Apple TV and Mirrorring

[Siilver777]

Hello

I plan to buy an Apple TV 3rd gen. I'd love to stream all my iTunes library on my TV. But I have a Mac and I also want to mirror my Mac's screen on my TV.

iMac and TV are in the same room, so I want to know if I'll be able to turn off my iMac's screen by hitting Ctrl+Maj+Eject and keep mirroring to TV ? Because thing is, even with low-level brightness, an iMac 27 in the dark…*

A lot of people are talking about this on the web but nobody tells the same story. That's why I came here.

Thanks for responding me !

(and sorry if I mispelled something, English is not my native language )

 

[gr8tfly]

I just tried it with my rMBP, using a Dashboard widget to sleep the display, and it was a no-go. The AirPlay display also sleeps (as would a wired connection).

Have you already tried turning the brightness all the way down? On the rMBP, the backlight will turn completely off at the minimum setting, while leaving AirPlay display active (either extended or mirrored).

Just as an FYI, with a portable, you do have the option of operating in clamshell mode (with an external keyboard and pointing device). I know that works wired, but haven't tried it with AirPlay. I'll have to play with that sometime. I suspect you'd need to establish an AirPlay connection, then close the lid. That used to work when wired (meaning it wouldn't sleep, as long as the display, keyboard, mouse, and A/C were connected). With the ability to "Wake for WiFi network access", it seems technically possible. Unfortunately, neither of those ideas [for clamshell mode] helps with the iMac.

 

[Jambalaya]

EDIT: I deleted original post after re-reading yours. Yes you can do this but in a different way.

Mavericks supports two different types of mirroring.

First (n1) is sending content to ATV (which older OS did too) and you can do from your iPhone/iPad if you have one. The ATV can also access your iTunes library via home sharing, in this mode - controlled from ATV (and using remote app if you have an iPhone) the iMac screen can be sleeping which is what you want.

Second (n2) is screen mirroring where the ATV (TV) is an additional monitor complete with dock and you can move the mouse for example between TV and iMac. This doesn't work on all Mac's e.g. my old 2009 Mini doesn't work like this but "ma copine rMBP ca marche bien"

You have mirroring icon in iTunes for n1 above and on top main menu bar for n2 - we do this on ATV and it works very well. What we find is that we use n2 to be able to select sous-titre options on movies via VLC but in this mode I am not sure if you can sleep the iMac screen on the rMBP we keep screen 3/4 closed and can move it where we cannot see it.

What i don't know is whether you can force the iMac screen to sleep - what we do is wait for screen sleep via system preferences power save settings

If you have an iPhone you definitely want to get the remote app if you get an ATV.

If you've bought movies from iTunes you can access them without the iMac turned on but they are streamed from the iCloud so perhaps not so fast if they are already downloaded onto iMAc.

Hope this helps. get the ATV it's great !

(sent from Paris by the way but my French is appalling as you can tell )