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optheory

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 24, 2012
5
0
I love my Apple TV. I've jailbroken it, and I can play nearly every format with XBMC. The main reason I bought this was because of Airplay. For music, it's fantastic! For video though, not so much. Disclaimer: I realize that I may be doing something wrong, so my experience here is not an indicator of what may work for you.

The first couple days I had my ATV, I found it very strange that I was unable to easily 'send' a video on YouTube and other video sites from my MacBook to my ATV. Instead I had to grab a friend's iPod, navigate to a video on the YouTube app (which half the time it's not even there or ATV's YouTube section) and THEN Airplay the video.

In my Googling I've found a few potential things that were built to get over this problem, but in my experience all of them are broken/just don't work at all:

AirPlayer - This is the first thing I tried. This is an application you run from Terminal written in python. To get, for example, a YouTube video going you would enter this in the terminal:
Code:
python airplayer.py http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE
After that it prompts you to select your Apple TV but in my experience this did not work at all. Upon selecting my ATV it would show an error on my TV. Note though, that I am running 4.4.4 and that I don't have experience with running terminal commands. I did follow the instructions listed, and it did not work for me, sadly. If anyone can give this a try let me know if this works for you.

ClickToPlugin Safari Extension - This thing was cool, but it's broken. Basically what it does is it disables Flash videos on certain sites like YouTube and Vimeo, opts for HTML5 and gives you the ability to just right click on the video and send it to your ATV. It works amazingly well - for about 30 seconds - and then cuts out. The FAQ on the website says this is a known issue:

“Whenever I send videos to my Apple TV, they stop playing automatically after a while!”

Apple TV software versions 4.4 and later are not compatible with the extension anymore. I’m hoping that this will be fixed in a future Apple TV software update, but in the meantime the only way to enjoy this feature is to downgrade the Apple TV software to version 4.3.

This seems like the most seamless option and I may revert to 4.4.3 just to get this ability.

AirFlick - I haven't played with this too much, but it seems like it hasn't been touched by the developer in over a year and just didn't work when I gave it YouTube and Vimeo links.

Has anyone else found anything that works? Am I able to initiate a video via ssh in the terminal? I'm surprised no one has come forward with a chrome extension but then again I'm undermining the difficulty of making something like this. I just think it's strange that it's easier for me to start up a video with even my android phone than it is with my $1300 Apple laptop.

Any input appreciated!
 
Last edited:

optheory

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 24, 2012
5
0
Airfoil doesn't airplay actual video to the Apple TV - it just has a separate window where you select your video, and it will play the audio through any airplay device.

Their main feature of their 'video player', which is misleadingly named, is that the audio going through your airplay devices is in sync with the video you're watching on your computer. This is useful in some circumstances I'm sure, but still doesn't achieve what these other solutions I outlined above originally set out to do.

You can't just 'beam' the youtube video you're watching over to your plasma screen but you can do this easily with music, of course.
 

hafr

macrumors 68030
Sep 21, 2011
2,743
9
Airfoil doesn't airplay actual video to the Apple TV - it just has a separate window where you select your video, and it will play the audio through any airplay device.

Their main feature of their 'video player', which is misleadingly named, is that the audio going through your airplay devices is in sync with the video you're watching on your computer. This is useful in some circumstances I'm sure, but still doesn't achieve what these other solutions I outlined above originally set out to do.

You can't just 'beam' the youtube video you're watching over to your plasma screen but you can do this easily with music, of course.

Oh, sorry :eek:
 

optheory

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 24, 2012
5
0
Works sending video from an iphone.

I know. It works great doesn't it? Read the first post, perhaps I wasn't clear enough but the main purpose of this thread is to find out a solution for airplaying a video from a Mac to the Apple TV.
 

KOZOK

macrumors member
May 2, 2011
65
0
Read the first post, perhaps I wasn't clear enough but the main purpose of this thread is to find out a solution for airplaying a video from a Mac to the Apple TV.
It's too bad you can't figure out how to work your computer. It's even worse that you feel the need to be a bell end about it.
 

Sedulous

macrumors 68030
Dec 10, 2002
2,530
2,577
It's too bad you can't figure out how to work your computer. It's even worse that you feel the need to be a bell end about it.

Too bad you have to be nasty to the OP about it. I know how to use my computer... and it is baffling that there isn't more support for Airplay baked into the Mac OS. Does it make sense to you that only media loaded into iTunes can be played to ATV2?
 

optheory

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 24, 2012
5
0
It's too bad you can't figure out how to work your computer. It's even worse that you feel the need to be a bell end about it.

