I've noticed the same thing. I have not come up with an elegant solution (and in fact, you sound better educated on the problem than I am).
This definitely falls under the category of "kludge" but it does work. Access the TV-connected Mac from another Mac on the same network using Screen Sharing (technically this would work under any VNC connection). Go into System Preferences: Displays and click the "Detect Displays" button. You could speed this up a little by adding a Displays menu to the menubar--"detect displays" is right there, and easier to get at.
This suggests that it should be possible to script the interaction so that with a combination of a programmable remote, Remote Buddy, and a suitable macro, you could force the Mac to re-recognize the screen. Still not ideal, but it should be workable.
OK, so this problem had me tearing my hair out and cursing the big one upstairs for picking on me, but the solution I found to work is shown below:
Firstly, and this might not be necessary, but I used my Apple Application Installation DVD and held down the D key on boot, which tests the hardware to see if there are any errors. I tried both the quick test and the long test, together taking around an hour.
Secondly I reset the PRAM. I'm fairly sure this did nothing to help my cause, but I put it here for a more complete answer. Hold down Command / Control / P and R, all at the same time as the computer is booting. It will reboot, at which point you can pull your fingers out of that weird position.
Next, and I believe this to be the most important step, load Single-User mode on boot (Command + S). Once the command prompt is ready you should see somewhere in the verbose type above it a drive (something like /dev/disk0s2). What I did now was to use
/sbin/fsck_hfs -f -d /dev/disk0s2
This debugged and fixed the drive in question, and upon using the 'reboot' command in single-user mode, the computer started up fine, and has been as good as gold since!
Regardless, this has taught me to back up my drives and also reinstall my OS on a new HD.
Hope this helps anyone in the same leaky boat!
Ste
Best Answer
From my experience this could either point to a defective inverter board or a simple short-circuit on the cable that runs from the logic board to the display through the display hinge. I´d suggest visiting your nearest Apple Reseller / Apple Store or (if you´re technically experienced) trying the repair yourself (a new Inverter Board will set you back around 50$, but the do-it-yourself-repair is really not that easy).