Will AirPlay Stream Hulu or Other Video Apps to Apple TV?

[MacRumors]

One of the most anticipated features in iOS 4.2 is the introduction of AirPlay for Apple TV. AirPlay will allow you to stream audio and video from your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad directly to your Apple TV.

With AirPlay, you can stream it all from your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, too. So if you feel like watching a movie you have on one of your devices, you don't need to rent or buy it again. Just tap to start playing content on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, then tap again to instantly stream whatever you’re watching -- or listening to -- directly to Apple TV.

The just released 4.2 beta has some early support for AirPlay built in -- enough to generate some excitement about the possibilities.

Every standard iOS audio/video playback interface in Beta 4.2 now shows an AirPlay button that allows you to stream audio to an AirPlay enabled device. Forum user spimp31 successfully (audio) streamed the following apps from his iPad to his Airport Express:

- Safari (videos embedded from YT and Vimeo, audio files)
- YouTube
- Netflix
- Videos
- iPod
- BBC News
- MLB

As there are no shipping 2nd generation Apple TVs yet, no one has been able to confirm video playback from 3rd party apps yet. In theory, any streams that can play in the standard iOS video player should be able to be streamed/played to the new Apple TV (which also runs iOS). What's not so clear, however, is how protected content works such as Hulu. In additional, Hulu has been notoriously stubborn about allowing their content to be played anywhere other than their intended devices, so we expect they will limit this functionality if at all possible.

Also, since this is beta software, things could change drastically between now and release. One customer even emailed Steve Jobs if AirPlay will work for every video playback or just stuff from the iTunes library. Jobs simply replied "everything played in the Videos app."

Article Link: Will AirPlay Stream Hulu or Other Video Apps to Apple TV?

 

[bbydon]

Maybe this is how you play games (or apps, another MR poster said apps) on your tv.....possibly, Hopefully not just video. I Guess airplay might be the key to it all.

 

[gumak]

desktop

I wonder if you will be able to streamcast your desktop to ATV, should be great for playing games or just having your TV as an another screen

 

[talkingfuture]

This is what I was expecting when it was announced, there is no need for apps on the device and the storage that would go with them when it will just stream them from the iPhone/iPad that you are using as a remote.

 

[arn]

Maybe this is how you play games (or apps, another MR poster said apps) on your tv.....possibly, Hopefully not just video. I Guess airplay might be the key to it all.

Game video would be very hard to stream.

An iTunes video is easy. Just send the data file to Apple TV, and it will play it.
For a live video game? You'd have to convert it to h.264 on the fly, or send raw video.

arn

 

[baryon]

Hulu only works in the US, so I'm boycotting them! As if I had a choice...

 

[BeachChair]

Now I want one.

 

[ShaunC]

this should have been activated years ago so we didnt have to use crap like Airfoil

Will all these features work with iPhone4?

 

[ten-oak-druid]

I wonder if you will be able to streamcast your desktop to ATV, should be great for playing games or just having your TV as an another screen

This would be great.

 

[DavidLeblond]

So the Hulu content would stream to the iPhone/iPod/iPad and then stream back out to the Apple TV? Nice if they can pull this off, not holding my breath.

 

[inket]

Game video would be very hard to stream.

An iTunes video is easy. Just send the data file to Apple TV, and it will play it.
For a live video game? You'd have to convert it to h.264 on the fly, or send raw video.

arn

Or send frames ? But that would need Gigabit Ethernet at least.

 

[walnuts]

How about Pandora?

 

[gumak]

screensharing works quite fine in osx, if they optimise it for atv on wifi it might be usable

 

[mplaisance]

What?

this should have been activated years ago so we didnt have to use crap like Airfoil

Will all these features work with iPhone4?

I have Airfoil and it only streams audio. This is for BOTH audio and video though

 

[Redline13]

this should have been activated years ago so we didnt have to use crap like Airfoil

Will all these features work with iPhone4?

