5 ms·

> I attach a non Mac external monitor to a new MacBook Pro from work and the text is super blurry. Much googling later and I need to use something called Better

by derefr 4y ago

> I attach a non Mac external monitor to a new MacBook Pro from work and the text is super blurry. Much googling later and I need to use something called Better Display to create a virtual display, and project that to my monitor That’s not the correct solution. The correct solution is for the monitor manufacturer to stop reporting an EDID that identifies their monitor as a TV (and thereby forces the OS to default to YUV rather than SRGB.) macOS here is just following the EDID spec to the letter. (Linux does too, as it happens.) Windows is the one “doing it wrong” (i.e. not to spec), by falling back to SRGB whenever it’s unsure, rather than falling back to YUV. This results in a lot of TVs being unhappy (no signal) when plugged into Windows PCs, but working fine under macOS / Linux.

_chu1 4y ago
[flagged]
vladvasiliu 4y ago
> That’s not the correct solution. The correct solution is for the monitor manufacturer to stop reporting an EDID that identifies their monitor as a TV (and thereby forces the OS to default to YUV rather than SRGB.) Is this an EDID issue? OP didn't specify what the "non Mac monitor" is, but I'd expect it to be a lower DPI one. I get the blurry text on an Apple Thunderbolt Display, too. I think this is related to the removal of sub-pixel antialiasing in Mac OS a few versions back.
wruza 4y ago
I just stopped reporting edid on my display and wow it looks so great now, thanks!
CaptainZapp 4y ago
As a person, who just wants to use that damn thing your reply sounds a bit like: "You're holding it wrong"
sdflhasjd 4y ago
It could just be macOs's staggeringly bad text rendering on low dpi displays. I believe that subpixel font rendering being removed several years ago is the cause.
smeagull 4y ago
Actually the correct solution is to buy a laptop that just works. Nobody cares if Apple are following a spec, they care about the experience of using their hardware. And it's awful.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
account-5 4y ago
The OPs solution is the only valid solution they have open to them though.
- nl 4y ago
  It appears there is a script that may help: https://gist.github.com/ejdyksen/8302862 https://gist.github.com/ejdyksen/8302862 Not a great solution though - seems like a UI option to turn this off if it is as widespread as it seems.
- joshspankit 4y ago
  Almost agreed. There are passthrough dongles that will report whatever EDID you want. However, I think the original complaint is still valid. No highly-technical one-off solution solves the fundamental issue of general usability.
  - account-5 4y ago
    All usability comes down to what you're used to. I can't use Mac OS because I don't use Mac OS. Sit me down in front of a Mac and it is practically useless to me, nothing works right, same thing with iPhones. They don't "just work" for me. This is not to say I couldn't learn, if forced to. That's what happened when I started using windows, Linux, and Android after all. For general usability you need agreement on one way of doing something. Cars are this, you can drive pretty much any car because of the standard way the interface is put together. My main issue with people responding to any criticism of Apple is that Apple fans (especially hardcore) can't accept that the Mac OS/iPhone interface isn't perfect and doesn't work for everyone.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      Mostly agree. IME it really depends on the person. And Microsoft has valued backward compatibly and pragmatic solutions almost to a fault at times. I'd day that's been changing since Windows 8. Still as a DOS-then-Windows native I appreciate their approach. Job's insistence on a one button mouse for decades, then a one button phone bordered on the absurd as devices grew in capability. Yet it did serve a portion of the market well enough. Even if it kept advanced features virtually impossible to discover with being taught. Doubtful my boomer parents will ever learn swipe gestures, yet my 4yo is doing them now.
kyriakos 4y ago
Wouldn't that mean windows is superior in handling those monitors by applying the solution so the user won't need to go looking? I understand the monitor manufacturers are at fault but the OS tries to be as compatible as possible and handles the hardware.
- derefr 4y ago
  No—Windows takes a strictly worse approach. macOS [and Linux] give you “some [not to spec] monitors have very slightly blurry text”; but Windows gives you “some TVs just plain don’t work at all.” Note how I didn’t say that the TVs are not-to-spec; that’s because the EDID spec allows TVs to just not report an EDID (TVs are low-margin, and that’s one fewer chip on the signal path), where the video source then must assume some standard default modes (e.g. 1080p@60 YUV 4:2:2.) But monitors, meanwhile, must report an EDID. Why? Because all this only applies over HDMI; and HDMI is a protocol for talking to TVs first-and-foremost, which is why the EDID spec assumes YUV as the fallback. Monitors generally have DisplayPort inputs; and if you plug Windows or macOS into a monitor over DisplayPort, it’ll always go SRGB, because YUV isn’t a video mode the DisplayPort protocol can even carry. So when a monitor has an HDMI input, it’s essentially doing “TV compatibility” over that input—and it needs to report its capabilities with an EDID, lest the video source think it’s a TV and send base TV spec signals to it. Which all makes the situation even more ridiculous: there are TVs that Windows can’t talk to over HDMI, despite the HDMI connection implying. and the EDID spec explicitly stating, that Windows should make the fallback/safety assumption that it’s talking to a TV. Also keep in mind that this is a prisoner’s dilemma: the only reason that monitor manufacturers are able to “get away with” being nonconformant to the EDID spec is because of Windows’ leniency. Windows is the “defector” here. If Windows stopped allowing it, then nobody would be allowing it, and so the monitor manufacturers would have to shape up.
  - nazgulsenpai 4y ago
    Thank you for the detailed explanation. Learned something new.

