Resources used by streaming?

[dizzy130]

I'm considering a new tv. I'm not interested so much in renting from Apple as streaming from my Macbook. My only concern is, will this slow my Macbook down too much? Or will it be pretty much invisible? I'm thinking of either browsing the internet or maybe writing a paper in Word, not gaming or anything like that. It's a 3 year old Macbook with base specs, so it's getting up there in age.

 

[dXTC]

I have an approximately 3 yr old iMac, and it streams to my new tv with no problem. You shouldn't have a problem either, so long as your browsing doesn't use a bunch of bandwidth, like video (and if you're watching video on your MacBook, then who's watching the tv?). Word processing is trivial in terms of processing power required, no probs there.

 

[bbtrinet]

The Apple TV doesn't use resources for a long period of time during streaming. My iMac is downstairs, and I have my iTunes on an external drive. I can tell when my daughter is upstairs starting to watch a new video - the external drive turns on and spins for about 3 minutes.

Her entire video (average of approx. 90 minutes) is downloaded wirelessly in less than 3 minutes, and stored on the Apple TV, and then my iMac is not accessed again until my daughter requests a new video.

My iMac, from 2008, is not noticably slower at all.