Q: Mirroring MacBook Pro onto AppleTV

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities

AirPlay Mirroring requires an Early 2011 or newer MacBook Pro, so your computer is compatible. Read > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5404

You have two options:

1. Upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion. After upgrading to Mountain Lion, you will see the AirPlay icon on the menu bar. You can purchase OS X Mountain Lion in the App Store. Make a backup before upgrading to OS X Mountain Lion.

2. Continue using Lion, and use a third-party app like AirParrot > http://www.airparrot.com

About AirPlay and Airplay Mirroring

AirPlay Mirroring requires a second-generation Apple TV or later, and is supported on the following Mac models: iMac (Mid 2011 or newer), Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer), MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer), and MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer). For non-qualifying Macs you can try using Air Parrot.

Several Apple Articles Regarding AirPlay

Apple TV (2nd and 3rd gen)- How to use AirPlay Mirroring

How to set up and configure AirPort Express for AirPlay and iTunes

About AirPlay Mirroring in OS X Mountain Lion

iTunes 10- About playing music with AirPlay

Troubleshooting AirPlay and AirPlay Mirroring

Using AirPlay

Thanks to the $15 Beamer, AirPlay streaming is still possible on Macs  that do not support Airplay and mirroring.

Another solution is the Air Parrot.

AirPlay Mirroring is a Mountain Lion feature, and that's why you can't mirror your computer to the Apple TV now, so you have to upgrade to Mountain Lion. If you don't want, as I told you, download AirParrot

It is no cash grap. You can upgrade to Mountian Lion for a measly $19.99 or not. The choice is yours. Apple added the new feature to Mountain Lion which is a big plus. For that measly $19.99 you get Airplay Mirroring and 200 other new features. I would call that a bargain. Or you can purchase Air Parrot for $9.99. But griping will never make it work.

I have upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion but I still do not see the Airplay Icon on the menus bar ... Do I need to open or do something to enable the airplay icon ??? Need help too

What model is your computer? It needs to be 2011 or later. Did you check the troubleshooting guide?

I echo your question(s) and concern(s) as I find that my mid 2010 macbook pro is not supported when it comes to airplay.  If you scroll right to the bottom of the Apple TV website you find the small print with regard to mirroring.  Unfortunatally I didn't read the small print until after I purchased Apple TV.  The website graphic of a MacBook misled me to believe my less than 2 year old purchase of a macbook would work.  So, the question in my mind that remains unanswerable by Apple Support... "why can a third party (AirParrot) get a mirroring function to work, but the geniuses at Apple development can't?".  Further, It strikes me odd that my system report even shows "Mirror" as OFF.  Almost like its a variable parameter that could be turned on if Apple wanted to turn it on. I did turn the mirror function on in my Display properties.  It struck me as odd that the property says "Show mirroring options in menu bar if available".  That was my first clue that I was in for trouble.  It's not often that one finds a property that is open ended like that.

Hummm... yet another newly released so called "feature" that is not backwards compatible.   Buyer beware.  I never thought I'd have to say that about Apple products.  

1. AirPlay is available on all devices running iOS 4.3 or later. Some features require the latest software. Second-generation Apple TV or later required.
2. AirPlay Mirroring is available with iPad 2 or later; iPhone 4S; iPhone 5; iPod touch (5th generation); and iMac (Mid 2011 or newer), Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer), MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer) and MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer) with Mountain Lion.
3. Dual-screen capability is available with iPad 2 or later, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPod touch (5th generation).

NVIDIA GeForce 320M:

  Chipset Model:          NVIDIA GeForce 320M

  Type:          GPU

  Bus:          PCI

  VRAM (Total):          256 MB

  Vendor:          NVIDIA (0x10de)

  Device ID:          0x08a0

  Revision ID:          0x00a2

  ROM Revision:          3533

  Displays:

Color LCD:

  Display Type:          LCD

  Resolution:          1280 x 800

  Pixel Depth:          32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

  Main Display:          Yes

  Mirror:          Off

  Online:          Yes

  Built-In:          Yes

Native mirroring requires the newer chip in order to do the video encoding, the requirements are also listed on the Mountain Lion page. Airparrot is done through software and relying on the CPU, the results are mixed.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5404

I purchaed Air Parrot for my 2009 iMac running Mountian Lion. I have found AirParrot to work perfectly and at $10 a bargain.

I also have a 2010 MBP with Mountain Lion so no air play. I purchased Air Parrott. It works pretty well. One bug exists somewhere in relation to Keynote. I have my presentations set up to use dual displays with the presenter display on the MBP and the presentation on 1080P on the second display ( extended desktop ? )  Works great hardwired to the second display. Using Air Parrott when I hit play on the ketynote presentation it puts up the message that not enough video ram is available and to change the color resolution from millions to thousands.

This is a bogus message in my estimation. First off there is no way to do that. Second i tried a test. With my computer on wireless I started up air Parrott, turned on extended display, Put Safari in the extended display on the Apple TV using Air Parrott. Brought up the Apple web site and went to the WWDC keynote and started it playing and sent it full screen. It was in HD or near it. So now I have the wireless router streaming the video to my computer, air play is putting it on the estended desktop and sending it back out the same iwreless connection to the Apple TV, with audio, and I still have my original MBP desktop functional. Granted things on the desktop are slow but the ATV is keeping up just fine.

I didn't evven bother to check CPU usage but if this was not using a lot of CPU time and all that the MBP Intel HD graphics with 288 mb of memory could stand, then I'll eat my hat. Surely fixed, non animated images on keynote can't be more demanding that this.

JIm

Why then does airplay work fine using iTunes on a Macbook mid 2007?  I also tried AirParrot and the results were not good.  Seems to me like Apple could get this to work, though they just want people to have to upgrade computers (and OSX).

That's because it's simply pushing video and audio. Mirroring is completely different, and native use requires the newer chip for video encoding (it is displaying your computer activity in real time). Apple could have extened support to older machines but the results would have been mixed (similar to Airparrot).