by derefr 4y ago

_chu1 4y ago

[flagged]

vladvasiliu 4y ago

> That’s not the correct solution. The correct solution is for the monitor manufacturer to stop reporting an EDID that identifies their monitor as a TV (and thereby forces the OS to default to YUV rather than SRGB.) Is this an EDID issue? OP didn't specify what the "non Mac monitor" is, but I'd expect it to be a lower DPI one. I get the blurry text on an Apple Thunderbolt Display, too. I think this is related to the removal of sub-pixel antialiasing in Mac OS a few versions back.

wruza 4y ago

I just stopped reporting edid on my display and wow it looks so great now, thanks!

CaptainZapp 4y ago

As a person, who just wants to use that damn thing your reply sounds a bit like: "You're holding it wrong"

sdflhasjd 4y ago

It could just be macOs's staggeringly bad text rendering on low dpi displays. I believe that subpixel font rendering being removed several years ago is the cause.

smeagull 4y ago

Actually the correct solution is to buy a laptop that just works. Nobody cares if Apple are following a spec, they care about the experience of using their hardware. And it's awful.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

account-5 4y ago

The OPs solution is the only valid solution they have open to them though.

nl 4y ago
It appears there is a script that may help: https://gist.github.com/ejdyksen/8302862 https://gist.github.com/ejdyksen/8302862 Not a great solution though - seems like a UI option to turn this off if it is as widespread as it seems.
joshspankit 4y ago
Almost agreed. There are passthrough dongles that will report whatever EDID you want. However, I think the original complaint is still valid. No highly-technical one-off solution solves the fundamental issue of general usability.
- account-5 4y ago
  All usability comes down to what you're used to. I can't use Mac OS because I don't use Mac OS. Sit me down in front of a Mac and it is practically useless to me, nothing works right, same thing with iPhones. They don't "just work" for me. This is not to say I couldn't learn, if forced to. That's what happened when I started using windows, Linux, and Android after all. For general usability you need agreement on one way of doing something. Cars are this, you can drive pretty much any car because of the standard way the interface is put together. My main issue with people responding to any criticism of Apple is that Apple fans (especially hardcore) can't accept that the Mac OS/iPhone interface isn't perfect and doesn't work for everyone.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    Mostly agree. IME it really depends on the person. And Microsoft has valued backward compatibly and pragmatic solutions almost to a fault at times. I'd day that's been changing since Windows 8. Still as a DOS-then-Windows native I appreciate their approach. Job's insistence on a one button mouse for decades, then a one button phone bordered on the absurd as devices grew in capability. Yet it did serve a portion of the market well enough. Even if it kept advanced features virtually impossible to discover with being taught. Doubtful my boomer parents will ever learn swipe gestures, yet my 4yo is doing them now.

kyriakos 4y ago

Wouldn't that mean windows is superior in handling those monitors by applying the solution so the user won't need to go looking? I understand the monitor manufacturers are at fault but the OS tries to be as compatible as possible and handles the hardware.

derefr 4y ago
No—Windows takes a strictly worse approach. macOS [and Linux] give you “some [not to spec] monitors have very slightly blurry text”; but Windows gives you “some TVs just plain don’t work at all.” Note how I didn’t say that the TVs are not-to-spec; that’s because the EDID spec allows TVs to just not report an EDID (TVs are low-margin, and that’s one fewer chip on the signal path), where the video source then must assume some standard default modes (e.g. 1080p@60 YUV 4:2:2.) But monitors, meanwhile, must report an EDID. Why? Because all this only applies over HDMI; and HDMI is a protocol for talking to TVs first-and-foremost, which is why the EDID spec assumes YUV as the fallback. Monitors generally have DisplayPort inputs; and if you plug Windows or macOS into a monitor over DisplayPort, it’ll always go SRGB, because YUV isn’t a video mode the DisplayPort protocol can even carry. So when a monitor has an HDMI input, it’s essentially doing “TV compatibility” over that input—and it needs to report its capabilities with an EDID, lest the video source think it’s a TV and send base TV spec signals to it. Which all makes the situation even more ridiculous: there are TVs that Windows can’t talk to over HDMI, despite the HDMI connection implying. and the EDID spec explicitly stating, that Windows should make the fallback/safety assumption that it’s talking to a TV. Also keep in mind that this is a prisoner’s dilemma: the only reason that monitor manufacturers are able to “get away with” being nonconformant to the EDID spec is because of Windows’ leniency. Windows is the “defector” here. If Windows stopped allowing it, then nobody would be allowing it, and so the monitor manufacturers would have to shape up.
- nazgulsenpai 4y ago
  Thank you for the detailed explanation. Learned something new.