet is usually adequate for most cases, but if you have a gigantic room you may want a longer cable. For the purpose of this walkthrough we’ll focus on the newer Mac models with Mini-DisplayPort and Thunderbolt ports, this guide was crafted using a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, but the same applies to newer Mac Mini and iMac models too.
• Connect the Mac to the TV with HDMI & Adapter 
• Establishing the initial connection is remarkably straightforward and is just a matter of physically connecting the cables to one another from the Mac to the TV.
• If you have never connected anything to a Mini-Display Port or Thunderbolt Port, you’re looking for this port:
  
  The location of the video output port varies per Mac model, but it’s usually on the right-side of the MacBook Air, the left side on the MacBook Pro, and it’s always on the back of the iMac and Mac Mini. The Mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adapter that connects to the Mac will look something like this:
  
  With everything ready, it’s time to hook everything up and get the connection going:
  • Connect that HDMI adapter to the video output port on the Mac
  • Connect the HDMI cable to the adapter, and the other end of the HDMI cable needs to go into an available HDMI source port on the back or side of a TV
  • Turn the Mac on if it isn’t already
  • Flip the TV’s video input source over to HDMI (often through a “Video Source” button on the TV’s remote control)
  The Mac should instantly recognize the TV and extend the desktop over to the HDTV’s screen. If that doesn’t happen, you are probably on the wrong video source of the TV, so try another HDMI source. Some modern HDTV’s have up to 6 HDMI ports, meaning you’ll have to flip through each of them to find the proper one carrying the Macs video and audio output signal. You’ll know it works because the desktop shows up on the TV instantly like this:
  
  If you’re satisfied with this alone, which basically makes the TV an external display, then you can call it quits here. On the other hand, if you’re looking to watch movies through apps, watch web video, or use another playback source from the Mac on the larger TV screen, then you’ll want to take a few additional steps to greatly improve the experience. Plus you’ll probably want to get sound working properly, as you’ll notice by default audio won’t play through the TV screen and stays playing through the Macs speakers instead. Read on to optimize the TV for video playback, get sound working, and for some more tips for having the best experience.

  Configure the Mac Video Output for Optimal Display on the TV Screen

  By default the Mac will attempt to use the TV as an external display, extending the desktop to the TV screen. That’s great if you intend on using the TV as a large external monitor, but if you’re aiming to watch video or a movie, or play games, you’re better off using Display Mirroring in many case. Option A describes how to do this easily:

  A: Set Up Mirroring

  • With the Mac connected to the TV, open System Preferences
  • Choose “Displays” and then click the “Arrangements” tab
  • Check the box for “Mirror displays”
  
  While this almost always looks better on a 720p TV screen, that’s not always the case for 1080p HDTV’s. Since the 1080p resolution is greater than that seen on many Mac displays, you’ll either need to scale down the resolution, deal with a pixelated image, or just set the external display as the primary display and go into full-screen mode on the TV screen when playing video as described in Option B:

  B: Set the TV Display as the Primary Display

  • Open System Preferences from the  Apple menu after the Mac & TV are connected to one another
  • Choose “Displays” and then go to the “Arrangements” tab
  • Drag the white menubar from the smaller built-in display to the external TV display, thereby turning the TV into the primary screen
  
  This will reverse the default configuration of a dual-display setup, thereby turning the Macs screen into the extended desktop, and the HDTV as the main desktop where the menu bar shows and apps appear by default.

  Change Sound Output from the Mac to TV via HDMI

  Unless the Mac is hooked up to some great external speakers, you’ll almost certainly want to set audio output to go through the TV’s speakers rather than the tiny ones built into the computer. For just about every HDMI based Mac-to-TV connection, these audio settings must be adjusted manually after the two have been attached to one another and video is already displaying on the TV screen:
  • Open System Preferences from the  Apple menu and choose “Sound”
  • Click the “Output” tab and look under the “Type” list to find the “HDMI” option and select it
  
  The Output tab will usually show the TV’s model name, but since most people don’t know the model number of their TV that’s fairly meaningless and it’s much easier to just look for “HDMI” in the list. In the screenshot example, the LCD HDTV’s model is “VO320E” for a Visio 32″ but the names are often much more convoluted than that.
  Note that once you set the audio output to go through the TV you will lose the ability to adjust the sound volume levels through the Mac’s audio output controls, meaning you’ll need to use the TV’s built-in volume adjustment buttons or a remote control.

