I have an Apple TV 3rd Gen and when I AirPlay Mirror my 2011 MacBook Pro the video is choppy and I can hardly watch anything. I have a 2nd Gen Time Capsule router that is within 5 feet of the ATV. I have tried several settings changes and nothing I have tried has worked. Please any suggestions would be great! This is very annoying and was a feature I was looking forward to with this setup.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Stuttering video when mirroring
- Thread starter ben824
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Share more details. For example:
TV. Temporarily turn off the wifi connections and lean on a wired connection. Try to "airplay" 1+ of the stuttering videos? Do they still stutter? Note: this is not about encouraging you to have a permanent ethernet connection- just a test to see if you might have some wifi issue. If the video(s) play just fine via airplay over ethernet but stutter when using airplay over wifi, the problem becomes specific to your wifi setup.
- Does all video stutter or just a single video you tried?
- If some videos do not stutter, what is different about them?
- Have you tried videos likely to be better formatted for TV like Quicktime trailers?
- Does video apps like youtube and trailers on the TV itself play their videos smoothly or do they stutter?
- Does the video stutter on your MB Pro screen too?
- Identify a specific video(s)- such as one(s) on youtube- that always stutters and those of us with a MBPro and TV could try airplaying it in our setups and see if it plays smoothly. If it stutters for everyone, the problem is probably the video(s).
- Are lots of other people/things using wifi bandwidth at the same time you are trying to airplay?
TV. Temporarily turn off the wifi connections and lean on a wired connection. Try to "airplay" 1+ of the stuttering videos? Do they still stutter? Note: this is not about encouraging you to have a permanent ethernet connection- just a test to see if you might have some wifi issue. If the video(s) play just fine via airplay over ethernet but stutter when using airplay over wifi, the problem becomes specific to your wifi setup.My understanding is that generally speaking, AirPlay mirroring requires the source mac to compress the stream, send it over wifi to a device such as an ATV, which then decompresses and routes out through the connecting hdmi cable. So, does the mac have the computing capabilities to compress? (Are there other apps running in background? enough free memory?) Does wifi have enough bandwidth? (Is someone else using some of the bandwidth?)
Share more details. For example:
And a good experiment: run an ethernet cable from your MB Pro to your router and another from router to
- Does all video stutter or just a single video you tried?
- If some videos do not stutter, what is different about them?
- Have you tried videos likely to be better formatted for
- Does video apps like youtube and trailers on the
- Does the video stutter on your MB Pro screen too?
- Identify a specific video(s)- such as one(s) on youtube- that always stutters and those of us with a MBPro and
- Are lots of other people/things using wifi bandwidth at the same time you are trying to airplay?
All other video plays fine. Videos directly played on the ATV play fine. Mirroring from my iPhone is perfectly fine. I tried the exact same video from the same website and the iPhone mirroring was flawless and HD. The MBP however was choppy on the ATV but played fine simultaneously on the MBP.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
So this problem is a single video? If so, identify it and where to watch it and someone here with a MBP and an TV can try airplaying it to see if they have the stuttering problem too. If 1+ of us have the same problem, the problem is the video file and there's probably nothing you can do about it (but at least you'll know it's not your tech stuff).
Since all other videos play fine, it's probably just something in how this one video is encoded. If you can access the video file itself, run it through Handbrake with anTV3 preset and try streaming it after it's reformatted. I'm guessing the issue is that the video if formatted such that the horsepower in other Apple tech (like the MBP) is "strong" enough to deal with it while the TV3's processor just can't reformat it well on the fly for smooth playback.
It looks like you are saying airplaying this video from iPhone toTV is working fine. If so, that's probably because the iPhone version of the video might be different than the version being fed to your MBP. Streaming services have become "smart" enough to feed different versions of a video based upon what kind of device is requesting the video. For example, if it's a computer, the computer might still be fed an Adobe Flash file. If it's an iDevice that can't play Flash files, it substitutes an mp4 version of the file. Note that the TV can't play Flash either, so it needs a compatible version of the file.
However, if all of the problem is only a single video and you really want to airplay that one video to yourTV, perhaps save yourself a lot of trouble and just airplay that video from your phone and use your MBP for all the others that apparently work fine? Or connect your MBP to your TV for this one video and airplay other videos.
If I'm misunderstanding your post and this problem is MORE than one video file, I encourage you to share answers to the other questions asked in my prior post. You skipped over several that could be the cause. It's hard to help someone on relatively little information/feedback.
TV can try airplaying it to see if they have the stuttering problem too. If 1+ of us have the same problem, the problem is the video file and there's probably nothing you can do about it (but at least you'll know it's not your tech stuff).Since all other videos play fine, it's probably just something in how this one video is encoded. If you can access the video file itself, run it through Handbrake with an
TV3 preset and try streaming it after it's reformatted. I'm guessing the issue is that the video if formatted such that the horsepower in other Apple tech (like the MBP) is "strong" enough to deal with it while the TV3's processor just can't reformat it well on the fly for smooth playback.It looks like you are saying airplaying this video from iPhone to
TV is working fine. If so, that's probably because the iPhone version of the video might be different than the version being fed to your MBP. Streaming services have become "smart" enough to feed different versions of a video based upon what kind of device is requesting the video. For example, if it's a computer, the computer might still be fed an Adobe Flash file. If it's an iDevice that can't play Flash files, it substitutes an mp4 version of the file. Note that the TV can't play Flash either, so it needs a compatible version of the file.However, if all of the problem is only a single video and you really want to airplay that one video to your
TV, perhaps save yourself a lot of trouble and just airplay that video from your phone and use your MBP for all the others that apparently work fine? Or connect your MBP to your TV for this one video and airplay other videos.If I'm misunderstanding your post and this problem is MORE than one video file, I encourage you to share answers to the other questions asked in my prior post. You skipped over several that could be the cause. It's hard to help someone on relatively little information/feedback.
Last edited:
My 4th gen does this with all airplay from my MBP, as soon as there's sound playing. It's like the MacBook isn't compressing it enough. It's not just at my place too, my brother in law has a 4th gen also and mine can't stream to that without stuttering. I had the issue with the MacBook I also just replaced, and Apple Care got me to do a clean install of the software, and then copy my files into my profile instead of restore from a back up.
Did you actually use screen mirroring on the Mac? Given that the video plays on an iPhone, it should be playable in Quicktime as well. Have you tried using Quicktime Airplay rather than screen mirroring?
There are a few variables for Airplay. If you stream a video from compatible web sites, Airplay can actually tell the Apple TV to stream the video directly from the Internet (i.e. without taking a detour through the Mac or iOS device). If you use a compatible MP4 file locally, you can Airplay the compressed video using Quicktime or iTunes, which should give you perfect playback. If you actually use screen mirroring, the Mac has to sample and compress the screen content in realtime. This will almost always result in framerate issues when playing videos (as opposed to static screens which are easier to handle).
Last edited:
Sorry for the delay in getting back! I was streaming the live and the replayed stream of TomorrowLand, the big EDM music festival in Belgium for anyone who doesn't know what it is. When mirrored from the phone it played perfectly and in super crisp HD. But mirroring from my MBP, same website and everything, it would stutter horribly and be very pixelated when it would stutter as well. I ended up just watching the rest of the weekend from my phone.
Haha I spent that weekend attempting the same. Thankfully they’ve put most of the Q dance and hardcore sets up already on YouTube