Slightly offtopic. I got a 10' VGA cable to connect my home server to my TV so I can watch media files on it. There's a separate audio cable. But the computer refuses to output any widescreen-format video signals to the TV. It will only go up to 1600x1200. Selecting 1280x720 (720p) makes the TV say "mode not supported", and there is no option for 1920x1080 (1080p/i).

I tried it with my laptop, which runs Windows, and got the same thing. I then tried a shorter VGA cable I had lying around, and the laptop instantly output 1920x1080 (that is, 1080p or i) without a fuss. It worked fine with 1280x720 as well.

Clearly it's a low quality cable - how do I know what cable I can order that will support full resolution?

It's this cable: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._prd_ttl_hst_2

Thanks for any explanations - I don't get it. I always thought a cable was a cable.

I did too. We have 1080p TVs in every conference room at work. You can connect via VGA cable (which then connects into the component video ports) or HDMI--the problem is that our laptops only have VGA and DisplayPort. It seems like in the larger conference rooms (where you have longer cable runs), the TVs cannot handle 1080p through the VGA cable. In the smaller conference rooms, 1080p seems to work fine.

You are correct that a cable is a cable but that is assuming the manufacturer did not take shortcuts when building the cable. I am guessing not all the pins in your cable are utilized.

Can you use another standard like HDMI?

VGA being an analog interface, the signal will attenuate with length and may not be interpreted correctly at the receiving end. Unlike a digital signal, it is not a case of no-signal vs great-signal.

Your best bet is to find a shielded VGA cable that uses coax for at least RGB. Monoprice specs some of their cables to have this construction, for example:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_i...seq=1&format=2

Interesting post about this issue...

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...3&postcount=16

Ah, interesting. Thanks guys. I will check the cable with a multimeter.

My new server has only VGA and DVI outputs. The TV has HDMI and VGA inputs. I know I could do a DVI-to-VGA adapter but I think I'd run in to the same issue since it would be converted to analog along the way somehow.

It's not a big deal anyway, since I have a Mac Mini attached to the TV with HDMI. I usually play things off the Mac Mini but had been thinking it would be nice to not have to turn on the Mac if I didn't feel like it. Also, the Mac has gotten rather slow, and struggles to keep up with some video output.

DVI and HDMI are electrically the same signal for video with different connectors. Connect the DVI output on the server to the HDMI input on the TV using either a DVI to HDMI cable or a DVI to HDMI adapter and a regular HDMI cable. You can get an adapter setup that will inject audio into the HDMI signal too if you want.

HDMI Female to DVI Male Adapter

Deepsurplus.com is a great source for cabling and related needs. Used them many times and always been extremely happy.

Correct - DVI connectors / cables are a bit of an anomaly as they can carry an analog signal (compatible with VGA) and a digital signal (compatible with HDMI). You can see this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

This is why you can get very cheap VGA-DVI adapters as well as HDMI-DVI adapters, as they're just joining the relevant analog (for VGA) or digital (for HDMI) pins. HDMI to VGA is much more complicated due to the D/A conversion that needs to happen.

A DVI-HDMI cable should work fine here, and provide better picture quality as a bonus.

I have this type of set up at home on my TV monitor. I use the DVI-HDMI cable, but if memory serves me, I still needed to use an audio cable, as the HDMI supports audio, but the DVI does not.

Update: I tested the cable. Three or four pins were not connected. Aha!

I'm probably going to spend $10 to buy a DisplayPort to HDMI converter. Not sure if the tech guys at work want to try (or would be willing) to re-run VGA cables.