  Get a Good Video Playback App

  If the entire reason you’re doing this is to watch videos on a bigger screen, be sure you get a good video playback app. Here are four great free apps:
  • XBMC – media center and much more, plays almost any video you can throw at it
  • Plex – media center app that also plays virtually every video format
  • VLC – barebones but powerful video playback app that works with nearly all video formats
  • MplayerX – more full-featured video player that is compatible with the majority of video formats
  QuickTime Player is also a fine choice for playing .MOV, m4v, .mp4 files, but for other movie file formats like .WMV, Flash .flv, .mpeg, .avi, and others, you’ll want to get a third party app instead. For other formats, VLC is a classic app and should be included in just about every Mac users app toolbox, and MplayerX is becoming increasingly popular for being just as versatile while having the added bonus of supporting BluRay and MKV playback.
  Both XBMC and Plex are full featured media apps, which are capable of turning a Mac into amedia center when they’re running. If you have a spare Mac, you can even turn it into a full-time media center, server, and torrents box, and the Mac Mini is particularly great for that purpose.

  Video Playback Too Small? Black Bars Showing? Use Screen Zoom

  Not all movies or videos will play at true full screen, and sometimes you’ll end up with a large black border around the sides of the video. This is frequently true with many web-based streaming movies, or when playing video that is lower resolution in general. Some playback apps like QuickTime and VLC have the ability to play video at 1.5x and 2x resolution to solve that problem, but for web players and other apps you can just use screen zoom instead.
  First, let’s enable screen zoom if you haven’t done so yet:
  • Open System Preferences from the  Apple menu and choose “Accessibility”
  • Choose “Zoom” and enable the zoom features, choose either the keyboard shortcut or zoom gesture option
  
  Optionally, check the “Smooth Images” option to attempt to have less pixelation when zoomed in, though this tends to blur the picture for heavy zooming and can look strange. You’re better off trying this out yourself to see if it works for the video you want to watch.
  Now to put this to you use, play back a video as usual either from a web player or movie file, center the mouse cursor in the middle of the video, and now use the zoom feature to eliminate the black borders. For those who enabled the gesture option, this is done by holding the “Control” key and then using a two-fingered upward gesture to zoom in (or two finger down to zoom out).
  For example, this video of an older NOVA Origins video is fairly low resolution, and when maximized in the web-based player it still won’t play at full screen. This is a perfect situation to use screen zoom for, which turns this:
  
  Into this full-screen maximized version, simply by zooming in on the playing video:
  
  Much better huh? It won’t do a anything to resolve the lower resolution playback, but at least it doesn’t have the large black bordering bars showing alongside all of the video, making the playback itself smaller than it needs to be. Sometimes just increasing the web browser zoom works too for just web video, but that shouldn’t be considered universally reliable enough to recommend for all situations.
  That should be about it, enjoy your Mac-TV HOOKUP, go watch some movies, browser the web on an enormous screen, game on the big screen, and have fun!
  
  Side note: If you happen to have an Apple TV and a Mac running 10.8 or later, you can just use AirPlay Mirroring and do this entire thing wirelessly without the need for any cables or HDMI adapters. Typically AirPlay offers excellent video playback, but on weak wi-fi signals the connection can suffer, which is never a problem with a physical HDMI cable. Plus, the combination of an HDMI adapter and cable is about 1/10th the price of an Apple TV box, making the method offered above a much more economical choice.                                      
• Video Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh65n37XoD0         
• by http://osxdaily.com/2013/04/28/connect-mac-to-tv/

Macbook tips for beginner

1. Essential Keyboard Shortcuts in Mac OS X

If you’re used to quickly navigating Windows and Microsoft Office using keyboard shortcuts such as CTRL-S to save and CTRL-C to copy, you might be a little shocked if you’ve decided to make the switch to Mac OS X. That’s because those familiar shortcuts will no longer work as expected. Instead, Macs boast the same functionality but use the Command key rather than the Control key.