I didn't mean to come off as rude, and I apologize if I did. I don't think I need to restate the purpose of this thread again but when you mentioned that it "works sending video from an iphone" I was confused since this thread has nothing to do with airplaying from an ipod/iphone to the ATV.

As for me not knowing how to work my computer, please let us know if you've found a solution to the original problem.

EDIT: Has anyone had any luck with the AirPlayer python script?
 

KOZOK

macrumors member
May 2, 2011
65
0
If you don't use the right tool for the job, expect the job to be messier than it should be. Repeating your question over and over won't change that.
 

hafr

macrumors 68030
Sep 21, 2011
2,743
9
If you don't use the right tool for the job, expect the job to be messier than it should be. Repeating your question over and over won't change that.

So which is the correct tool for sending web videos from a computer to the ATV2 according to you?
 

whooleytoo

macrumors 604
Aug 2, 2002
6,607
716
Cork, Ireland.
The "fullscreen" Airplay would be great too, arguably an even more important feature. Would be great for giving presentations; without having to worry about the placement of your laptop.
 

optheory

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 24, 2012
5
0
The "fullscreen" Airplay would be great too, arguably an even more important feature. Would be great for giving presentations; without having to worry about the placement of your laptop.

Exactly. I didn't realize that Lion was supposed to ship with better airplay integration. I suppose that that's something that will come then, hopefully.

Again, anyone have any success with Airplayer?
 

iisdan

macrumors 6502
Feb 19, 2010
319
331
mac app store

Youtube would need an app for mac. I dont know why they don't, I may even build one in my spare time, I would think their massive team would be able to do it fairly easily.
 

paulrbeers

macrumors 68040
Dec 17, 2009
3,963
123
Youtube would need an app for mac. I dont know why they don't, I may even build one in my spare time, I would think their massive team would be able to do it fairly easily.

1. Why did you resurrect a thread that is over a year old and most likely not even a valid concern anymore?
2. Airplay Mirroring on any 2011 or newer Mac will allow you to play anything on your Mac's screen to the ATV so no "app" is needed...
 

1ricca

macrumors newbie
Aug 11, 2010
22
0
1. Why did you resurrect a thread that is over a year old and most likely not even a valid concern anymore?
2. Airplay Mirroring on any 2011 or newer Mac will allow you to play anything on your Mac's screen to the ATV so no "app" is needed...

Fullscreen airplay for watching videos is FAR inferior to the "iPhone implementation", how the OP and myself wish it would be.

There's a Mac app called Beamer now that is FANTASTIC for watching any kind of file but still not things like youtube and vimeo or any streaming stuff from a browser or the likes. Beamer is so good at what it DOES do that I eventually updated my ATV, didn't re-jailbreak and never had to use XBMC again. I simply set the default app to Beamer for every kind of video file on my Macbook Pro now. Now when I double click any video file, it opens fullscreen, fully synced audio, perfect picture right on my TV.

I would still love to find some kind of Firefox, Chrome or Safari extension that lets us beam fullscreen to our ATV the way Beamer and iOS devices do.
Watching a movie on atv mirror mode is horrendous, jittery, and often out of sync.
 

Narial Taster

macrumors member
May 17, 2011
35
2
Another vote for for Beamer. I had a similarly frustrating experience with Apple TV till Beamer came to the rescue. It is a must have app for me and I don't know why it isn't more well known given how flawlessly it works and how it solves a problem that a lot of people run into. They have a time based free trial so you can check it out before you buy it.
 

1ricca

macrumors newbie
Aug 11, 2010
22
0
Another vote for for Beamer. I had a similarly frustrating experience with Apple TV till Beamer came to the rescue. It is a must have app for me and I don't know why it isn't more well known given how flawlessly it works and how it solves a problem that a lot of people run into. They have a time based free trial so you can check it out before you buy it.

There's a Safari Extension available now! Work's great for youtube so far!!!

http://hoyois.github.io/safariextensions/clicktoplugin/
 

JGRE

macrumors 65816
Oct 10, 2011
1,012
664
Dutch Mountains
Another vote for for Beamer. I had a similarly frustrating experience with Apple TV till Beamer came to the rescue. It is a must have app for me and I don't know why it isn't more well known given how flawlessly it works and how it solves a problem that a lot of people run into. They have a time based free trial so you can check it out before you buy it.

Thumbs up for Beamer, the latest update is able to stream 14GB movies to the ATV without remuxing. Stuttering is almost totally gone now and it support DD5.1 and DTS. Simple app but great, does exactly what it is supposed to do. No more iTunes for my movies, just drag and drop the Mkv into Beamer and enjoy.
 
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