Turn on Airplay mirroring from Apple TV

[Sparksss]

Hi,
I have a Mac mini in my room and wish to buy an Apple TV to the living room tv.
May question is will I be able to turn on Airplay mirroring from the Apple TV (and not having to get up and go up the Mac mini)?
Alternatively (first option is preferred, but if not possible), can I leave the mirroring always turned on, with out it closing when one of the devices goes to sleep?
Thanks.

 

[paulrbeers]

Hi,
I have a Mac mini in my room and wish to buy an Apple TV to the living room tv.
May question is will I be able to turn on Airplay mirroring from the Apple TV (and not having to get up and go up the Mac mini)?
Alternatively (first option is preferred, but if not possible), can I leave the mirroring always turned on, with out it closing when one of the devices goes to sleep?
Thanks.

1. can't do it from AppleTV
2. You can leave it always on. Not sure how it will affect waking and/or sleeping. I would recommend turning on the "wake form sleep with network traffic" just in case....

 

[dXTC]

paulrbeers is correct, from what I understand. Airplay mirroring must be turned on at the source; it can't be activated remotely (i.e. from the Apple TV).

However, if you're wanting use AirPlay primarily to watch movies in your iTunes library, you can leave AirPlay mirroring off and stream the movie file straight from your Mini (which would have iTunes running) to the ATV. Better yet, if you have an Apple AirPort router such as the AirPort Extreme or Express, the router can wake up a sleeping Mac, transfer the video file at top speed to the ATV's buffer, then gently put the Mac back to sleep-- the AirPort's Bonjour proxy handles the ATV's movie request in the background, so that the ATV assumes it's communicating with an already-awake iTunes source.

 

[Boyd01]

Better yet, if you have an Apple AirPort router such as the AirPort Extreme or Express, the router can wake up a sleeping Mac, transfer the video file at top speed to the ATV's buffer, then gently put the Mac back to sleep

I know that's what should happen, but it doesn't seem to work very well for me on my 2013 MBA running iTunes connected with 802.11ac to a new Time Capsule and the new Apple TV (connected with gigabit ethernet). If I go to the Computers icon on the Apple TV and the MacBook Air is asleep, I get a message that I must turn on home sharing to make my computer acessible. If I wake the computer up, then it starts working.

 

[paulrbeers]

I know that's what should happen, but it doesn't seem to work very well for me on my 2013 MBA running iTunes connected with 802.11ac to a new Time Capsule and the new Apple TV (connected with gigabit ethernet). If I go to the Computers icon on the Apple TV and the MacBook Air is asleep, I get a message that I must turn on home sharing to make my computer acessible. If I wake the computer up, then it starts working.

What about turning off sleep when plugged in on the MBA? It really uses very little power when idle especially if you let the monitor sleep. Is guess it's probably sipping less than 10w. I know my Mac Mini does less than 10 and it doesn't have a low power processor like the MBA.

 

[priitv8]

If I go to the Computers icon on the Apple TV and the MacBook Air is asleep, I get a message that I must turn on home sharing to make my computer acessible. If I wake the computer up, then it starts working.

Your laptop needs to be connected to AC power source for the wake-on-LAN to work.

 

[Boyd01]

Your laptop needs to be connected to AC power source for the wake-on-LAN to work.

Ha, that makes sense and would explain why it seems to work sometimes and not others. Thanks.

@paulrbeers: thanks, but I already have "prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" and "wake for WiFi network access" enabled in Energy saver for the Power Adapter. On battery power, there are no options available to enable/disable sleep, just dimming and turning off the display.

 

[Sparksss]

paulrbeers is correct, from what I understand. Airplay mirroring must be turned on at the source; it can't be activated remotely (i.e. from the Apple TV).

However, if you're wanting use AirPlay primarily to watch movies in your iTunes library, you can leave AirPlay mirroring off and stream the movie file straight from your Mini (which would have iTunes running) to the ATV. Better yet, if you have an Apple AirPort router such as the AirPort Extreme or Express, the router can wake up a sleeping Mac, transfer the video file at top speed to the ATV's buffer, then gently put the Mac back to sleep-- the AirPort's Bonjour proxy handles the ATV's movie request in the background, so that the ATV assumes it's communicating with an already-awake iTunes source.

Thanks all for you replies.
About streaming from the Mac Mini using ITunes/Airport is that I am not a native English speaker and there for use subtitles a lot - which I understand Itunes is very week at. I do not know if AppleTV even supports subtitles.
Also, I would need to go to the Mac mini to download it.
Unless, Is there a possibility to download subtitles using the AppleTV?
What do you guys think?