bad for air playing web video

dugbug said:

So my one chief complaint (and this is with a 1.3 model) is the inability to airplay at any reasonable frame rate from safari. is there a trick to getting smooth video? I make sure to match resolution of the apple tv and the video on the macbook is fine.

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No issues here; I have the 1.2 model and I'm able to airplay to my ATV3 at 1080p fine. Looks close to 60fps for me. FYI, I have 802.11ac connected at 5GHz (2.4GHz is too crowded in my neighborhood, with at least 22 AP's, but 5GHz has only 1 AP--mine), and transfer rate is at 876 Mbps.

dugbug said:

Its definitely so bad as to be unusable. stuttering visibly every second or so. This is a 1.3 running hulu.com video on an older airport extreme.

My 2011 macbook air was flawless. I do not recommend this laptop without airplay, how frustrating. Is this a retina thing or is this an underpowered laptop. It does not make sense.

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I should point out this is from safari, matching apple tv resolution in the display preferences, and going full screen.

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Yeah, it sounds from your description that you are not AirPlaying, you are Display Mirroring. HUGE difference. My Macs also stutter a lot when playing video while mirroring the display to an ATV. If I instead AirPlay that video to the ATV instead, it plays flawlessly.

I use airplay mirroring all the time on a base 1.1 and it works fine even for 720p videos (it goes to a 1080p video, but I'd rather avoid the buffering time and watch at a lower res). I'd guess you have some sort of network interference rather than any issue with the rMB itself. I get occasional stutter but nothing worse than on my 2012 MBA and only VERY rarely does it become unwatchable. I watch TV pretty regularly with this setup too.

MyopicPaideia said:

Yeah, it sounds from your description that you are not AirPlaying, you are Display Mirroring. HUGE difference. My Macs also stutter a lot when playing video while mirroring the display to an ATV. If I instead AirPlay that video to the ATV instead, it plays flawlessly.

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- That's not really a valid distinction. There's AirPlay Display (previously AirPlay Mirroring), where you send your entire desktop over the network, and there's "regular" AirPlay where you just stream a video - from iTunes for instance.
They're different, but both are AirPlay - just two different kinds.

But it's true that performance is usually much better on the "regular" AirPlay when it comes to video streaming than on AirPlay Display (for obvious reasons).

(And no, I'm not following you around the forums to point out your mistakes. I would never do that to a fellow Scandinavian. )

JTToft said:

- That's not really a valid distinction. There's AirPlay Display (previously AirPlay Mirroring), where you send your entire desktop over the network, and there's "regular" AirPlay where you just stream a video - from iTunes for instance.
They're different, but both are AirPlay - just two different kinds.

But it's true that performance is usually much better on the "regular" AirPlay when it comes to video streaming than on AirPlay Display (for obvious reasons).

(And no, I'm not following you around the forums to point out your mistakes. I would never do that to a fellow Scandinavian. )

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Ha ha ha, I take no offence, don't worry. I have no problem with being pointed out as being wrong...if it's true

In this case though I am pretty sure this a semantic terminology thing. They are still very different.

When you AirPlay an online or streaming video only, the device, whether it be an iPad, iPod, iPhone, or Mac, actually pushes the stream over to the ATV itself, meaning it takes over the stream directly. This has been verified numerous times by people having monitored their network activity.

When you AirPlay mirror (ie Display Mirroring), you are streaming over your desktop screen live over the network - so if you mirror your desktop playing a streaming video, the Mac is still streaming the video AND THEN sending the contents of the screen to the ATV.

Its almost like a double stream of data so depending on the Wifi network, can make a significant difference in performance.

I used to bridge my cable ISP's cable modem directly to my Time Capsule, but when I was on summer vacation, I forgot to unplug the LAN cable and of course with my luck, it got fried in a storm whilst I was gone for 5 weeks. WLAN port gone, so now I have to use the ISP router for the internal network, and it doesn't even have n, let alone ac, so my mirroring performance has suffered a lot. Direct Airplay still works great though...I really need to get a new Time Capsule, the ISP router also gives me problems with dropping connection on the ATV's about once a week and screwing up home sharing, requiring a router reboot. Very irritating.

I think something similar to this could be the source of the OP's problem.

MyopicPaideia said:

Ha ha ha, I take no offence, don't worry. I have no problem with being pointed out as being wrong...if it's true

In this case though I am pretty sure this a semantic terminology thing. They are still very different.

When you AirPlay an online or streaming video only, the device, whether it be an iPad, iPod, iPhone, or Mac, actually pushes the stream over to the ATV itself, meaning it takes over the stream directly. This has been verified numerous times by people having monitored their network activity.

When you AirPlay mirror (ie Display Mirroring), you are streaming over your desktop screen live over the network - so if you mirror your desktop playing a streaming video, the Mac is still streaming the video AND THEN sending the contents of the screen to the ATV.

