Q: How to create a 'parallel' extended display through Apple TV Airplay
Dear all,
I'm a relatively new Mac user and have not been able to find an answer to my question by looking up key words in Google or here, so apologies if this has been answered before.
Basically, I would like to know how I can project a video file or a film/TV series I am watching (for example, a video playing in VLC or a film streaming from my subscription to Amazon Prime Instant Video website, open in a browser) onto my Toshiba TV, via Apple TV airplay - whilst still being able to work on a separate window/desktop on my MacBook Air.
As a PC user slowly converting to Mac, I know how to do this on a PC by using the Windows logo key
+P shortcut, choosing 'Extend' instead of 'Duplicate' and then dragging whatever video source I want to watch into the extended desktop screen being projected on my TV. I've tried doing this on the Mac by
- using the multiple desktops in Mission Control (with no success, as Airplay obviously just mirrors what I'm doing on my screen onto the TV, i.e. switching from desktop to desktop as I do on the computer), or
- by clicking 'Extend Desktop' instead of the automatic 'Mirror Built-in Display' on the Airplay icon on the menu bar and then dragging the browser into the extended display on the TV and hitting the 'Full screen' button of the video itself. However, as soon as I do this and click or type anything on my computer desktop, the video automatically minimizes and all I'm left with on the TV display is the browser with the initial smaller version of the film playing within it. In the 'View' tab, I've tried switching Firefox/Safari to 'Full screen' before making the video 'Full screen' too, but again, as soon as I touch anything back on my Mac desktop it minimizes. I've noticed Chrome has an 'Enter Presentation Mode' option available in the 'View' tab, which leaves the video playing full screen, but with a grey bar at the top (which is visually annoying, but still closer to what I'm looking for). Similarly, if I try to drag a video file playing in VLC, as soon as I hit the full screen button, the desktop I'm using on the Mac goes black even though I can still move the cursor on it.
I'm clearly missing a step somewhere, so any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm a prolific multitasker!
MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), Parallels8 with Windows 7 installed
Posted on Jul 21, 2014 3:20 AM
