Streaming from older iMac to TV??

[lwien]

I have a mid-2010 iMac and want to stream movies from the internet to my TV. I know that Apple TV will work on newer iMacs but not on mine. What are my options?

To clarify, I don't want to download movies and then transfer to my TV. I just want to stream to my TV via my Mac. Is this possible?

 

[colodane]

From what I've read, I believe that the age of your Mac doesn't matter - but the OS you are using does. I assume you are trying to do AirPlay? I believe that Yosemite will stream via Safari from most internet sources, but older versions of OS-X (at least Lion that I'm using) will only do Airplay from iTunes. Hopefully forum members with more exact answers will chime in.

 

[lwien]

From what I've read, I believe that the age of your Mac doesn't matter - but the OS you are using does. I assume you are trying to do AirPlay? I believe that Yosemite will stream via Safari from most internet sources, but older versions of OS-X (at least Lion that I'm using) will only do Airplay from iTunes. Hopefully forum members with more exact answers will chime in.

From what I've read, it DOES make a difference:

Requirements for using an AirPlay display
Minimum requirements if your Mac and Apple TV are on the same network:

• Apple TV (2nd generation or later) with the latest Apple TV software
• Any of these Mac computers with OS X Mountain Lion v10.8 or later:
  • iMac (Mid 2011 or later)
  • Mac mini (Mid 2011 or later)
  • MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or later)
  • MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or later)
  • Mac Pro (Late 2013 or later)
  • https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201343

 

[\-V-/]

http://beamer-app.com

I use this all the time to stream movies to my TV. It's amazing.

You'll need a ripped version of whatever movie you're trying to watch, but the file format is irrelevant. This app plays everything, as long as you have an Apple TV.

 

[jerwin]

If I'm not mistaken, the airplay steaming feature makes use of an mpeg encoder found in the "Sandy Bridge generation of intel cpus. The mid 2010 imac uses the previous generation, which lacks this feature, so apple doesn't think it's up to the task, and consequently, it has declined to write the neccessary code. if it did you might see quite a performance hit.