Its almost like a double stream of data so depending on the Wifi network, can make a significant difference in performance.

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- Agreed on all points. They are very different. But one shouldn't make the distinction by calling one AirPlay and the other not when they're both AirPlay (albeit quite different kinds).

(Also, you can extend your desktop via AirPlay Display, too. Mirroring doesn't have to be involved.)

JTToft said:

- Agreed on all points. They are very different. But one shouldn't make the distinction by calling one AirPlay and the other not when they're both AirPlay (albeit quite different kinds).

(Also, you can extend your desktop via AirPlay Display, too. Mirroring doesn't have to be involved.)

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Yes, agreed, but it does seem a bit daft to call two things that are fundamentally different by the same name.

Never actually tried the extended desktop option, though I am aware it exists. Seems like it would be the best option for doing things like presentations though. I'm assuming it acts then as a second display?

MyopicPaideia said:

Yes, agreed, but it does seem a bit daft to call two things that are fundamentally different by the same name.

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- Perhaps. But you'll have to take that up with Apple.
I'm sure there's some underlying technology and protocols common between the two that warrants using the same name.

MyopicPaideia said:

Never actually tried the extended desktop option, though I am aware it exists. Seems like it would be the best option for doing things like presentations though. I'm assuming it acts then as a second display?

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- Yes, precisely. Just like when you use a traditional external display in extended mode.

On a semi-related note, I sincerely recommend Beamer when wanting to stream video from the Mac to an Apple TV. Much smoother playback and supports more formats vs. iTunes.

dugbug said:

Unfortunately(as far as I can tell) that does not work for web based video.

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Correct. It was just a semi-related recommendation, for those wanting to stream video files to their Apple TV with improvements over the iTunes method. Great app.

The retina Macbook is my first Macbook, and with it I got AppleTV, also the first time I owned one.

After downloading a few seasons of my favourite shows, I thought it would be pretty seamless and easy to play on my TV through AppleTV. Mirroring is my only option as I play the videos through VLC.

Many times I can not get the mirroring to connect to the AppleTV, and if I do, it is very choppy and a few seconds behind what is actually happening on the screen. This happens in both the scale to built in display and scale to AppleTV option.

These issues may be because I do not know any better, being a Mac beginner, or it may be the hardware? I assume the first is the more likely of the two, however, my issues seem to fall in line with others in this thread.

Any advice or tips on fixing this, would be appreciated.

alj92 said:

The retina Macbook is my first Macbook, and with it I got AppleTV, also the first time I owned one.

After downloading a few seasons of my favourite shows, I thought it would be pretty seamless and easy to play on my TV through AppleTV. Mirroring is my only option as I play the videos through VLC.

Many times I can not get the mirroring to connect to the AppleTV, and if I do, it is very choppy and a few seconds behind what is actually happening on the screen. This happens in both the scale to built in display and scale to AppleTV option.

These issues may be because I do not know any better, being a Mac beginner, or it may be the hardware? I assume the first is the more likely of the two, however, my issues seem to fall in line with others in this thread.

Any advice or tips on fixing this, would be appreciated.

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In your specific case, I would follow the redommendation of a couple of others on this thread and try out the Beamer app.

If you want to have native Apple experience and convert your shows into proper iTunes format with cover art and metadata, I would highly recommend an app called Road Movie from the Mac App Store. It is a cheap app, and has worked flawlessly for me for several years. It automatically detects the TV show, season, episode, cover art and other metadata and spits out a ready-to-add-to-iTunes file.

The advantage to these two options is that you don't have to use Airplay mirroring, which depending on your home network, router model, etc. can be a less than satisfactory experience, just as you describe, and really has a lot more to do with connectivity issues that are harder to troubleshoot than hardware limitations.

An iPad 2 and iPad 3 are bith capable of flawlessly Airplay mirroring, so the culprit isn't CPU or GPU related.

dugbug said:

So my one chief complaint (and this is with a 1.3 model) is the inability to airplay at any reasonable frame rate from safari. is there a trick to getting smooth video? I make sure to match resolution of the apple tv and the video on the macbook is fine.

Click to expand...

I have no problems streaming video on 1.3 GHz Intel Core M, yet I am using Google Chrome; Version 43.0.2357.81 (64-bit)

Airplay is crap on any Mac it seems (thats wireless) I find this problem very prevelent for me as well. I have tried both my MBPr and my rMB and they both have stuttering video (tried VLC, and Quicktime) VIA Airplay. Now if I choose to Airplay VIA iTunes no stuttering at all or skipping frames. Also stuttering with mirroring, such as very delayed cursor movement and such

I have tried all the solutions to fix this problem (disabling bluetooth, disabiling spotlight) I have not had any luck. I think it's related to Yosemite because I never had this problem with Mavericks

Also my Apple TV is connected VIA ethernet to my router, so I thought that would possibly help, but it doesn't and I use a Wireless 802.11ac router as well.