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rittchard

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 12, 2007
351
46
One of my favorite new features with the iPad 2 is the video mirroring capability. Don't ask me why, I don't really have any specific use for it other than showing friends and family. It did occur to me it would be really cool if you were a teacher or doing a presentation to be able to use the mirroring to show exactly what you were doing on the iPad, but not be tethered (no pun intended) by an HDMI cable to the TV. In an ideal world this feature would be built in to the iPad itself but oh well - maybe next year?

Anyway after a little research and a few stops and starts, I finally gathered the pieces I needed to free myself of the wire linkage. The main piece of the puzzle is the "wireless HDMI" component kit from brite-View. The BV-1222 model allows you to turn the HDMI cable interface into a wireless transmit and receive box. I had originally tried a different version of the hardware, but the transmitter still required a power cable to plug into a standard outlet, so that ruined the full wireless effect I was hoping for. The BV-1222 transmitter is much smaller and can be run from a USB power source/battery pack so it's more or less perfect. I chose the New Trent IMP1000 for this, which seems to work fine. You can probably get by with something smaller, lighter and cheaper but this one had good reviews.

Of course you still have to use the Apple AV adapter and you are stuck with some dangling cables and 2 small units with their own interconnects. I placed them all in a small box (ironically a Kindle box) and punched a hole to allow the HDMI connection out. So essentially you end up with the iPad sitting on top of a Kindle box and you can carry it around while wirelessly mirroring to the TV. Works amazingly well and very very simple to set up. Eventually after I get a back case for the iPad I'll put some velcro tabs on it so it will all stay together better.

The mirroring quality is virtually flawless, not much different from the HDMI cable alone in terms of delay. Video looks great and I even tried the 1080p option of video out on Max Adventure which worked perfectly. Clearly this could be a great tool for iPad gaming.

It would be wonderful if someone streamlined this all into a single accessory that's lighter and simpler than what I've put together, something that just snapped in like some of those power providing cases, then the rest of the circuitry and battery pack could be built into the back frame. Until then, I'm pretty happy with what I put together.
 
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