Simple question. No problem.

[Racineur]

Hello. I Googled info on this but I found mostly "how to connect ATV". Here it is: I have old stuff the likes of iMac 27 2013 running on Mojave and a 2013 LG 50in HD 1080p. Last November, was about to buy a 4k TV but backed off since there's so less 4k content. Must say my LG is pure delight speaking of 1080p and I'm a big Cable content consumer, no games, no Netflix for now. what if I bought an Apple TV 4th generation HD only? If I understand well, an Apple TV will allow to stream some shows I watch on my iMac to the TV and my pictures too. What I need to know: is my 2012 LG HD too old that it's impossible to connect it to the Apple TV. As for my 2013 iMac, no connection will be needed isn't that so? Now: what if I buy win the future a 4K TV with let's say Roku or Android TV? What will be the purpose of the Apple TV?

Thank you so much for "enlightening me".

 

[waw74]

both the aTV-hd and the aTV-4k connect using HDMI, and will connect to any HDMI TV,
if your TV has an HDMI port, either will work.
obviously if you get the aTV-4K, but still have a 1080 TV, you won't get 4k or HDR, but it will work in 1080.

you can airplay from apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac) to the aTV, this puts the image from your device screen on the TV
so anything seen on your device's screen, will be seen on the aTV and your TV.
in some instances you are able to only send the video portion.
For example, while watching a YouTube video in the browser on your Mac, you can send just the video over, instead of the entire screen.

airplay does work, but it's not your best option for watching long videos, like movies.
If you have files on your computers that you want to watch, I'd look at infuse or plex.
Both of these allow you to choose videos from your aTV, with airplay you have to go to your computer and start them.

Plex requires you to run a server program on your computer.
For Infuse, you need to share the files (like you would to access them from another computer) and then the aTV will grab them over the network.

Both options work well, Plex offers a few added features since it's running on a computer