People like chevalier433 is never satisfied, no matter what we say Apple is evil and greedy. Go ahead and call me an apologist, but I think it's great they are taking advantage of hardware to do this and not use poor performance software solutions to do it. I'd rather they focus on making Mountain Lion as good as it can be than cater for outdated hardware.
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Macs older than 2011 can't use Airplay Mirroring in ML
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has anyone of you actually used quick sync? It's not that special it uses the built in graphics on Sandy Bridge to transcode media. It works OK until you use the onboard graphics to drive your display then it becomes much less OK.
Firstly i never used airparot so i don't know how it perform or was it capable of doing secondly i don't think my iMac mid-2010 i7 is outdated hardware,has not powerful enough processor or apple cannot optimize it to run airplay.Μy opinion is you cannot exclude a 1 and half year old 2500 Euro top performance machine in terms of marketing.
Apple was not like that,customers were their first priority.
Ok.
Seriously? 2010 hardware that's incapable of Airplay when 3rd parties can provide this functionality?
Right. Folks should not be pissed. All is well.
As already mentioned several times, 3rd party software implementations of AirPlay are laggy and not up to the standard found in Apple products. There is nothing to stop you using AirParrot if you really wish to.
So you'd rather they waited 3 years before introducing AirPlay just so the last 3 years worth of Macs could get the feature? Or are you saying you'd rather Apple implemented a software version for pre-2011 Macs, despite the fact it wouldn't work very well?
Generally there is a reason on waiting,to build an OS not like lion 10.7first release.Personally I don't think airplay need 3 year development to support 2 year old quad core processors.
To get my point macbook pro with 512MB VRAM is capable of run lion but is not run as smooth and fast as iMac with 1GB VRAM.
Which brings us back to the point that a software version of AirPlay lags.
Have you ever encoded video on your Mac? That's basically what AirPlay is - a real time h.264 encode which is sent to the Apple TV - something that a 2 year old quad core processor isn't capable of without performance issues. Develop a software solution for those processors for as many years as you like and you still won't end up with a lag free experience.
As I said in a previous post, I don't deny that Apple hold features from older machines unnecessarily. I am still simply pointing out that this is not the case with AirPlay being limited to 2011 onward computers.
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swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
It seems to me (unless I'm missing something) that the lag shouldn't be any worse than what you get with screen sharing. I screen share between a 2010 MBP and 2006 iMac and it's pretty smooth, even when playing video, and I don't notice it taking up too much of the CPU. Isn't this just screensharing (+ sound), except with a TV instead of another Mac?
Actually i edit AVC-Intra HD video from panasonic ag-hpx371 professionally, not ultra high compressed mp4 video apple TV use so i encode video all the time and i know my 1 and half year processor is capable.
I have got 2.4ghz C2D 2010 13inch not the i5 or i7 simply c2d which is older and much less faster than the chevalier has. With airparrot I can get acceptable performance and quality, I mean it is not very very smooth but it is good enough to run Google Earth, surf web, mirroring presentations, looking at photos, using some apps like photoshop, iphoto and so on. The only problem is running 1080p mkv video files reduces my overall performance and the fans ramp up. And to solve that to relax cpu I ran the file with quciktime h264 accelerated feature on and sacrifice a bit from quality adjustable from the app.
Now the point is why do I have to use 3rd pary app while apple is already releasing the os with the same feature included but locked to 2 year old very very antique historic from dinosaurs times macbooks ?
Apple is turning to PCs windows installed in 90s and 00s, with every os upgrade it is getting resource and hardware hungry.
If I pay £1300 for a computer, I want to be able to use it for at least 5 years while benefitting from new coming apps, features. This is why I switched from Win-PC to osx-mac.
Airparrot is badly written software if apple technicians supported your processor with airplay you would have better performance.
Some dudes don't understand that we work for our living and cannot can afford to buy a new top line mac every year to play apples marketing game.
He wants a guaranteed realtime, not a maybe realtime video stream. If you use the CPU, you cannot guarantee realtime video encoding/decoding. The GPU (the IGP in this case), and the Quick Sync unit can encode/decode 1080p H.264 streams (two streams in realtime) even if you use all CPU cores on your system.
Correct. The answer is, that Apple did not develop the Intel processors and the IGPs, which means they had no opportunity to exclude certain hardware features in older processors.
not everybody is using airplay for video streaming and for all other tasks apart from video watching a simple core2duo is strong enough for many other tasks i listed i know cuz i am using them, though if he wants the customers realtime video watching through airplay, why does not he open apple tv to support other video files like mkv, avi, flv.. ? Then we will not need to do airplay nor we have to keep an ios device or a macbook running itunes runing on your hand to watch on your tv? This is just like showing your left ear with your right hand round over your head.
No matter what people say, apple is slowly changing its way to microsoft vista pc marketting strategy
Every year new computer, new hardware, new os (maybe new)
OS x10.8
My 3500 17" 2010 Macbook Pro with 8gb RAM still has 18 months of its Applecare left to go . Apple Trade-in now values it at 647 on its website . I no longer qualify for Mountain Lion's ' Airplay' promise after less than 18 months in the Apple 'family' .
The drive to generate future bonuses for Mr. Cook and co. has replaced my 'reasonable expectation of a fit for purpose laptop ' for at least the life of the Applecare and I am now regretting buying into Mac as I am not fortunate enough to be able to spend this kind of money every 18-36 months .
