AirPlay vs. Other Options ?

[psylence2k]

Hey I've been having issues for a while with the Apple TV Airplay not being reliable when streaming certain video formats from Safari through Airplay to the Apple TV.

There's constant disconnects/shut offs in the middle of streams. To my understanding certain media formats can encounter problems when sent through airplay compression which probably causes this.

So I'm looking for options to fix this and give me a more reliable stream. I was thinking about buying Apple's lightning digital av adapter. Though from what I've read (from years ago) this doesn't really pass through a raw 1080p signal through the HDMI (like the old connector did) but rather a compressed stream that is upscaled to something less than 1080p with noticeable artifacts as well as lag.

It makes me also wonder if the shut off problems experienced on the Apple TV would just continue with this method. I've noticed though that alot of these issues were talked about in comments I found mostly 2-3 years ago with older iOS devices and versions and wonder if Apple had somehow improved or fixed this since.

Is was just looking on feedback if the lightning adapter has improved since then, if it finally delivers a full 1080 stream, doesn't encounter lag or shut off problems, and is more reliable than Airplay.

Thanks.

 

[waw74]

most of the time airplay actually sends a location to the aTV, and the aTV plays that directly. instead of the media bouncing through the phone.

if you're using airplay mirroring (where the same image is on both your TV and phone) your phone has to convert and stream in real time which leads to less than optimal performance.

or if the media is stored on your phone (amazon prime or plex sync are 2 examples) then the media is streamed from the phone (there is a setting on the aTV to stream iTunes content directly from apple instead of your phone)

airplay can work in several different ways, It's determined by the app developer which way that app will work.

from safari, if the movie goes full screen on your phone, there's a pretty good chance, it's just sending the location the aTV

there's also a chance another app is interrupting your stream, (i use plex to stream from my phone, and if i launch Facebook, it typically stops the stream, since Facebook autoplays media)

it could also be a bandwidth or network issue, you could try rebooting your network gear, and see if that helps.

 

[priitv8]

most of the time airplay actually sends a location to the aTV, and the aTV plays that directly. instead of the media bouncing through the phone.

Do tou know of any app that works like this?
AFAIK AirPlay has 2 different modes - direct forwarding of stream (when data is already in H.264 - eg a file or network stream) and mirroring (real-time encoding of the screen framebuffer).
I am not sure, but I think YouTube from Safari works just by rerouting the incoming video stream onto network and aTV (actually ClickToFlash has had this for years). But it still needs the safari in between and is not handing the stream directly over to aTV, like Chromecast does.
I'd appreciate, if someone has more insight into this.