How I went from disappointed to mind blown by Airplay

[cvam1985]

I had some headache and disappointments with airplay mirroring after installing ML and thought my methods to becoming thrilled with it might help others.

First of all, the recommended airplay setting under the display preferences works quite well for a viewable desktop and decent video size. I found however that setting it to 720 made video playback fill the entire screen.

However once I found a suitable size to play videos, they stuttered constantly. Like to the point that I figured this whole thing was just a nice proof of concept and would never be able to provide an enjoyable entertainment experience for us.

The glowing reviews by the press and mixed (mostly positive)reviews in the forums pushed me to work on the solution. As simple as it sounds, the fix all for me was ethernet. Connect your Apple tv to ethernet and I bet your problems resolve.

What really started to impress me though was what I found possible by remote apps in the App Store. The one that impressed me enough to pay was Hippo Remote. One touch access to YouTube lay back and Vlc and hundreds of other things is amazing. I hooked up a huge hard drive to my router and now I finally have an easy and elegant way to watch movies without having to encode or turn on my loud power hungry ps3,

I guess none of these things is especially revolutionary. after all, I was able to do all of this before via a combination of ps3 and apple tv and an hdmi cable for the macbook. But now it's an easy all in one wireless media solution that I am totally digging.

Oh and another tip – I don't know if it helps with cutting back on cpu use, but definitely check out nosleep if you're using a macbook. It is nice to be able to shut the screen while airplaying.

 

[msullivanxi]

Thanks I've had some issues with the apple tv I will have to try to plug it into ethernet see if that helps

 

[hafr]

As simple as it sounds, the fix all for me was ethernet. Connect your Apple tv to ethernet and I bet your problems resolve.
[...]
But now it's an easy all in one wireless media solution that I am totally digging.

Ethernet is not wireless, am I missing something?

What really started to impress me though was what I found possible by remote apps in the App Store. The one that impressed me enough to pay was Hippo Remote. One touch access to YouTube lay back and Vlc and hundreds of other things is amazing. I hooked up a huge hard drive to my router and now I finally have an easy and elegant way to watch movies without having to encode or turn on my loud power hungry ps3,

I must say installing ATV Flash (black) and use their Media Player to access the videos on your external hard drive feels like a more elegant solution, since it removes the need of connecting your ATV to ethernet and you don't have to have your computer running...

Oh and another tip – I don't know if it helps with cutting back on cpu use, but definitely check out nosleep if you're using a macbook. It is nice to be able to shut the screen while airplaying.

Thanks a lot for that tip!

 

[Zetaprime]

I had some headache and disappointments with airplay mirroring after installing ML and thought my methods to becoming thrilled with it might help others.

First of all, the recommended airplay setting under the display preferences works quite well for a viewable desktop and decent video size. I found however that setting it to 720 made video playback fill the entire screen.

However once I found a suitable size to play videos, they stuttered constantly. Like to the point that I figured this whole thing was just a nice proof of concept and would never be able to provide an enjoyable entertainment experience for us.

The glowing reviews by the press and mixed (mostly positive)reviews in the forums pushed me to work on the solution. As simple as it sounds, the fix all for me was ethernet. Connect your Apple tv to ethernet and I bet your problems resolve.

What really started to impress me though was what I found possible by remote apps in the App Store. The one that impressed me enough to pay was Hippo Remote. One touch access to YouTube lay back and Vlc and hundreds of other things is amazing. I hooked up a huge hard drive to my router and now I finally have an easy and elegant way to watch movies without having to encode or turn on my loud power hungry ps3,

I guess none of these things is especially revolutionary. after all, I was able to do all of this before via a combination of ps3 and apple tv and an hdmi cable for the macbook. But now it's an easy all in one wireless media solution that I am totally digging.

Oh and another tip – I don't know if it helps with cutting back on cpu use, but definitely check out nosleep if you're using a macbook. It is nice to be able to shut the screen while airplaying.

Do you have Power Nap enabled? Wondering if nosleep might conflict with the new power management code.

 

[bp1000]

I too have stuttering playback while mirroring.

It's clearly a bug as the same video air play from my iPhone or iPad in the same location over wifi works fine.

But I will try Ethernet

 

[CyBeRino]

Ethernet is not wireless, am I missing something?

Neither are HDMI and the power connection so you may as well.


If you have both the ATV and the source on wireless, they're both contending for the same limited wireless bandwidth, which is terrible. If you put one of them on ethernet, stuff suddenly goes a lot smoother because only one of them is doing that.

