iPad 2 / Apple tv mirroring on iOS 5

[Defender2010]

I really like the idea of this feature, but I just tried it several times, and it's such a shame it cannot be implemented better. The resolution looks bad on my 50inch LED. It lags when playing games a bit too. Shame it does not output at a higher level. RGB level is correct, Apple tv res set to 720p so it looks great by itself....Zooming on the tv during mirroring makes it look even worse!
SO glad I never purchased the digital AV adapter when iPad 2 first came out. That £35 would have stung if this was the end result. Just hope some devs update for 720p out apart from Real Racing.....any thoughts on this from other users?

 

[CHRONiC YOUTH]

Agreed its def not as smooth as i had anticipated i get a noticible lag just switching between screens on my spring board..

 

[snowatom]

So dissapointed

This is so not like Apple.

Mirroring is not good enough, and should never had been implemented, before it works as one should exspect a feature from Apple to work.

Lets start with Real Racing 2, it is unplayable, lags and control is useless.

Video via mirroring, I had high hopes for this, as I finally could use Netflix from my iPad, that supports subtitles, as AppleTv does not. But the quality sucks, why?.... I mean it works ok when streaming videos from Youtube, Podcast and other things that worked perfectly on IOS4.

Is this really the trade off, for using Mirroring with Wifi? - if so please implement bluetooth in the next AppleTV, so we may use this feature without any problems.

snowatom

 

[CHRONiC YOUTH]

This is so not like Apple.

Mirroring is not good enough, and should never had been implemented, before it works as one should exspect a feature from Apple to work.

Lets start with Real Racing 2, it is unplayable, lags and control is useless.

Video via mirroring, I had high hopes for this, as I finally could use Netflix from my iPad, that supports subtitles, as AppleTv does not. But the quality sucks, why?.... I mean it works ok when streaming videos from Youtube, Podcast and other things that worked perfectly on IOS4.

Is this really the trade off, for using Mirroring with Wifi? - if so please implement bluetooth in the next AppleTV, so we may use this feature without any problems.

snowatom

I get no lag or extremely noticeable reduction in quality when streaming video from netflix, but I get a noticeable lag and choppy quality when attempting to airplay(mirror) a locally stored avi file via avplayerhd.... neither of the apps have been updated to support 720p/16:9 mirroring yet just via cable out so hopefully an update by the app developers can address the issues and its not something that we have to wait for apple to try and fix with new fw.. still doesnt explain the lag while mirroring at the spring board tho that should be the basic thing in the world to mirror

 

[taylor200588]

I've just tried it, it's really good but have to agree that it lags slightly and the quality isn't great on my 42inch telly. Hopefully Apple will improve this .

 

[SicMX]

Tried playing Real Racing 2 via AirPlay mirroring and it was unplayable and looked like crap.

Also watching video from the BBC App via mirroring was so bad and laggy that it was unwatchable. There must be a problem somewhere cause there is no way Apple would have knowingly released something this bad

 

[doboy]

This is so not like Apple.

Mirroring is not good enough, and should never had been implemented, before it works as one should exspect a feature from Apple to work.

Lets start with Real Racing 2, it is unplayable, lags and control is useless.

Video via mirroring, I had high hopes for this, as I finally could use Netflix from my iPad, that supports subtitles, as AppleTv does not. But the quality sucks, why?.... I mean it works ok when streaming videos from Youtube, Podcast and other things that worked perfectly on IOS4.

Is this really the trade off, for using Mirroring with Wifi? - if so please implement bluetooth in the next AppleTV, so we may use this feature without any problems.

snowatom

Actually new firmware for the apple tv now supports Netflix subtitles. No way Bluetooth has enough bandwidth to do over the air mirroring afaik.

For those that have noticeable lags, are you guys using G router or N router?

 

[urkel]

Mirroring is not good enough, and should never had been implemented, before it works as one should exspect a feature from Apple to work.

While I agree mirroring should be better, i absolutely hate when people say a feature should never have been implemented only because it doesnt fit their individual expectations.

This is a very impressive feature so I dont think they should be using it in their marketing as a gaming solution, I also dont think they should omit the feature entirely. It has many purposes that go beyond gaming and movies so I'll gladly take laggy over nothing.

 

[Defender2010]

Thanks for your thoughts....my conclusion,,,,the GM is full of bugs anyway. A lot of us developers were talking about another beta before GM, personally I felt there should have been. Roll on 5.0.1 to clear up some of the bugs.

 

[whooleytoo]

Yeah, the default mirroring isn't great with the low resolution and the aspect ratio. I like the way if you're mirroring, and play a video from a site/app that supports Airplay, it switches to fullscreen video Airplay, and back to default 4:3 mirroring when the video finishes.

It's bizarre though, when you're playing a widescreen video on your iPad (from a site/app that doesn't normally support Airplay), with default mirroring, that widescreen video has black borders on the top and bottom of the 4:3 view, which in turn has black borders on the left and right on a widescreen TV. I wonder if there's any way for iOS to detect if a widescreen video is being played inside mirroring, and just scale it to fullscreen.

 

[firteen888]

I bought an apple tv yesterday for the mirroring feature and it was a complete waste. The 1-2 second lag makes playing games on the TV useless. Its usefull for AirPlay and listening to music through my surround sound speakers, but useless for mirroring. Hopefully Apple works to improve this.

 

[chris8535]

I bought an apple tv yesterday for the mirroring feature and it was a complete waste. The 1-2 second lag makes playing games on the TV useless. Its usefull for AirPlay and listening to music through my surround sound speakers, but useless for mirroring. Hopefully Apple works to improve this.

Before you go calling something a complete waste you should know that 1-2 seconds lag is a problem with your router not the Apple TV. Its likely you have a junk router that cannot handle the bandwidth required for Mirroring. On my AE 2011 using a 300mbit 5ghz N connection I get some lag but its very very minimal, somewhere in the order of 250 milliseconds.

 

[whooleytoo]

Before you go calling something a complete waste you should know that 1-2 seconds lag is a problem with your router not the Apple TV. Its likely you have a junk router that cannot handle the bandwidth required for Mirroring. On my AE 2011 using a 300mbit 5ghz N connection I get some lag but its very very minimal, somewhere in the order of 250 milliseconds.

It's not likely to be a bandwidth problem, as if it were the mirroring would stutter or stop (or the quality would degrade, if Apple were smart enough to scale the mirroring quality when bandwidth is limited.)

It's a latency problem. I'd be very interested in knowing for certain if a N router would improve the latency over an A/G router. My ATV is wired, but the iPad is on a G wifi router, and while it looks ok it's enough to impact the game. I really hope an N router will fix the latency, as AirPlay gaming is the potential killer feature for me.