As for Apple's predilection for high-end hardware , that would only be a mitigating factor if it could be used for Flac , Bluray or came with a simple dvd drive or tolerated , without Jailbreaking , other types of Ringtones or alternatively sourced Audio/Video material which came with HD Audio to match the HD Picture Quality and didn't come up with silly ' Mastered for iTunes ' labels in preference to genuine and easily available audio excellence because Apple's 'cut' isn't big enough .
I have purchased iPad 1, 2 , 3 and iPhone 4S but now regret what I've spent not because I haven't enjoyed the kit initially at least , but because I feel I am being led down a road that will make disappointment inevitable .
I don't have a problem with reinvesting , I just don't believe that this timetable was unavoidable and have lost my faith in Apple .
Good Luck to those of you who have not ......
~M~
My 3500 17" 2010 Macbook Pro with 8gb RAM still has 18 months of its Applecare left to go . Apple Trade-in now values it at 647 on its website . I no longer qualify for Mountain Lion's ' Airplay' promise after less than 18 months in the Apple 'family' .
The drive to generate future bonuses for Mr. Cook and co. has replaced my 'reasonable expectation of a fit for purpose laptop ' for at least the life of the Applecare and I am now regretting buying into Mac as I am not fortunate enough to be able to spend this kind of money every 18-36 months .
As for Apple's predilection for high-end hardware , that would only be a mitigating factor if it could be used for Flac , Bluray or came with a simple dvd drive or tolerated , without Jailbreaking , other types of Ringtones or alternatively sourced Audio/Video material which came with HD Audio to match the HD Picture Quality and didn't come up with silly ' Mastered for iTunes ' labels in preference to genuine and easily available audio excellence because Apple's 'cut' isn't big enough .
I have purchased iPad 1, 2 , 3 and iPhone 4S but now regret what I've spent not because I haven't enjoyed the kit initially at least , but because I feel I am being led down a road that will make disappointment inevitable .
I don't have a problem with reinvesting , I just don't believe that this timetable was unavoidable and have lost my faith in Apple .
Good Luck to those of you who have not ......
~M~
Apple did nothing. They buy the processors, which have certain features. If your computer does not have Quick Sync, it is certainly not Apples fault.
Hardware develops each year, new features are enabled because of said hardware, so the feature gets pushed where it can.
This isn't just apple, this is any technical company. If we had to hold off on new features until everyone else hardware caught technology and software becomes stagnant.
Frustrating mirroring won't work on older models, yes, but obviously requires somethat is in Sandy Bridge or the chipset that was used 2011 onwards.
This isn't just apple, this is any technical company. If we had to hold off on new features until everyone else hardware caught technology and software becomes stagnant.
Frustrating mirroring won't work on older models, yes, but obviously requires somethat is in Sandy Bridge or the chipset that was used 2011 onwards.
Having bought the late-2010 MBA in April last year, I have become rather used to being locked out of features. Thunderbolt and backlit keyboard for example. That said, the machine works fine and I understand progress has to happen.
From all accounts, this feature is based on new hardware not in my machine. I don't really see that this is Apple's fault. Its based on a hardware feature and if you really want to use mirroring on an old machine, AirParrot does it for you.
It's annoying but technology is always moving on. I needed a new machine urgently at the time and so bought my first Mac.
I'm more annoyed that, without a thunderbolt port, my planned expansion path (Mini with ATD) cannot be phased to reduce the load on my credit card.
From all accounts, this feature is based on new hardware not in my machine. I don't really see that this is Apple's fault. Its based on a hardware feature and if you really want to use mirroring on an old machine, AirParrot does it for you.
It's annoying but technology is always moving on. I needed a new machine urgently at the time and so bought my first Mac.
I'm more annoyed that, without a thunderbolt port, my planned expansion path (Mini with ATD) cannot be phased to reduce the load on my credit card.
Why not ? They designed it . Poor chip selection ? Mac Pro owners have not had a major chip improvement in nearly 4 years so they know :
a) One is coming
b) that they cannot reasonably expect to gain every OSX improvement unless they upgrade/repurchase .
My Macbook Pro was delivered Christmas 2010 . I have narrowly missed out on Thunderbolt and now Airplay . Next year I will probably have to pay Apple to take my ' high-end' laptop away on trade-in
~M~
Your telling me my 2.66ghz quad 2009 Mac Pro wasn't capable of transcoding in real-time from blu-ray quality files? Rubbish.
Any quad core mac is capable of doing that. My Mac Pro now can do two streams of 1080p in real time.
Unfortunately Apple has gone down the route of using Quicksync (Which ironically can't play 23.976 fps content properly - google this).
It'll be hacked, I guarantee it.
2010 iMacs had quad cores too.
Either way, they could have done it in software, but Quicksync obviously uses less power/better experience on laptops.
I'd very much like the ability to Airplay from my Mac Pro tbh. I paid enough for it.
Finally some sense is made.
This is exactly it: your older machine still works fine. It will do everything it does today with ML, and a few things more. But newer machines with better hardware can do a little more. That's how these things are.
You buy a machine with certain specifications. You can't expect every newer feature to work with those specifications. Most new features, sure. But some features will require a faster processor or gpu to work smoothly (often animations aren't as smooth on older hardware), some require hardware features to work at all (think airdrop), etc. This is one of those features where hardware features are required.
These features are required because while it's true that any quad-core mac can encode an h.264 video in real-time, most wouldn't be able to do much else at the same time. So the experience would suck. So then given a choice between 'do it suckily' or 'don't do it' on that hardware, the choice is really quite easy.
The issue is that it's an artificial limitation. The code could be there to transcode via software or quick sync if present. Ro trans code real time just isnt that taxing. My G5 can transcode faster than real time. It's not available so Apple can sell more hardware.