about those 2nd-gen Intel Core restrictions for AirPlay

[JacaByte]

You have an Arrandale processor, not an Ivy Bridge processor. My understanding is that Arrandale processors lack QuickSync hardware transcoders, which AirPlay relies on to function.

 

[marc11]

You have an Arrandale processor, not an Ivy Bridge processor. My understanding is that Arrandale processors lack QuickSync hardware transcoders, which AirPlay relies on to function.

I was pretty sure I read on intels website that the first gen i7 did support Quicksync and I was questioning why Apple didn't include them. I need to recheck that.

I don't know how Air Parrot dies it but it works pretty good and if they can do it, certainly Apple could do it too and better.

 

[Fofer]

Something similar happened with Airdrop in Lion. In Lion DP1, Apple noted that the feature was not yet fully implemented. Those missing the functionality were hopeful that "not fully implemented" meant that Apple would extend Airdrop to all Macs compatible with Lion in subsequent previews. It turns out that "not fully implemented" meant that Lion DP1 did not provide Airdrop to all Macs capable of simultaneous infrastructure and personal area ad-hoc networking, which is the requirement for Airdrop. Apple did bring Airdrop to THOSE Macs in subsequent previews, but Macs without the required wireless chip did not gain that ability.

That sounds great and all, but how does that reconcile with the fact that this aforementioned Terminal (ie: software) hack brings AirDrop to other Macs?

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110913213649565

Apple's implementation of Airplay Mirroring relies upon Intel Quick Sync, which includes hardware H. 264 encoding. Second-generation Intel Core CPUs have it onboard; Intel Core 2 Duos do not. In a future DP, Apple will bring Airplay Mirroring to those Macs with second-generation Intel Core CPUs that did not have it in DP1. Those with Core 2 Duos won't be getting the feature.

Well, apparently we've learned it's not just that. I have an Intel Core i7, but it's from mid-2010, and not early-2011, and apparently I won't be able to use this feature, either.

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You have an Arrandale processor, not an Ivy Bridge processor. My understanding is that Arrandale processors lack QuickSync hardware transcoders, which AirPlay relies on to function.

Ivy Bridge are the ones that JUST came out at WWDC, right? So this feature works only with Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge. I guess I thought since I had an i7, I had a Sandy Bridge. At the very least, I thought I'd be able to use Mountain Lion Airplay Mirroring. Very disappointed today to learn that's not the case. <sigh>

 

[Mackilroy]

Well, apparently we've learned it's not just that. I have an Intel Core i7, but it's from mid-2010, and not early-2011, and apparently I won't be able to use this feature, either.

It is, there's just multiple generations of CPUs that all use the Core i3/i5/i7 moniker.

Ivy Bridge are the ones that JUST came out at WWDC, right? So this feature works only with Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge. I guess I thought since I had an i7, I had a Sandy Bridge. At the very least, I thought I'd be able to use Mountain Lion Airplay Mirroring. Very disappointed today to learn that's not the case. <sigh>

Yes, Ivy Bridge just came out. Sandy Bridge was before that, and Arrandale, which you have, was before that. It's unfortunate, but that's technology for you.

 

[haravikk]

I'm pretty annoyed by this restriction. It means that no Mac Pro models are able to use AirPlay, even though most should have the necessary performance to do the encoding without QuickSync.

I mean, I do transcoding of video regularly and am happily able to transcode a video faster than it would normally play; and that's with the video stream being decoded then encoded to the most optimal H.264 settings I can configure*, so I can't imagine that encoding video to send wirelessly would be anything near as demanding as that.

We've had video chat/Facetime for a while now, and on machines without QuickSync support. I could understand if full 1080p resolution wasn't an option for some machines, but the lack of support in this case is just far too arbitrary.


*In my case my encoding options are limited by what Quicktime will actually play, but they're still pretty demanding and my machine copes admirably.

 

[JohnDoe98]

I'm pretty annoyed by this restriction. It means that no Mac Pro models are able to use AirPlay, even though most should have the necessary performance to do the encoding without QuickSync.

I mean, I do transcoding of video regularly and am happily able to transcode a video faster than it would normally play; and that's with the video stream being decoded then encoded to the most optimal H.264 settings I can configure*, so I can't imagine that encoding video to send wirelessly would be anything near as demanding as that.

We've had video chat/Facetime for a while now, and on machines without QuickSync support. I could understand if full 1080p resolution wasn't an option for some machines, but the lack of support in this case is just far too arbitrary.


*In my case my encoding options are limited by what Quicktime will actually play, but they're still pretty demanding and my machine copes admirably.

Well, the problem it seems to me is you have to encode in real time and fast enough to beam it over wireless without any lag showing up. It isn't clear your device would be up to that task. Perhaps at 480p or something, but at that point why even bother, it'll look like crap on the ATV.

