Image cutoff in Slideshow mode

[thawley]

Kirk –

I use PM's slideshow mode to critique student work in class.

Whenever I'm plugged into a digital projector there's a very slight amount of cutoff at the bottom of the frame – but not the top. It's been happening for years and thru many versions of PM, at least three different projector models and several different VGA adaptors. Because it only happens at school (where the projectors live...) and is such a minor issue I've never remembered to deal with it before now. But it does come up in class from time to time so I'd like to see if I'm doing something wrong...

My display is always set to 1280x854 but changes itself to the native LCD projector resolution whenever I plug into one. Pretty sure I've only noticed the issue on vertical shots. The cutoff part of the image appears as a "slice" of noise that shifts to the right at the bottom of the frame. The issue occurred with PM v4.5.4 and I've just upgraded to 4.6 today.

Thoughts?

John Thawley
Santa Monica College
PowerBook G4 w/ 1g RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 & OSX 10.5.6

[Kirk Baker]

John,

I use PM's slideshow mode to critique student work in class.

Whenever I'm plugged into a digital projector there's a very slight amount of cutoff at the bottom of the frame – but not the top. It's been happening for years and thru many versions of PM, at least three different projector models and several different VGA adaptors. Because it only happens at school (where the projectors live...) and is such a minor issue I've never remembered to deal with it before now. But it does come up in class from time to time so I'd like to see if I'm doing something wrong...

My display is always set to 1280x854 but changes itself to the native LCD projector resolution whenever I plug into one. Pretty sure I've only noticed the issue on vertical shots. The cutoff part of the image appears as a "slice" of noise that shifts to the right at the bottom of the frame. The issue occurred with PM v4.5.4 and I've just upgraded to 4.6 today.

Thoughts?

Yes, we've run into the same issues here as well when trying to hook up to a HDTV.  The Mac laptop emulates the screen size of the external monitor by scaling to fit its display, which is fine, but the OS lies to us about what resolution the display is running at and that is what causes these cutoff issues.  We haven't been able to find any way to get the OS to tell us the truth about what the main display resolution really is.

We tried very hard to address this in version 4.6 but in the end we had to give up and table it for another try later.

-Kirk

[thawley]

The Mac laptop emulates the screen size of the external monitor by scaling to fit its display, which is fine, but the OS lies to us about what resolution the display is running at and that is what causes these cutoff issues.  We haven't been able to find any way to get the OS to tell us the truth about what the main display resolution really is.

So does this issue occur with all Apple laptops or just the older ones like my G4? In other words, is this yet another reason to convince myself I need a new MacBook Pro...

[Kirk Baker]

John,

The Mac laptop emulates the screen size of the external monitor by scaling to fit its display, which is fine, but the OS lies to us about what resolution the display is running at and that is what causes these cutoff issues.  We haven't been able to find any way to get the OS to tell us the truth about what the main display resolution really is.

So does this issue occur with all Apple laptops or just the older ones like my G4? In other words, is this yet another reason to convince myself I need a new MacBook Pro...

We have MacBooks and MacBookPros.  They both have the same issue.

-Kirk