[Macworld]

Post your comments for Waiting for Thunderbolt here

[zwei]

Hoping they are going to show up in the next couple months. The leases on our Mac Pros at work are ending in October. I'm hoping to get rid of this giant hunk of aluminum and replace it with an iMac.

[thiswayup999]

I just ordered my Custom Build iMac with SSD and it won't be here for 5 or 6 weeks.
I would really like to know if I can plug it in (With a mini display port cable) to my 2009 iMac and use the old one as a second monitor for the new one. This is a test you guys could probably do now.
I hope it works because matching it with a 27" theatre display looks stupid as the are not the same size and height.

Maybe you could give it a try and update your post, or if anyone else has tried this yet I would like to hear about it.

Thanks

[Cesium133x]

Whatever you do, don't buy any LaCie Flat Thunderbolt cables. Yes, I'm pretty sure they will make them, and I'm pretty sure they will all fail, one after the other, after only a few weeks of age, like their USB, FireWire and eSATA flat cables. Simlarly, they might just as well fry your peripherals in the process.

[emiliosic]

Did you actually try connecting a Mini-displayport between the MBP and iMac? The feature where the iMac can act as a DP monitor was already present on their previous release. It's a feature of DisplayPort, not of Thunderbolt.

[ChristianTParkeroscx]

The thing I've been wondering about Thunderbolt is, will it enable a notebook to be a "true" desktop replacement. What I mean is, I've read that Thunderbolt is based on PCI, so is a possible to make a breakout box that you could install one or more PCI cards in and connect to a Thunderbolt iMac or MacBook?

I am also looking forward one cord notebook to home periphals connection; being able to connect an external monitor, FireWire, USB, Ethernet, and even sound with one connector. I'm surprised Apple isn't making a Thunderbolt Cinema Display with all these ports on it.

Christian T Parker
Kalamazoo MI

[Jason Snell]

Discussion about iMac hard drive upgrades has been moved to this thread.

emiliosic, on 13 May 2011 - 11:59 AM, said:

Did you actually try connecting a Mini-displayport between the MBP and iMac? The feature where the iMac can act as a DP monitor was already present on their previous release. It's a feature of DisplayPort, not of Thunderbolt.

As I said in the article, that won't work. The video in in these new iMacs is NOT the same feature as on the previous 27. It's based on Thunderbolt's video spec and Apple has confirmed it is different and won't work with a mini display port cable.

thiswayup999, on 13 May 2011 - 11:31 AM, said:

I just ordered my Custom Build iMac with SSD and it won't be here for 5 or 6 weeks.
I would really like to know if I can plug it in (With a mini display port cable) to my 2009 iMac and use the old one as a second monitor for the new one. This is a test you guys could probably do now.
I hope it works because matching it with a 27" theatre display looks stupid as the are not the same size and height.

Maybe you could give it a try and update your post, or if anyone else has tried this yet I would like to hear about it.

I don't think there was video in on the 2009 27 iMac, was there? I thought that was a 2010 feature. And I think it requires an adapter. But thanks for the suggestion! We'll put it on the list.

[odaiwai]

<blockquote>
For those of you who don’t know about video bit rates, let me explain. No, there is too much—let me sum up.
</blockquote>

Inconceivable!

[scottbayes]

Jason Snell, on 13 May 2011 - 05:13 PM, said:

I don't think there was video in on the 2009 27 iMac, was there? I thought that was a 2010 feature. And I think it requires an adapter. But thanks for the suggestion! We'll put it on the list.

See Apple's HT3924 - Using a 27-inch iMac (Late 2009 or Mid 2010) as an external display

I haven't had occasion to try it on my later 2009 27" i7 iMac11,1 , however.

[k88dad]

Let me ask this in plain English:

As of today, do the new iMacs support video OUT in any way, shape or fashion?

[whitedog]

thiswayup999, on 13 May 2011 - 11:31 AM, said:

I just ordered my Custom Build iMac with SSD and it won't be here for 5 or 6 weeks.
I would really like to know if I can plug it in (With a mini display port cable) to my 2009 iMac and use the old one as a second monitor for the new one. This is a test you guys could probably do now.
I hope it works because matching it with a 27" theatre display looks stupid as the are not the same size and height.

Maybe you could give it a try and update your post, or if anyone else has tried this yet I would like to hear about it.

Thanks

As has been explained elsewhere, and was hinted at in this article, you cannot use the Thunderbolt port on a new iMac for video mirroring (video in) from an older iMac (or MacBook Pro) lacking a Thunderbolt port. A Mini DisplayPort cable won't work. This feature functions only with a Thunderbolt port on both machines - and an as yet non-existant Thunderbolt cable. Video out, on the other hand, will work with a Mini DisplayPort cable in a Thunderbolt port, as, for example, with a new MacBook Pro (or iMac) and an external Apple Display. This certainly confuses the issue, but this kind of muddle is not unusual with new technologies. For this reason you will note there is no longer a Mini DisplayPort port on the new MacBook Pros and iMacs; the Thunderbolt port now serves to connect external monitors. Adding further to the confusion is the fact that the previous generation of high-end 27" iMacs supported video input through the Mini DisplayPort, a feature most useful for external video sources like another Mac or a Blue-ray disc player, though you would probably need an adaptor cable of some kind for most external devices since no one but Apple currently uses Mini DisplayPort technology.

Even more problematic is using an external Blue-ray burner to play Blue-ray media on a Mac. These use USB 2 or FireWire connections; but since Apple does not yet support Blue-ray in OS X, such a device may or may not work, depending on the drivers provided by the device manufacturer. Eventually, though, once appropriate Thunderbolt adaptor cables are available, it should be possible to reliably use an external Blue-ray disc player with the new MacBook Pros and iMacs because these will involve standard video and audio sources. Ultimately, this two-way communication capability will be among the premier features of the Thunderbolt/Mini DisplayPort technologies - once the rest of the industry catches up. Unfortunately, there is no knowing if Apple will ever fully support Blue-ray on the Mac, which would mean reliable Blue-ray disc burning as well as video playback. Steve Jobs has a firm bias on this subject which he has as yet shown no hint of changing. If he ever does it will probably come as a complete surprise to everyone; it's the kind of game in which he seems to take perverse pleasure.

[Martian]

Hopefully, Thunderbolt to HDMI adapters are right around the corner, and reasonably priced, to feed 1080p resolution from the Mac into an HDTV. The MiniDisplay port could do this with just a cable with a simple adapter strapped on. Good quality photos displayed this way can be as stunning as properly displayed Kodachrome slide once were.

This post has been edited by Martian: 14 May 2011 - 10:43 AM

[k88dad]

whitedog, on 14 May 2011 - 07:10 AM, said:

... Video out, on the other hand, will work with a Mini DisplayPort cable in a Thunderbolt port, as, for example, with a new MacBook Pro (or iMac) and an external Apple Display. This certainly confuses the issue, but this kind of muddle is not unusual with new technologies. For this reason you will note there is no longer a Mini DisplayPort port on the new MacBook Pros and iMacs; the Thunderbolt port now serves to connect external monitors. ...

Thanks, whitedog, the Macworld articles were just not spelling this out.

[Dennistrator]

"Waiting for Thunderbolt" would make a good title for a James Bond Movie,