 

[haravikk]

Well, the problem it seems to me is you have to encode in real time and fast enough to beam it over wireless without any lag showing up. It isn't clear your device would be up to that task. Perhaps at 480p or something, but at that point why even bother, it'll look like crap on the ATV.

That's my point though; I regularly use my machine to transcode 1080p video faster than it would normally play, which means it should be perfectly capable of handling AirPlay since it's encoding only.

QuickSync or not, the real requirement for the feature is that the machine be able to encode at least as fast as the frame-rate of the content; otherwise any lag will be the result of the wireless transmission (which QuickSync can't do anything about). A number of machines without the QuickSync feature should be perfectly able to handle it, as we've able to use webcams for a while now, which is essentially the same technology (encode fast enough to transmit smoothly).

 

[JohnDoe98]

That's my point though; I regularly use my machine to transcode 1080p video faster than it would normally play, which means it should be perfectly capable of handling AirPlay since it's encoding only.

But encoding a video faster than you can play the video is not the same as encoding the entire system faster than it displays it's content. Also, what happens when you try and encode Flash video from websites? I bet your computer would choke up on that.

 

[haravikk]

But encoding a video faster than you can play the video is not the same as encoding the entire system faster than it displays it's content. Also, what happens when you try and encode Flash video from websites? I bet your computer would choke up on that.

I'm not even sure what you mean by "encoding the entire system"; a virtual screen is functionally no different than a video file when it comes to encoding it into a video stream, as both are simply a continual series of frames.

AirPlay I believe is limited to the AppleTV's supported resolutions, so no larger than 1080p, so encoding the contents of a screen should be no different than encoding a 1080p video-file, except that obviously with the video file you have the advantage that you can encode faster than real-time on a fast enough machine.

 

[JohnDoe98]

I'm not even sure what you mean by "encoding the entire system"; a virtual screen is functionally no different than a video file when it comes to encoding it into a video stream, as both are simply a continual series of frames.

AirPlay I believe is limited to the AppleTV's supported resolutions, so no larger than 1080p, so encoding the contents of a screen should be no different than encoding a 1080p video-file, except that obviously with the video file you have the advantage that you can encode faster than real-time on a fast enough machine.

Ok my last post was poorly worded, but the point is it has to encode anything you do in the system, like for instance flash. If those tasks are relatively intense, like when you are using pro apps, there might not be sufficient resources left over to handle that encode in real time. Video playback is typically one of the easier things the system does (flash excluded). When you are encoding your 1080p files, open Activity Monitor and take a picture of what % of your cpu is in use? Are the fans already kicking in at full speed? Also, try doing some other work at the same time and let me know if your encode is still outpacing playback times.

 

[nlflint]

The Core 2 Duo is powerful enough. If you check out the AirParrot app (which doesn't yet stream sound but soon will), you'll see that the Core 2 Duo, with a 320M like your MBA has, is able to do something like Airplay Mirroring "fine." Does it run without making the CPU break a sweat and with near zero latency, as does 10.8's implementation? No. So, it's not that the Core 2 Duo isn't powerful enough to sling your Mac's video and audio over to your Apple TV. It's that Apple is leveraging hardware that the C2D doesn't have in its implementation to make it work well; it's all in the way Apple is coding it.

Apple is left either with something like AirParrot, which would work for everyone that can run 10.8 but provide a comparatively subpar user experience, or an implementation with less compatibility but an ideal UX. They chose the latter, obviously.

Now, you could argue that Apple should use hardware H. 264 encoding for those machines capable of it, but at least code a fall-back path for C2D's with Nvidia GPUs that effectively does in software what Sandy Bridge CPUs do in hardware. But that's another argument...Apple's legacy support (at least on the Mac side) has never been exceptional. They'd rather spend their time optimizing their software for newer hardware. But 1) Apple has made it clear in the past that they would rather omit a feature than include one that works less than ideally, like Airplay Mirroring would on a C2D. 2) That's the price paid for iterating and innovating as aggressively as Apple. Now that OS X is on an annual cycle, Mac users are gonna have to get used to the idea of losing compatibility with new tech sooner than they'd like.

I've been using the latest version of AirParrot on my Mid-2009 Macbook pro 13". I use it to send free full-screen Hulu to my AppleTV but it has flaws. First it uses a lot of CPU power. After a few minutes of playing, my CPU fan is on full blast and the computer is very hot. Second problem is performance. The video not buttery smooth, it has lag and jitter in the video. The jitter is not present when I look at the laptop screen. I turned the quality down 2 notches and it helped the jitter, but now there is serious artifacting.

AirParrot is not the best solution, and is evidence that AirPlay cannot 'just work' on a Core2Duo MacBook Pro. There will be performance and battery issues if Apple did implement airplay on older laptops.

 

[chevalier433]

apple trying to get you to spend money on a new hardware.