The ATV is already connected through HDMI and to electricity and likely statically placed anyway, so one extra cable isn't all that interesting. The laptop can be fully wireless however.

 

[hafr]

Neither are HDMI and the power connection so you may as well.


If you have both the ATV and the source on wireless, they're both contending for the same limited wireless bandwidth, which is terrible. If you put one of them on ethernet, stuff suddenly goes a lot smoother because only one of them is doing that.

The ATV is already connected through HDMI and to electricity and likely statically placed anyway, so one extra cable isn't all that interesting. The laptop can be fully wireless however.

The HDMI-cable is connected to the TV, and the Apple TV will most likely be very, very close to it. The power cord only needs to be plugged in, no matter if you're using an extension cord or not.

For ethernet, you will need to either run a really long cable across your house, or use a power line adapter that needs to be plugged in into the wall.

So despite already having HDMI and power connected, it doesn't mean that it's as easy to connect an ethernet cable - which is why people are opting for wireless solutions. So when he said he had a wireless solution with an ethernet cable, I got interested as to how he meant he had set it up. Airport Express? Power line adaptors? Something else?

Either way, the real point I was trying to make was that the solution with watching movies from a network drive on his ATV through Airplay was a better solution than what he had before is less elegant than just jailbreaking the ATV and excluding the computer completely from the equation

 

[iOrbit]

whati dont understand, is how airplay the same HD video from my itunes, plays perfect, full quality hd, no stutter, buttersmooth.

play the same video full screen through air play mirroring and its different.

it gets a bit better if i hook up my laptop by ethernet.

i found in the end, that airplay works better if you use the display settings as best for built in lcd.

all non hd movies play butter smooth for me, inc youtube video etc.

using the tv as a monitor isnt the nicest, im not comfortable with the lag on the cursor delay.

good news is, for everything besides hd video and gaming, its definitely a very welcome feature, very convienient for me, if i want to watch videos full screen, browse the web, or just simply view something on the tv.

if i want to watch hd, i can simply just airplay it directly from itunes and stil be wireless (avoiding hdmi etc)

 

[hafr]

whati dont understand, is how airplay the same HD video from my itunes, plays perfect, full quality hd, no stutter, buttersmooth.

play the same video full screen through air play mirroring and its different.

it gets a bit better if i hook up my laptop by ethernet.

i found in the end, that airplay works better if you use the display settings as best for built in lcd.

all non hd movies play butter smooth for me, inc youtube video etc.

using the tv as a monitor isnt the nicest, im not comfortable with the lag on the cursor delay.

good news is, for everything besides hd video and gaming, its definitely a very welcome feature, very convienient for me, if i want to watch videos full screen, browse the web, or just simply view something on the tv.

if i want to watch hd, i can simply just airplay it directly from itunes and stil be wireless (avoiding hdmi etc)

When you play a movie through iTunes, the ATV buffers the movie as fast as it can. After the whole movie is transferred, the only thing the connection is needed for is to stay in touch with iTunes.

When you use Airplay, it's live. No buffering, no "safety net".

 

[iOrbit]

When you play a movie through iTunes, the ATV buffers the movie as fast as it can. After the whole movie is transferred, the only thing the connection is needed for is to stay in touch with iTunes.

When you use Airplay, it's live. No buffering, no "safety net".

ah, of course, i didn't think about that.

 

[cvam1985]

Do you have Power Nap enabled? Wondering if nosleep might conflict with the new power management code.

I don't get the hoopla behind Power nap so I haven't given it any kind of thought yet. But this is a good concern - I wonder if anyone else knows the answer.

And yes to who asked about Ethernet not being wireless - I realize that, but by wireless I meant the Mac and the iPhone. Since the ATV was plugged into the wall and hdmi anyway, I didn't really mean it in that way ;-)

 

[The "Dude"]

OP, where did you find the settings to display 720 on your TV? The only options I see are "best for tv" and various other resolutions, none of which are 720 or 1080.

Thx for the tips though, particularly NoSleep and Hipporemote. I picked up both today.

 

[cvam1985]

OP, where did you find the settings to display 720 on your TV? The only options I see are "best for tv" and various other resolutions, none of which are 720 or 1080.

Thx for the tips though, particularly NoSleep and Hipporemote. I picked up both today.

Glad to have helped. 720 can be found if you choose "scaled", under the display preferences.