iBook Composite Video Problem Workaround

Bug Confirmation After yesterday's initial report, we have received several reports of problems using the iBook's video-out composite port in conjunction with iPhoto and other applications. Kevin Bacon writes:

"I have experienced the composite video out problem with my iBook and 10.2.1. When I attempted to run an iPhoto slideshow while connected to an HP digital projector I got nothing but a white screen. The slide show works when the iBook is disconnected or connected via the VGA Adapter."

Alan Lu adds:

"In my case, my Dual USB iBook connected to a TV using the AV composite cable would work normally when using DVD Player and QuickTime Player. However, when trying to display an iPhoto slide show, both the iBook and the TV would display a blank white screen. Pressing escape would bring back the GUI. For some reason this problem only arose if I had a slideshow with a music track selected and the volume on the iBook was muted."

Workaround Kenneth MacArthur reports that starting iPhoto after plugging in the composite-out cable generally alleviates the white-screen problems. However, he points out some other flaws in Mac OS X 10.2.x's ability to handle video-out:

"The Displays menu extra no longer reliably updates to show separate NTSC and PAL resolutions on plugging in the composite out cable, nor does it reliably hide them again (if they've appeared in the first place) when the cable is unplugged. This worked fine in 10.1.Also, problem which still exists in Jaguar but which has been around since the birth of Mac OS X is that there is no overscan mode (as there was on Mac OS 9) when using the iBook with a TV. This means that all content on the TV (including most notably DVDs) has to be viewed with a black border around the edge."