If you don't have a supported Mac, however, you can still stream media to an Apple TV. The downside is that older machines, and all Mac Pros, are left out of the "official" AirPlay party. The upside is that if you have a supported Mac and are running Mountain Lion, AirPlay Mirroring works as advertised. No matter what you are doing or what resolution you are running, AirPlay Mirroring in Mountain Lion requires an integrated Intel HD3000 or HD4000 graphics processor and its QuickSync technology to work, full stop. What confirmed this requirement for me was the fact that my Retina MacBook Pro switched to integrated Intel HD4000 graphics even when otherwise running on the discrete NVIDIA GT 650M GPU. What separates these Macs from other Mountain Lion-compatible machines is that these are the only models that have support for Intel's QuickSync technology. If your Mac isn't on that list, your won't ever see an AirPlay option in Mountain Lion's menubar. Mountain Lion's integrated AirPlay mirroring support only works with the following Mac models: On my test Retina MacBook Pro, the display automatically switched to a 1920x1080 pixel resolution and started streaming video and audio to the 55" flat panel in my living room.Ĭhris Foresman Only QuickSync-compatible Macs need apply Once your settings are turned on in System Preferences > Displays, click the AirPlay icon in the menu bar, click Apple TV, and that's it (assuming your computer and Apple TV are on the same network). Native Mountain Lion methodĪpple has integrated AirPlay Mirroring into Mountain Lion in a very Apple-like way. There are pros and cons to each method of mirroring your Mac's display to an Apple TV we'll detail both below. It also offers some unique features that Apple's implementation does not. A third-party shareware app that works with Snow Leopard or later on a variety of Mac hardware is available, and we found it works quite well. QuickSync is a feature of the integrated graphics built into Intel's Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge series processors.īut if you have an older machine or haven't updated to Mountain Lion, it doesn't necessarily mean you can't stream your Mac's display to an Apple TV. The reason, we discovered, is that the feature relies on Intel's QuickSync hardware-accelerated video compression technology. Have a 2010 MacBook Air? A Mac Pro? An older iMac? Well, there's no Airplay Mirroring for you. That "supported Mac" limitation is important, however: only 2011 or newer MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, Mac minis, and iMacs can use Mountain Lion's built-in AirPlay support. We took the feature for a spin following Mountain Lion's launch last Wednesday, and found that it worked exactly as advertised-as long as you have a supported Mac. Beyond sharing your Mac's screen for demonstrations, AirPlay Mirroring can be useful in several other scenarios: giving presentations (no VGA adapter needed), streaming the iTunes visualizer during a party, watching TV shows via Hulu, playing Diablo III on your huge flat screen. Mountain Lion brings AirPlay Mirroring from iOS to OS X, allowing users to mirror their Mac screen to an HDTV or projector attached to an Apple TV.
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