iMac with standard projector?

[netadmin]

We are considering getting a few iMacs for our media lab. The only issue is that the iMacs are widescreen and the classroom projector is regular 4:3 resolution.

 

Does anyone have any tips on connecting a widescreen iMac to a regular projector? The teacher wants to duplicate the image from the iMac on the projector. Thanks.

[Ric_]

IIRC the widescreen Macbook we have drops its resolution to a squarer size when you hook up the projector.

[iSteve]

That's correct - the iMac will drop down to a 4:3 resolution to match the projector when you mirror. You can have this as a true "square", or it will stretch it. If you span the two monitor displays, you can have independent resolutions but this arrangement often blows the mind of most teachers.

[Guest theeldergeek]

We use a 4:3 projector off one of our iMac's with no problems. As others have said, the display will just default (or can be adjusted) to a 4:3 size.

[netadmin]

Thanks for the responses. I am glad to hear this won't be a problem.

[Guest theeldergeek]

Thanks for the responses. I am glad to hear this won't be a problem.

 

The biggest problem is the silly little video connector adapter thingy that hangs off the back of the iMac; ours is constantly falling out.

[HodgeHi]

The new mini display adaptor is much better for this. It seems to have a more solid click when inserted if you know what i mean. We initially had mac minis driving the boards but switched to the imacs as soon as we could. The minis were fine but the splitters were a pain in the ass. I never liked them and will never miss them.

 

The new minis may even be better since they have dual outputs now, or did

 

But as the rest have said they switch automatically, in fact i would say a bit better than on the Windows side. If you have the NVidia imacs then the NVidia tool can be a git as well. If you have the machine on and then turn on the projector it doesn't always switch automatically. Also on macbooks if the adaptor is disconected and then reconnected at some point it doesn't always switch over either. But only on the Windows side (Xp, Vista, win7 may be better)

 

Back to the question though. You can either use mirrored displays and then the imac will use a 1024 stretched resolution. Basically it stretches the 1024x768 on the imac to fill the screen.

 

You can also use dual display as well. This allows you to set a resolution for each monitor as you probably would assume. To set the primary display, you go to the display panel in system prefs and then drag the menu bar that is on one of the images in the prefs to the one next to it.