Wanting Apple TV for mirroring, guess I'm out of luck.

[smokey982]

With Mountain Lion coming out this week I've been all excited about finally buying an Apple TV to use airplay mirroring. Well after looking through some forums on the web it appears that's no longer an option. I purchased my iMac last year sometime (can't remember exact date) and it still seems very new to me. But apparently it's too old to support mirroring. According to Apple's website, mirroring is only supported on iMac's from mid 2011 or newer. Well after doing some digging, mine is mid 2010. It really ticks me off especially since I didn't buy it until sometime in 2011. So I guess I'm out of luck. Does anyone else have a mac that's mid 2010 that been able to get the mirroring to work? I don't understand what's so different about the two models that mine wouldn't work. I guess since that was the main reason I wanted the apple tv I'll be holding off for now.

 

[Foxbat]

I don't have an iMac, but I reported in the other Mountain Lion thread that AirPlay is missing from my Late 2009 Mac Mini. I believe it has to do with the GPU that's on your iMac.

 

[stimpson]

Mid 2010 MBP here. No mirroring.

Sent from my iPad using SatelliteGuys

 

[Foxbat]

I wonder what graphics card you would need in a Mac Pro to get AirPlay. It seems like AirPlay is coming as something as a disappointment to most ML upgraders.

 

[smokey982]

Is an upgrade possible(I'm fairly new to macs)? I would definitely consider an upgrade, depending on cost, in order to get airplay working.

 

[Foxbat]

Is an upgrade possible(I'm fairly new to macs)? I would definitely consider an upgrade, depending on cost, in order to get airplay working.

That's the trade off with buying a Mac: what you get works for the time you have it, but short of adding more memory or replacing the hard drive, the normal Mac user lives with what they bought.

The Mac Pro is the only consumer Mac I know of which allows internal expansion. Any Mac with Thunderbolt can be expanded with an external PCI-e card cage which should support a beefier Graphics card, but those would support AirPlay natively since Thunderbolt was introduced after the 2010 cutoff.

Lack of upgradability keeps support issues at a minimum for Apple. If you really wanted to get AirPlay, locating a refurbished 2011 Mac is cheaper than buying a new one. Plus, you may get enough money for your old Mac from Gazelle or one of the other sites that deals in the used Macintosh market to lessen the pain of your "upgrade".

 

[smokey982]

Well I went ahead and purchased Apple TV today anyways because I have an iPad 2 that I can use for AirPlay (I would have preferred to mirror from my Mac). But so far it seems to be a pretty sweet little device. But one question, is 5.1 audio not an option on apple tv? I have HDMI run from the unit into my Denon 1909 receiver and then to my tv. But I'm only getting 2 channel stereo.

 

[Foxbat]

It depends on the material. I've watched movies from the iTunes Store that played 5.1 on through my Yamaha RX-V663 receiver, so the Apple TV can output DD 5.1. If I play music I get the DD 2.0 designation.

Have you played around with the Audio & Video settings on your Apple TV's Settings? You could try forcing 16-bit Audio Output or forcing Dolby Digital on.

 

[meStevo]

Maybe AirParrot is the answer? As usual people have found a way to add the 'magic' to older hardware, some limitations apply, but so does some flexibility and functionality.

Mountain Lion AirPlay mirroring v. AirParrot: fight! | Ars Technica

 

[lparsons21]

Thanks for that!!! Great little app that works so well.

I wonder what the licensing is like? I mean I have an iMac in another room, and that works with this app, but I also have a W7 laptop that would work too and might be handier in some cases.

 

[lparsons21]

Answering my own question

Emailed them and they said it is one license one computer. I'm not particularly thrilled with that, but I got it for the Mac anyway. I"ll decide later if putting it on my W7 laptop is in my best interest.

One thing I did find out when fiddling with this was that both my Magic Mouse and Bluetooth keyboard will work from 15' away!

 

[Foxbat]

One thing I did find out when fiddling with this was that both my Magic Mouse and Bluetooth keyboard will work from 15' away!

Yeah, I found that when I moved my Magic Trackpad upstairs, the Mac Mini downstairs was still trying to use it! Once I figured that out and deleted the Trackpad from the Mac Mini, it started working a lot better.