Hi,
Is there anyone who tested how much bandwidth does Airplay use for regular usage?
For instance, does anyone have specifics (e.g. by testing it out and monitoring network usage through Activity Monitor)?
I cannot find specifics on this anywhere.
Thanks,
MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion
Hello there,
I suspect, but have no proof, that when you AirPlay something from iOS it has to go thru your wifi multiple times. Example, I have the Plex app on my iPad:
1) Content gets to my iPad from the Plex Sever on my Linux Box.
2) It goes to the AirPort device when I select AirPlay.
3) The AirPort sends it to the AppleTV
That's 3 times the content travels thru my wifi before it displays on my TV. I just helped a friend with a similar setup, except I his case, the media for the Plex Server is stored on a Time Capsule which, I believe, adds an extra round trip of the content thru his wifi (for a grand total of 5 times!). Can somebody prove me wrong? I'd love to see some study of AirPlay bandwidth usage so I can plan my home network accordingly :)
There are not going to be any flat numbers available for that.
It would be like asking how much gas to do people use to drive to work. There is no flat answer. Depends on how far you drive, number of hills, starts, stops, etc.
Same thing for this. The amount of bandwith used depends on what you are sending. Music, Images, movies all use differnt amounts, encoding, compression, packet collision, the amount of error correction on your network, etc. Will all effect this.
And Erasmix is correct. You are making and maintaing multiple connections when using AirPlay. Which is why it is much better to use iCloud or iTunes to source your content.
Airplay and bandwidth usage
