Another AppleTV anomaly with mirroring from the iPad

TidBITS Talk
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In a way this is a follow-up to my discussion about Stuttering/pauses after the recent ATV updates (haven’t done todays update yet).

That does appear to have been fixed by setting the audio output to stereo.

This time it’s Mirroring that is the issue.

I regularly mirror Safari from my iPad to the TV in the lounge if we are sitting on the sofa and looking at holiday destinations/hotels etc. No problem there. I can also play videos from the iPad

But, if I try to mirror from the desktop in the next room to the TV, I can’t.

The screen mirroring control on the Mac cannot see the TV. All it shows is the iPad as the only target.

I have tried going through all the sharing setting but nothing changes that.

This is something we have been doing for ages without a problem.

We have a party coming up shortly and the are some videos that I would like to present on the ATV and it looks as though the only way Im going to achieve is to transfer them to the iPad first.

Any thoughts?

(as yet I haven’t tried mirroring to the iPad and then on to the ATV)

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Well the analog answer would be to buy a 25 foot HDMI cable to temporarily go from Mac to Apple TV, right?

Because Monoprice manufactures its own cables, and doesn’t merely slap its brand on a cable, I’ve always gone with them for cables.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15429

They sell through Amazon also, although Amazon isn’t always reliable in stocking the variation you want.

Supposing you connect the Mac directly to the Apple TV, and it STILL doesn’t show video on the Apple TV. Is the Mac’s video output flawed or buggy? You’d have a partial answer at least.

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I agree, but note that not all of their cables are certified HDMI. You don’t want a long non-certified cable, because it might not be able to carry the bandwidth you require.

The specific cable to which you linked is certified, so no problem with that one, but be sure to read the specs when shopping.

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I thought that HDMI was output-only from the Apple TV, but obviously a cable that can reach the Apple TV can reach the TV itself.

As for AirPlay / mirroring to Apple TV from Mac, I never do that myself (though I just tried it for the first time; it worked fine for me.) But, on the Apple TV, Settings / AirPlay and Apple Home / Allow Access - try changing that to Everyone or Anyone, if you haven’t already tried that?

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Could you use Homesharing? You can create a video playlist on the Mac and access it via the Computers app on the Apple TV.

Regarding mirroring, a while ago I found that swapping between ethernet and wifi on the Apple TV fixed handshake issues with Macs. It had something to do with wifi channels (or smart router optimisers) confusing the ATV. Once the Mac (hopefully) finds the ATV you should be able to change back to wifi if that is your preference.

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Cheers Michael

I hadn’t thought of that. I can play music from the Mac liked that.

Once upon a time I could choose which mac I wanted to connect to but now I can only get this one.

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For those who have not previously set up Home Sharing be aware that you can’t set it up entirely in the Apple TV app or the Music app. You will also need to visit System Settings to activate and configure the service. All the steps are covered in this Apple Support article:

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