Not an Airfoil fan? I love it. It's one of my most used applications. What issues do you have with it?

 

[Mistrblank]

I wonder if you will be able to streamcast your desktop to ATV, should be great for playing games or just having your TV as an another screen

That wouldn't be great for games (I will admit it might be cool for everything else), there would be even more lag by pushing the stream over the air and you would lose some resolution to compression.

It's fine for a video or audio stream because you aren't interacting with it.

 

[ctdonath]

Is AirPlay really going to "push" videos from an iP* as expected?
I bought a iPad->VGA adapter, only to find that trying to play Watchmen on an attached big screen got a "Device Not Authorized For Playback" (or some such) popup, even though it played fine on the iPad screen. Hope something akin does not happen with AirPlay.

 

[jaykk]

Game video would be very hard to stream.

An iTunes video is easy. Just send the data file to Apple TV, and it will play it.
For a live video game? You'd have to convert it to h.264 on the fly, or send raw video.

arn

There are some devices which does exactly that, but not for $99


This HD Flow - Digital Full High Definition 1080P Wireless HDMI/Component System encodes the video in h.264 and then transmits via 802.11n followed by an h.264 decode.


But the Philips SWW1800/27 Wireless HDTV Link $590 at Amazon claims no compression at all. I almost bought it when the price was $230 @ amazon, now its around $600.

 

[Mistrblank]

It also occurs to me, I wonder if Apple is going to let us use the iDevices as targets/endpoints for AirPlay.

It might be neat to push video to an iPad, the internals have to be possible if that's how an AppleTv is working.

 

[mrmambo]

iPhone as controller--not great

I've actually tried playing games using the iPhone as a controller via jailbreak that streams my live screen to a TV via the Apple video output cable...doesn't work well.

Your eyes need to be focused on the screen you're interacting with, as it's a touch screen. If you look at the TV, you can't tell where your fingers are relative to the phone screen. Makes play very confusing.

If there were some kind of hover state detector that translated to a blur effect on the TV screen, it might work.

 

[elmo151]

I think netflix is an ap; and so would pandora, amazon tv, ......
I get all of these only roku..also $99

I have a problem with the requirement to keep my iMac on to watch a movie or listen to music. not very green, a waste of electricity.

the concept of moving from one device to another to watch a movie or listen to music is essentially silly.

 

[urbanlung]

The Apple games Console

Like many I was disapointed on discovering that the new Apple TV does not, at least outwardly run iOS in a fashion that would open it up as a games consol running the plethora of iOS games already available. OOOOps! it doesn't matter.With AirPlay presumably one can stream from ones handheld iOS device to the Apple TV and thus in effect turn it into a console in that it puts your iOS games on the telly.

iOS device + Apple TV = Games console

This is to all intents and purposes a games consol for free as far as Apple and developers are concerned.

Not perfect and maybe a little less tangiable than a wii for some but it does get Apple in the living room in a new way.

 

[hitekalex]

I am actually more interested in iTunes/Desktop server functionality of AirPlay..

If AirPlay lets me stream Xvid/DivX/MKV videos from my Mac Mini to my AppleTV(s) - that would be super cool.

 

[gibbz]

Well, since Netflix is built in to the new ATVs, who cares if the iPad can use AirPlay with it? The other ones would certainly be desired.

 

[b11051973]

What's not so clear, however, is how protected content works such as Hulu. In additional, Hulu has been notoriously stubborn about allowing their content to be played anywhere other than their intended devices, so we expect they will limit this functionality if at all possible.

You need Hulu Plus to stream to an iOS device. Hulu Plus also allows for streaming to a TV through a PS3 and Xbox 360 in the future. So, I would think Hulu would be OK with all this.

My concern is you get a lower quality stream to an iPhone. Will Hulu get smart enough to start streaming a higher resolution when you turn on Airplay? Displaying video meant for my iPhone on my 50" plasma does not sound like a good experience.