Can Apple TV AirPlay mirroring use a “secondary” screen/display

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Can Apple TV enable me to treat my TV as a wireless secondary screen (as one can do when directly connecting the TV via a cable), rather than simply mirroring my primary screen? I'd love to stream content to the TV while still using my laptop to do work.

(I know you can stream iTunes to the TV but that's very limited in what it can stream/play, e.g. can't stream content from arbitrary video websites.)

Best Answer

iPad 2 + Air Display. http://avatron.com/apps/air-display

Use Air Display to turn your iPad into a second monitor (totally cool in itself!), and then mirror your iPad to your apple tv.

OR, if you, like me, only have an iPad 1, then you can use your iPad as the main monitor and mirror your laptop screen.

Either way, you end up with three screens going, two of them the same.

That's the only way I know. Seems crazy that Apple can't come out with an update that allows the apple tv to be a second, rather than mirrored, screen.

Related Solutions

Screen capture software that streams to Apple TV

Check out Erica Sadun's AirFlick, part of her free AirPlay utilities package. You may have to do some fooling around to get it to send the screen instead of a file, but that should actually be doable with VLC, if she hasn't already built it in.

http://ericasadun.com/ftp/AirPlay/

Does AirPlay mirroring have any restrictions

There are restrictions on Airplay in Mountain Lion. It has to do with your video card that comes on the machines that you are using.

Your video card has to be powerful enough to do all the heavy lifting of streaming so that your CPU is unhindered and therefor you can smoothly still use your machine.

This question and answer should help you out and explain things and find an alternative, such as AirParrot.

Here is an Apple Support Article on the subject, listing the restrictions and giving more information on how Airplay Mirroring works.

Here is the excert from the article showing the compatible computers:

iMac (Mid 2011 or newer)
Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer)

As for a Mac Pro, they are not listed as a compatible model that supports Airplay Mirroring, as discussed in this article here.

You can still connect a cable and mirror in that sense, that has not changed in ML. The mirroring feature of using a separate display is a completely different process than Airplay Mirroring.

I hope that this answer helps you out.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Screen capture software that streams to Apple TV

Does AirPlay mirroring have any restrictions

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