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AirPlay Reverse Engineered to Send Video From iOS Devices to Macs

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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While Apple's AirPlay feature introduced in iOS 4.2 allows users to stream certain video content from their iOS devices to the new Apple TV, users have been wondering if the service will ever be extended to allow content to be streamed to their Macs in a similar fashion. In addressing the question of whether such an implementation would be difficult, TUAW's Erica Sadun has put together an alpha version of a Mac OS X application known as "AirPlayer" that does exactly that.
What AirPlayer does is create and advertise a custom Bonjour AirPlay service that pretends to be an Apple TV. Bonjour is Apple's zero configuration networking solution for allowing devices and applications to communicate with each other over local area networks. When Apple created AirPlay, it basically set up a new way for Apple TV to interact with iOS using Bonjour communications.
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The functionality could in theory also be supported on Windows PCs as Apple offers Bonjour for Windows, although Sadun notes that she is not likely to attempt to build a Windows version anytime soon.

Interested users can download the ad-supported alpha version for Mac OS X from Sadun's website to test out the functionality. Users' iOS devices do not need to be jailbroken for the functionality to work, although some tools such as AirVideoEnabler that can extend AirPlay functionality to more iOS apps do require jailbreaking.

AirPlayer remains an early proof-of-concept release, and users are of course advised that there may be bugs and other quirks associated with the application.

Article Link: AirPlay Reverse Engineered to Send Video From iOS Devices to Macs
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/12/14/airplay-reverse-engineered-to-send-video-from-ios-devices-to-macs/
Last edited by a moderator:
Interesting proof of concept, but I'd much rather have it the other way round - Airplay from my Mac to my iOS device...
 
This is hopefully the start of something wonderful. I already have an htpc in my living room so this idea is perfect. I can't wait to test it on my macbook when I get home, but I'm really looking forward to a windows port.
 
Cool! This is great, I like how it's fast and responsive. And useful.
 
Phil A. said:
Interesting proof of concept, but I'd much rather have it the other way round - Airplay from my Mac to my iOS device...
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That's easy. AirVideo. Been using it for months now and it works flawlessly with both my ipod touch 2 and my ipad. And it looks like I was beat to this idea by several others. Clearly, a good option.
 
hitekalex said:
Yeah well.. AirVideo requires a custom iOS client, so it doesn't help with streaming to Apple TV.

So here's another vote for non-iTunes AirPlay server that lets me stream any video from Mac to iOS/Apple TV.
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That's the beauty of this hack. You'll be able to replace an AppleTV with a much more capable device (like an Aspire Revo) and still get the AirPlay benefits. This is of course assuming this comes to windows, but I'm sure, in time, it will.
 
Can you only stream video? I can't find the airplay button while playing audio in the iPod app.
 
Not compatible with my Core Duo mini

I downloaded the app to find that I get the "not supported on this hardware" error when trying to run it. I could not find any minimum specks listed for the app, but it looks like it is more than my 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo mac mini.

The idea looks very cool though, and maybe an update will make the app work on a few older systems (as they tend to find themselves relegated to TVs at some point in their lives).
 
WisdomWolf said:
That's the beauty of this hack. You'll be able to replace an AppleTV with a much more capable device (like an Aspire Revo) and still get the AirPlay benefits. This is of course assuming this comes to windows, but I'm sure, in time, it will.
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Um.. I have no interest in replacing Apple TV with Aspire Revo.. or for that matter in any other Atom/Windows-based craptops.

I just want to stream AirPlay content from my Mini to my Apple TVs without iTunes restrictions :D
 
Erica, your voice is quite pleasant. The camera action requires a dramomin tablet before watching though. My curiosity at this moment is, what the heck with that little kid getting the slats kicked out of him or her there at the end of the movie? I would like to watch that movie.
 
If only AirPlay would be turned into a Quicktime Server replacement. Quicktime X Streaming Server hasn't seen the light of day and I'm surprised Apple doesn't have an H264 streaming server product.

Apple AirPlay Server has a nice sound to it.

Maybe this hack can lead to a server solution or perhaps Apple can add a nice GUI to mod_h264 along with an app to encode and segment video properly. Attach a web front end like MediaCore with a DB and you have a nice video on demand/streaming server,
 
pawelthegreat said:
Would someone give me an example why MAc to iOS and vice versa would be useful?
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I'm watching a movie on my computer. Suddenly, my back starts to hurt and I decide I need to lie down. I take out my iPhone and lie down on the sofa outside.
 
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