In addition to the standard key combinations that most PC users are aware of — those for save, copy and paste, for instance — Macs feature a number of shortcuts that are unique to Apple’s OS. Here is a list of handy shortcuts that every budding Mac user should know:

Command-Q: Quit the open application.

Command-Option-Esc: Force quit.

Command-Option-M: Minimize all windows of application to the Dock.

Command-Option-W: Close all windows in the application without quitting.

Command-Tab: Cycle forward through open applications.

Command-Shift-Tab: Cycle backward through open applications.

Command-Shift-F: Search all files.

Command-Shift-A: Search all applications.

Command-Space bar: Open or close Spotlight search field.

Control-A: Move to beginning of line or paragraph.

Control-E: Move to end of line or paragraph.

Command-Option-D: Show or hide the Dock.

Command-F3: Show the desktop.

2. How to Use Trackpad Gestures to Navigate OS X

Swipe between full-screen apps: Swipe with three fingers to the left or right to switch between any apps that you have open in full-screen mode.

Tap to zoom: Tap the trackpad with two fingers simultaneously to zoom in on a page in Safari or a PDF.

Swipe to navigate: Swipe with two fingers to the left or right to flip through Web pages and documents.

Open Launchpad: Pinch toward the center of the trackpad with your thumb placed in either the bottom left or bottom right corner and three fingers in the opposite corner above. The Launchpad lets you see your installed apps and launch them with a single click.

Show desktop: Spread your thumb and three fingers apart to show the desktop. This gesture is the exact opposite of the previous gesture.

Look up: Tap a word with three fingers to immediately look up the word’s definition, synonym and more.

Three-finger drag: Slide three fingers around the trackpad when you’ve positioned the cursor at the top of the window to drag the window around the screen.

Notification Center: Swipe in with fingers from the left to open the Notification Center.

Show Safari tabs: Pinch with two fingers to see all of your Safari tabs simultaneously, and then swipe left or right with two fingers to scroll between the tabs.

3. How to Use Right-Click in OS X

One of the most deeply ingrained practices of a PC user is the right-click. Unfortunately for the neophyte Mac convert, Macs don’t use a right-click — at least not in the way that PC users have come to expect. Moreover, secondary-clicking is disabled on Macs by default. Thankfully, setting this up is a simple affair. Here are three ways to right-click on a Mac:

1. Hold the Control key while clicking on the trackpad. While this method requires two hands where the others require only one, holding down the Control key while tapping on the trackpad is a foolproof way to open the right-click options menu, and it doesn’t require you to dig into the system preferences menu.

2. Assign the bottom right or left corner of the click pad as a right click. Some PC traditionalists will undoubtedly become frustrated as they instinctively click the bottom corner of the trackpad when trying to open the right-click options menu. Thankfully, Apple has made it possible to keep those instincts alive: You can assign the bottom right or bottom left corner of the trackpad as a right-click function. Here’s a step-by-step guide to setting it up.

•  Click the Apple logo in the top left corner of the screen.

• Select System Preferences from the drop-down menu.

• Select Trackpad from the Hardware category.

• Check the box next to Secondary Click to enable right-clicking.

• Select “Click in the bottom right corner” from the drop-down menu just beneath Secondary Click. Alternatively, select “Click in the bottom left corner” if you use your left hand to navigate.

3. Click on the trackpad using two fingers. This is probably the easiest of the three methods. Setting up two-finger clicking follows the same procedure as above, with one exception: In the drop-down menu beneath Secondary Click, select “Click or tap with two fingers.”

3. How to Use Right-Click in OS X

One of the most deeply ingrained practices of a PC user is the right-click. Unfortunately for the neophyte Mac convert, Macs don’t use a right-click — at least not in the way that PC users have come to expect. Moreover, secondary-clicking is disabled on Macs by default. Thankfully, setting this up is a simple affair. Here are three ways to right-click on a Mac:

1. Hold the Control key while clicking on the trackpad. While this method requires two hands where the others require only one, holding down the Control key while tapping on the trackpad is a foolproof way to open the right-click options menu, and it doesn’t require you to dig into the system preferences menu.

