Why the Airplay limitations?

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Level 1

1 points

Why the Airplay limitations?

3 things I expected that Airplay doesn't appear to deliver:
1. Videos I've taken with my phone that are in the camera roll
2. Videos I come across in Safari. Everything from ads, movie trailers and event streaming on Apple's own site to the increasing number of sites that support html5 video especially, in the UK, the BBC's excellent iPlayer
3. Video on 3rd party apps. I was especially looking forward to navigating TED talks on my iPad and then watching on TV or using Airvideo to watch videos from my home Mac when I'm staying with relatives.

I can't imagine why these use cases are not supported, but it's clearly more than just an oversight. Anyone have any suggestions, especially ones that give reason to hope support might come later? The technology itself, for the fairly limited supported use cases (limited because streaming videos from my iPhone/iPad that are already on my computer on the same network doesn't seem too smart), seems to work very well.

i7 27" iMac, 13" Macbook Pro, C2D 17" iMac, AppleTV, Time Capsule, iPhone 3GS, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Nov 22, 2010 1:01 PM

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Answer 1

Chenks

Level 5

7,435 points

Nov 22, 2010 1:02 PM in response to beaumoj

beaumoj wrote:
1. Videos I've taken with my phone that are in the camera roll

might be a bug, might not b e

2. Videos I come across in Safari. Everything from ads, movie trailers and event streaming on Apple's own site to the increasing number of sites that support html5 video especially, in the UK, the BBC's excellent iPlayer

i'm not sure there were ever claims that it would work via safari. most hoped but i don't think apple ever said it would

3. Video on 3rd party apps. I was especially looking forward to navigating TED talks on my iPad and then watching on TV or using Airvideo to watch videos from my home Mac when I'm staying with relatives.

it's up to the 3rd party developers to include airplay support, not apple.

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Answer 2

beaumoj Author

Level 1

1 points

Nov 22, 2010 1:51 PM in response to Chenks

@Chenks, thanks for a quick reply. Ref.
1. I hope it's a bug and gets fixed
2 and 3. What's puzzling about both of these is that the Airplay button is clearly visible just like on videos on the device, but when I select Apple TV only the sound is streamed not the video. So it looks like the functionality is nearly there, but for a flagship feature like this I find it hard to believe it's just a bug. Hopefully it is though, and gets resolved.

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Answer 3

Nov 22, 2010 2:18 PM in response to beaumoj

Yeah AirPlay support seems to already be included in many apps, yet only supports audio streaming via AirPlay, not video.

That means I can only stream video that's on the device, which means I sync it via iTunes, which means I can already stream it via AirPlay to Apple TV. I wanted to be able to stream the stuff I can't already stream to the Apple TV, like videos from the TED app, the PBS app, Safari, etc.

And not supporting the streaming of videos in your camera roll shot via iPhone 4 seems a huge oversight. That seems like a no-brainer along with stream photos from the camera roll (which it does support, and works great).

Fingers crossed that more is coming for AirPlay. If not, it's nothing to get excited about.

Message was edited by: George Coghill

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Answer 4

Nov 22, 2010 2:35 PM in response to George Coghill

Streaming videos on the camera roll is supported, just not user friendly. Here's a link with the steps http://www.tipb.com/2010/11/22/tip-airplay-play-home-movies-iphone-photo-app/

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Answer 5

Nov 22, 2010 2:40 PM in response to Ryan Aban

That process does not work. Take a browse through the comments on that page.

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Answer 6

Nov 22, 2010 2:42 PM in response to Ryan Aban

That tip may work for audio in other apps (note the screenshots with the speaker icon instead of the TV screen icon), but I couldn't even get it to stream audio for the videos I shot that are in the Photos app camera roll folder.

Message was edited by: George Coghill

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Answer 7

sheikhit

Level 1

0 points

Nov 22, 2010 2:59 PM in response to beaumoj

this is very disappointing as I was expecting to "video airplay" the safari videos or videos filmed on the iphone. Only audio is available. I was able to successfully video airplay any videos present in ipod section of iphone and youtube app. I can get that content on my apple tv already without the airplay... I hope this is fixed ASAP. Any app like safari that uses the regular video player should have video airplay functionality, not just audio...

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Answer 8

Rahbek

Level 1

0 points

Nov 22, 2010 5:52 PM in response to beaumoj

Yeah, I have tried all my media applications on the iPad with airplay. Only the native video app and you tube can stream video. If this is a limitation that is imposed by Apple than this is a monumental disappointment. The iPrint feature is also a huge disappointment - none of my printers are recognized. I believe that the very least Apple could do would be to clarify whether 3rd party updates will rectify the airplay video feature in 3rd party apps or whether this is a Apple imposed limitation. My fear is that it is yet another Apple imposed limitation.

