Sidecar and Video Playback problems

[spencecb]

Hi all,

For whatever reason, video does not play in the TV app of Music app when I have my iPad connected to my Mac using Sidecar. Video will play in Safari, but specifically will not play in TV or Music. Oddly, all of the overlays appear on my MacBook Pro's screen, for example, the picture's rating, or the "skip" button to skip the intro, closed captions, etc.

This has been a problem for quite some time, and I had forgotten about it because I had stopped using Sidecar until re-discovering its usefulness when I was reminded of it once Universal Control came out.

I suppose, it isn't super useful when I can't watch a show and actually SEE it as opposed to just hearing it.

Anyone experience this on their setup? Yes, I have everything up to date. Anyone know of a way to fix this?

 

[BigBlur]

This has to do with DRM copy protection and there's really nothing we can do about it.

You can’t watch copyright protected video on a Mac with an iPad connected via SideCar : Apple World Today

You can’t watch full screen copyrighted video on a Mac with an iPad connected via Apple's SideCar feature.

www.appleworld.today

A couple "workarounds" would be to use Universal Control and run the Music or TV app on the iPad. The other workaround would be to use Universal Control and Sidecar at the same time. Interact with the iPad's Music or TV app through Universal Control, then put it in PiP and switch over to Sidecar. Couple potential downsides with these is that you have to watch it on the iPad, and the audio plays through the iPad (unless you use AirPods or a HomePod).

 

[spencecb]

This has to do with DRM copy protection and there's really nothing we can do about it.

You can’t watch copyright protected video on a Mac with an iPad connected via SideCar : Apple World Today

You can’t watch full screen copyrighted video on a Mac with an iPad connected via Apple's SideCar feature.

www.appleworld.today

A couple "workarounds" would be to use Universal Control and run the Music or TV app on the iPad. The other workaround would be to use Universal Control and Sidecar at the same time. Interact with the iPad's Music or TV app through Universal Control, then put it in PiP and switch over to Sidecar. Couple potential downsides with these is that you have to watch it on the iPad, and the audio plays through the iPad (unless you use AirPods or a HomePod).

What in the world? I had not heard of this before. That is crazy! Thanks for linking the article. I never read about this before. It makes me feel better (I suppose?) that this hasn't been a glaring bug for so long. If the article is correct in its description of how Apple sends video from the Mac to the iPad, that is a cool implementation, as Sidecar performs so much better than alternatives. I tried using Luna Display for a bit and the performance was so bad. This was from Mac to Mac, before they updated it to work from Mac to iPad. I tried this setup in 2021. Things could be better now, but I constantly had lagging images, frozen display, etc. I could not get rid of that thing fast enough.

Hopefully Apple can find a way to make this work with HDPC. Although, my setup will be changing in a couple months when my Studio Display arrives in June. I will likely not use Sidecar anymore and will switch to Universal Control. Reason I don't use UC right now is I do not like how I can't use keyboard shortcuts to switch between apps. I get why it doesn't work, because I am using two different OS's, but it just doesn't have a seamless workflow for me. Having two displays is ideal. Using the iPad is a great option, but isn't a true replacement for a dedicated display.

Also, I recently borrowed my husbands 27" Asus display to throw into my setup so I could get used to having three screens in my workflow. Turns out, three is too many, at least for how I work and macOS. It wasn't efficient going across three screens (16" MacBook Pro, 27" Asus, and 10.9" iPad Pro). I like the idea of using my iPad to keep my iMessages up in front of me, and maybe YouTube. So, I won't need to have the convinience of using keyboard shortcuts, if those are the only two apps I am using on the iPad.

Sorry for my long, wandering reply. Lol. I am sure most people won't care about anything I just said, lol!

Here is a pic of the setup when I had the Asus setup.