2. Assign the bottom right or left corner of the clickpad as a right click. Some PC traditionalists will undoubtedly become frustrated as they instinctively click the bottom corner of the trackpad when trying to open the right-click options menu. Thankfully, Apple has made it possible to keep those instincts alive: You can assign the bottom right or bottom left corner of the trackpad as a right-click function. Here’s a step-by-step guide to setting it up.

•  Click the Apple logo in the top left corner of the screen.

• Select System Preferences from the drop-down menu.

• Select Trackpad from the Hardware category.

• Check the box next to Secondary Click to enable right-clicking.

• Select “Click in the bottom right corner” from the drop-down menu just beneath Secondary Click. Alternatively, select “Click in the bottom left corner” if you use your left hand to navigate.

3. Click on the trackpad using two fingers. This is probably the easiest of the three methods. Setting up two-finger clicking follows the same procedure as above, with one exception: In the drop-down menu beneath Secondary Click, select “Click or tap with two fingers.”

4. How to Install Apps in Mac OS X

If you’re fairly new to a Mac and want to be able to install applications, there are a couple of ways to do it. You can use the Mac App Store, which combines the download and installation into a single step. Or you can download programs from the web and then install them. Here’s how to use both methods.

Install from the Mac App Store

1. Click on the price located beneath the app’s star rating.

2. Click on the green Install App button that appears.

The app you just downloaded from the Mac App Store should automatically show up in Launchpad, ready for you to open with a single click.

5. How to Take Screenshots in OS X

The print screen key — you never know you’ll miss it until it’s gone. Apple dispensed with the key entirely, opting for a key combination instead for capturing screenshots. As a result, new Mac users will likely become confused when they try to capture an image of their screen. Thankfully, Apple offers numerous, easy-to-remember keyboard shortcuts for taking screenshots.

1. Pressing Command-Shift-3 takes a screenshot of the entire screen and saves it on the desktop.

2. Pressing Command-Shift-4, then selecting an area of the screen, takes a screenshot of the selected area and saves it on the desktop.

3. Pressing Command-Shift-4, then Space Bar, then clicking on a window takes a screenshot of that window and saves it to the desktop.

6. How to Use the Finder in OS X

Veteran PC users know that, to find files and folders, the root of their search will be My Computer (or the Search charm in Windows 8). Given that My Computer is unique to Windows, however, it should come as no surprise that you won’t find it in OS X. Instead, Macs use a powerful tool called the Finder. Here’s how to find your files and documents in Finder.

1. Click on the Finder icon at the bottom left of the screen (the left-most icon on the Dock). 

2. You can also click Go at the top left of the screen to open the Go Menu.

3. Select Computer from the drop-down menu to view all files and folders.

The Finder window features a list of categories such as Applications, Documents and Downloads on the left for quick access. You can also use the search bar at the top left of the Finder if you already know the name of the file or folder you’re looking for. Another point of confusion may arise when plugging in an external drive to your Mac, as you won’t use My Computer to access its contents. Instead, look for the drive under Devices in the Finder window, or directly on the desktop.

4. Change the view of your files in the Finder by selecting one of the four buttons in the top left in the gray bar above the main window. You can view your files as icons, in a list, in columns, or in Cover Flow, as seen below. 

5. Sort your files by Name, Kind, Application, Dare, Size, and Label by selecting the second right-most button.

6. SHARE your files by selecting the right-most button. Options include Messaging, AirDrop, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.

7. Select Preferences from the Finder drop-down menu at the top of the screen to change what appears in the Finder window. 

8. Select the General tab in Preferences to choose what items will appear on the desktop, and what will appear when you open a new Finder Window.

8. Select the Sidebar tab in Preferences to change what shows up in the left-hand column of the Finder window.

9. Select the Advanced tab to change options, such as displaying file extensions, warning before emptying the Trash, and where to look when performing a search.

 

by : http://www.laptopmag.com/pc-to-mac-tutorial