Airplay Mirroring Lags and Sputters

Is all of your software up to date on both your Mac and Apple TV? Run  > Software Update on your Mac and run Settings > General > Updates on your Apple TV.

Why use Airplay Mirroring for video playback? iTunes Home Sharing is the best solution and you can use your Mac for other tasks while it's playing videos on your AppleTV.

Therabyte,

Home Sharing works only for iTunes content. Some people want to watch online content like Hulu, video clips on various websites, etc.

Besides, if you are dealing with iTunes content, you can use regular AirPlay from within iTunes (which has been available for quite a while, before Mountain Lion), and it works better. No need to use Home Sharing in that context.

I see your point, but sooner or later those people will end using an HDMI cable or buying a Mini for their TV's, because Mirroring just can't handle fullscreen playback of HD content at 1080. I tried with my rMBP and my ATV3 and it was sad.

Most videos can be converted to iTunes within minutes if the video track is already MP4. My video camera isn't compatible with iTunes, but it can write to the MKV format. Using Subler I can convert those videos to M4V without reencoding and then play them on my ATV from the Home Sharing service.

You could try Aimersoft. It costs but isn't too expensive. I've been using it for a couple of years and am happy with it. Try the demo first to see if it does what you want

I think we're a way off from a perfect wireless second monitor. A year ago I tried a few on the iPad and had the same lagginess and haven't been inclined to try anything since. I just don't think Wi-Fi is the way to go. Maybe in about 2 or 5 years from now we will have a suitable wireless solution for a monitor. It's hard to predict at this point.

The best way to view your content is to create a dedicated server. LaCie makes a Media box like Apple TV with less bells and whistles, but it will play a lot more file types if you don't want to convert your videos. The only drawback to it is that you would have to purchase and install Twonky Server to get it to work (it's about $20-$30) as well, and to be honest, it just doesn't work as well on my Mac Server as it did on my Windows Server.

Of course, the other option is the one I stated above.

I was lucky in that I've always converted my videos to mp4 because I always believed that it was the most universal. I use a dedicated file server with iTunes running and my Apple TV works great with it.

I had this problem and what I did was instead of connecting to the 5 ghz connection on my dual band router, I connected both Apple TV (3rd Gen) and MBP (New 2012) to the 2.4 ghz (or whatever the slower speed is) and the delay now is only about a second for everything.

I'm not real tech savvy but for whatever reason this works! Hope this helps!

LordHelmet777... Thank you for that tip on switching the wifi connection! I just got an apple TV and was so disappointed when the Airplay for my MBP (early 2011) was not showing up on my TV. Switching to the 2.4 ghz connection worked instantly. What a relief! I wonder why 5ghz connections on Wifi networks don't work. Maybe it'll work in an update, who knows.

Thanks again LordHelmet!

I was having the same trouble, there was a lot of lag between the two screens and iphoto was just not streaming, changed to the 2.4G on my dual band router and voila .... it works, I had just about made up my mind to pack the thing up and return, am glad I read your post.