Tips for best airplay stream quality?

[tirexstorm]

I am trying to get the best quality video stream to my Apple TV using airplay. A few questions:

1. Assuming that my Apple TV is connected to my network via an ethernet cable, would a new wireless 802.11ac device provide a better stream than a 802.11n iphone/ipad?

2. Would the ATV 3 provide better image quality than the ATV2 when using airplay?

3. Would an ipad have better video quality than an iphone, or does it depend on which has the better processor? I assume a newer iphone would trump and older ipad and the ipad air 2 would provide the best quality of all?

 

[priitv8]

1) & 3) AirPlay streaming (unless we are speaking of AP Mirroring) is a simple file copy adventure, so not especially taxing on CPU or network (because aTV buffers ahead pretty well).
2) aTV 3 is 1080p capable, the previous ones just 720p.

AP Mirroring, despite it's similar name, is a different affair, because it involves real-time encoding of the frame buffer.
So that one is dependent on the capabilities of the H.264 encoder, which is a special piece of hardware in modern Apple ARM and Intel i-series CPU-s.