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apple tv (3rd generation)

would an apple tv connected to an imac with an ethernet cable act like airplay and display content from the screen of the imac?

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Apr 9, 2021 1:27 PM

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13 replies

Apr 9, 2021 2:39 PM in response to KatDeB

I can't say..... I think that you would have to run two ethernet cables into your router, with one running to your iMac and the other to your Apple TV, but if you are purchasing a Apple TV for AirPlay, usually people want to go wireless, because if you want to get a Apple TV and then wire it up to do airplay from a computer, you may as well get a HDMI cable. I can assure you that AirPlay will work very well through WIFi.

Apr 9, 2021 3:29 PM in response to vazandrew

this is what i'm talking about. you & others on this community are much smarter than me. i didn't understand the difference between airplay and mirroring. i was getting lag with mirroring but when i use airplay there was none. i was overthinking this issue but you and taylormark helped me see a very simple solution that doesn't require extra cables.

Apr 9, 2021 3:51 PM in response to KatDeB

Don't put yourself down, been doing this for quite some time and am just more familiarized with these things. Both are part of airplay, one is just sending media directly and the other is mirroring the screen. If you had lag it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t use it, but may simply require some investigation and tweaking to see if the network issues can be overcome.


I assume you were referring to the option to wire via HDMI. In that case you would be bypassing Apple TV/airplay and tethering your Mac to your Tv, if you’re ok with that approach then you can definitely look into that.

apple tv (3rd generation)

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