While the concept of airplay is great, I fear that everytime I use a third party application that incorporates video I will be reminded of yet another example of unrealized potential.

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Answer 9

Waymen

Level 5

5,722 points

Nov 22, 2010 7:01 PM in response to beaumoj

Support for audio is a pretty simple case since Apple just needs to intercept the PCM audio that appears at the audio hardware interface and convert that to a streaming format that can be sent via AirPlay. The A4 CPU and the hardware codec in the iOS devices can do that type of processing quite easily.

However, video is a completely different matter. I doubt that the CPU in the A4 can do on-the-fly video conversion from just any video format, thus the originating video source must already be in a stream-compatible H.264 format. It's even possible that the format for successful AirPlay streaming is defined rather narrowly, meaning that not just any H.264 will work (possibly even for some formats that can play directly on the iOS device itself).

Lastly, content licensing issues are likely a much greater concern for video than they are for audio and for that reason Apple may require greater restriction on what can be streamed in video. Third-party apps may actually have to be changed to support AirPlay video, sort of like an explicit request that indicates that the third-party is okay with having their content streamed via AirPlay.

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Answer 10

Waymen

Level 5

5,722 points

Nov 22, 2010 7:07 PM in response to beaumoj

beaumoj wrote:
...I was especially looking forward to navigating TED talks on my iPad and then watching on TV...

You can already watch TED talks on the TV via the Apple TV's podcast feature. Or maybe I don't understand what you want to do, but you can also control the podcasts using Apple's Remote app on the iPad.

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Answer 11

DBrooks

Level 1

10 points

Nov 22, 2010 8:30 PM in response to Waymen

Wait a second. Most of the disappointment is about video shot by the Apple iPhone, not just any video format. Not being able to take THAT video and stream it to an ATV is absurd. Frankly, Apple seems to just keep half-assing things lately.

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Answer 12

Nov 22, 2010 9:59 PM in response to beaumoj

I too was hugely disappointed that there seems to be no support for streaming of videos off my camera roll as well. My thought was that I could take videos of my kids and then invite people to watch them - instantly - on my living room HD set. Now, it looks like i have to upload the video to MobileMe first, then watch them on AppleTV. Come on Apple, the streaming that works on AirPlay is cool but let's get camera roll video in there too!

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Answer 13

beaumoj Author

Level 1

1 points

Nov 22, 2010 11:00 PM in response to Waymen

Thanks all for the comments. I remain hopeful that all 3 use cases will eventually be supported because:

1. Camera roll. Discussed plenty elsewhere, maybe this just didn't make the initial cut.

2. Safari videos. If it's licensing issues, I imagine that would apply to connecting my iPhone via Apple's component video cable but that works fine - in fact, iOS 4.2.1 looks to have been upgraded for this, and explicitly now shows "This video is playing on the TV" when I stream Safari video to my TV with the cable. Airplay support might be technically harder though given that Apple has fairly rigid controls on the video formats the iPhone supports, it seems plausible that the AppleTV would support the same video formats which can be passed thru' direct via the iPhone avoiding the need for transcoding.

3. Third part app support. I agree Apple could have decided to leave this to individual developers - that's the way component cable video support works, and it makes a lot of sense. Does anyone know if the API has hooks for sending video via Airplay to confirm this? As to the "why would I want to do this", for me the iPhone, and especially the iPad, would make a great device for navigating a video app (reading the summaries etc.) but when I find the video (TED talk or whatever) I want to watch just pressing a button and watching it on the TV would be great.

Thanks again.

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Answer 14

Nov 22, 2010 11:13 PM in response to beaumoj

I hope the camera videos omission wasn't for this far-fetched but possible reason: the content providers and their lawyers don't want people shooting HD video of copyrighted material on their phones and then using AppleTV to watch the "pirated" copy on their big screen TV. As dumb as that sounds it doesn't take too much imagination to think that's something the lawyers drew up in their content negotiations with Apple. God I hope it's not the case. That would just make the joke "What do you call 20 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?" truer than ever. Oh, and if you didn't know the punch line is "a good start."

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Answer 15

Nov 22, 2010 11:57 PM in response to beaumoj

Good point on the component video out cable.

I also agree with your argument for the "stream from an app" functionality — sure, we can do this via the Apple TV directly (in some circumstances), but usually it's a situation where I find some interesting video while surfing (whether via app or via Safari) and would like to be able to plop it on the big screen without having to hunt it down all over again.

Full-length documentaries and films on Google Video would be excellent in this situation.

I'd like to see the You Tube app support playlists. Another huge oversight.

John Gruber has some interesting points and thoughts about the situation here:

http://daringfireball.net/2010/11/airplay_limits

Sure, there are less-ideal workarounds to achieve this stuff, but with the carrot of AirPlay dangling right in front of you, it's hard not to be disappointed with the actual implementation of a feature they touted so heavily.

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