+1

 

[Fofer]

I've been using the latest version of AirParrot on my Mid-2009 Macbook pro 13". I use it to send free full-screen Hulu to my AppleTV but it has flaws. First it uses a lot of CPU power. After a few minutes of playing, my CPU fan is on full blast and the computer is very hot. Second problem is performance. The video not buttery smooth, it has lag and jitter in the video. The jitter is not present when I look at the laptop screen. I turned the quality down 2 notches and it helped the jitter, but now there is serious artifacting.

AirParrot is not the best solution, and is evidence that AirPlay cannot 'just work' on a Core2Duo MacBook Pro. There will be performance and battery issues if Apple did implement airplay on older laptops.

I tried AirParrot too, and while it seemed to work okay for AirPlay Mirroring, it had a very specific and annoying side-effect, even when I wasn't using it (on my mid-2010 MacBook Pro, 2.66 Intel Core i7.) The screen would flash black every few minutes. Very noticeable and annoying, unacceptable for daily use. (This issue might be related to this report.) Only after removing AirParrot's components:
\System\Library\Extensions\AirParrotDriver.kext
\System\Library\Extensions\APExtFramebuffer.kext
...and restarting, did the problem go away.


As a side note, I also got the opportunity to test out Mountain Lion's full-screen Airplay Mirroring on a mid-2011 MacBook Pro and an AppleTV 3. It worked fine for presentation (Keynote/Powerpoint) style things, demos of the Finder, etc. But when I tried to watch actual video I wouldn't exactly describe it as "smooth as butter." I mean, the video played, and the audio was in sync, but it certainly didn't feel like 30fps. It was watchable, but there was a jittery quality about it that I think would be annoying after a few minutes. Granted, this is a beta OS at this point and I hope/suppose it will get better. But what I saw recently didn't blow me away, at least as it relates to being able to AirPlay video like HBO GO from a web browser. Technically it works, but there's something just a tad "herky-jerky" about it that I think would make it uncomfortable to watch for a full show.

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Apple trying to get you to spend money on a new hardware.

Given what I experienced above, with actual hardware that CAN run this new feature, I'm fairly certain that's the case.

 

[blackhand1001]

I do hope so but that isn't always Apple's MO. When Apple released HW acceleration they left out the 8600M GT cards from getting the update. It wouldn't surprise me if this mirroring would rely on such ability. So I'm worried the 8600M GT cards, while sufficient to run ML, won't be enough to get airplay mirroring.

surprised the your time bomb 8600m gt hasn't died yet.

 

[JohnDoe98]

surprised the your time bomb 8600m gt hasn't died yet.

It did die once, but Apple replaced the logic board. Anyway, I've sold that and got a RMBP so I don't need to worry about the replacement board dying on me, though Nvidia may well have fixed the problem on the replacement board.

 

[gatortpk]

Yes, I know about Apple's approach to legacy support. Still, the late 2010 MBA was selling as late as July 2011, and now it won't be able to run the latest version of OS X just a year later? Could be a record. Though I have to admit that the C2D on that model MBA was rather an anomaly, and you combine that with this new pace Apple is on target for OS X releases, and it shouldn't come as that much of a surprise.

The good (and possibly bad) thing is that Apple also seems to be changing somewhat in the other direction when it comes to legacy support for iOS devices. Letting iOS 5 run on the 3GS was kind of a stretch considering the usual Apple policy.

You make both good points (However the late 2010 MBA is supported for Mountain Lion, it just doesn't support AirPlay Mirroring).

And now the iPhone 3GS even runs iOS 6! But I suppose that's because, Apple is still selling the iPhone 3GS and because many features in iOS 6 are not available in the iPhone 3GS. Also, remember the 3GS was the first great improvement in the iPhone internals, and the iPhone 4 isn't really much faster, it just got a better screen and newer case. The CPU and GPU in the 3GS and iPhone 4 are pretty much identical, just slightly higher speed and different packaging (the A4 SoC) in the iPhone 4.

 

[kvdv]

Apple trying to get you to spend money on a new hardware.

I'm pretty sure that Apple thinks that Airplay might persuade people to buy a new MBP. And they might be right.

 

[hYu]

Apple trying to get you to spend money on a new hardware.

Which realistic business doesn't try to get you to buy/upgrade to their newer and better products?

Try starting your own multi billion dollar business first before you yammer on about how Apple is greedy and a cult religion and communists etc.

If anything, Apple is the most capitalistic company out there; they make better and better products each year while still managing to reduce the price. Remember the first MacBook Air, it was almost $2K!

Besides, after reading Steve Jobs biography and also reading a lot of books building wealth etc. I don't think Apple has anything to do with trying to swindle your money from you. They've got enough money.

Their huge cash reserves are a result of doing as many of the right things as they possibly can, helping as many people as they can get what they want from a product or service and also carefully investing and reinvesting the profits they make. All great successful businesses, companies and individuals do this.

All great businesses, companies and individuals also have critics as well.
Those that don't have critics ARE NOT SUCCESSFUL.