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BootLoxes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 15, 2019
745
857
If I am not mistaken, mirroring is limited to 720p on the current appletv. It honestly does not look very good. I really hope they can up the mirroring to 1080p or 4k if they manage to pull off a miracle
 

Rigby

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2008
6,210
10,148
San Jose, CA
The limiting factor for mirroring is not so much the ATV but the source device. Essentially it has to copy the screen content at a high frame rate, compress the resulting image stream in real time, and send it to the ATV. That's a lot of processing.
 
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BootLoxes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 15, 2019
745
857
The limiting factor for mirroring is not so much the ATV but the source device. Essentially it has to copy the screen content at a high frame rate, compress the resulting image stream in real time, and send it to the ATV. That's a lot of processing.

arent ipad pros also limited to 720p when mirrored? Something doesnt sound right. My mini 2 mirrors just as fluidly as my air 3
 

BODYBUILDERPAUL

Suspended
Feb 9, 2009
1,773
1,438
Barcelona
I agree with Rigby on this one.

I tend to think of mirroring as good for Keynote (that's Apple's better/professional/creative version of the rather bland PowerPoint) presentations etc connected to an old plasma screen which makes 720p look great however, I don't recommend it for anything else. Stick to AirPlay if you demand quality.
 

BootLoxes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 15, 2019
745
857
Even newer Macs struggle getting a good framerate when mirroring ...
Not sure what to tell you. It seems fluid on my end. Just really low res

I agree with Rigby on this one.

I tend to think of mirroring as good for Keynote (that's Apple's better/professional/creative version of the rather bland PowerPoint) presentations etc connected to an old plasma screen which makes 720p look great however, I don't recommend it for anything else. Stick to AirPlay if you demand quality.

mostly i connect it to the apple tv and write documents for work in pages. It seems very fluid. I was just wanting a higher res. I might just bite the bullet and get an ipad pro to do 4k via usbc
 

Rigby

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2008
6,210
10,148
San Jose, CA
Not sure what to tell you. It seems fluid on my end. Just really low res
Yeah well, they chose a compromise that works reasonably well across most use cases. Higher resolutions would require more processing power on the sending device. Try mirroring while playing a movie or a game to see what I mean with regard to the framerate. ;)

In any case, the ATV is not the bottleneck here since it is obviously perfectly capable of playing back video streams at much higher quality. The problem is on the encoding side.
 

BootLoxes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 15, 2019
745
857
Yeah well, they chose a compromise that works reasonably well across most use cases. Higher resolutions would require more processing power on the sending device. Try mirroring while playing a movie or a game to see what I mean with regard to the framerate. ;)

In any case, the ATV is not the bottleneck here since it is obviously perfectly capable of playing back video streams at much higher quality. The problem is on the encoding side.
So a 16” mbp should be able to do higher than 720p?
 

waw74

macrumors 601
May 27, 2008
4,664
938
mirroring is a poor option, as it sacrifices quality to maintain sync between your devices

since it's using the "live image" from your screen, it has to convert each frame, and transmit it to the aTV, all with no perceptible time difference between the two screens.
even if you're watching a video file that's already encoded, the mirroring transcoder doesn't see the image till it hits the screen on the transmitting device.

when pre-converting a video, some sections take less time, because there's less change between frames, others take more time. But with mirroring, they all have to take the same amount of time.

There's a second option for airplay, where it sends the video location to the aTV, that works much better since the aTV is playing the pre-encoded video file, instead of having to play, convert and transmit in real time. (this is where the video turns into the airplay logo on your iOS device)
 

ignatius345

macrumors 604
Aug 20, 2015
6,783
11,084
mirroring is a poor option, as it sacrifices quality to maintain sync between your devices

For watching a video, sure -- but there are other uses for screen mirroring, like group collaboration on a document, etc.
 

BootLoxes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 15, 2019
745
857
Mostly i am just looking to write documents, make presentations, and browse the web. Nothing too demanding.

but I move a lot in the room I work in so a cable makes it hard to do that. Mirroring seems like a good option but i want better quality. I guess the tech just isnt here yet.
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
The limiting factor for mirroring is not so much the ATV but the source device. Essentially it has to copy the screen content at a high frame rate, compress the resulting image stream in real time, and send it to the ATV. That's a lot of processing.

I always thought the other factor was the transmission... 802.11ac may be ok,, but not everyone has an AC router for Wi-fi mirroring
 
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