Newbie Apple TV user with a few queries?

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Level 1

1 points

Newbie Apple TV user with a few queries?

Finally got decent broadband speed so thought I'd treat myself to Apple TV. My first gripe is that the little remote that comes with it also controls my Macbook, is there anyway to stop this? I need my Macbook on to stream videos and music, but when I'm using the remote for Apple TV it starts messing with the volume on my Macbook, and also will start music playing whenever I press the enter button or play button on the little remote :-/ I know I can use the remote app on my iphone, but it would be nice if I could use the physical remote too.

Secondly, can I stream music across from my Macbook or iphone 5 to play through Apple TV, or is the only way to play my music collection via iCloud using iTunes match?

In order to watch movies from my Macbook on Apple TV do they have to be in iTunes, or can I somehow play any movies stored on my Macbook? Maybe mirroring or something?

Can I view photos through Apple TV from my Macbook, or do I have to use photostream? I don't like photostream as I seem to end up with duplicates across devices, and also I don't have enough storage anyway.

Any help greatly appreciated 😎

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on May 1, 2013 7:33 AM

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Answer 1

Rudegar

Level 10

170,730 points

May 1, 2013 9:28 AM in response to snerkler1

1

both the appletv and the macbook can be paired with exclusively 1 remote

its in settings on both devices

2

you can airplay where you use the appletv as speakers

or you can set your itunes lib to be a shared lib then the appletv can access the supported media in the lib just like another computer would

3

airplay mirror would well mirror so unless it's encrypted like dvd's can be (in which case you will get squares)

it should play on the appletv

but not that many macs support airplay mirror and it also require mnt lion

check here if your mac support it

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

the reason behind which computers support it is their video cards they have to support H.264 encoding in realtime in the video card

if your mac is not supported you can take a look at the program called Airparrot it brings airplay mirror for systems which are not supported but the performance could be worse as the cpu have to handle the encoding on top of the other stuff it needs to do

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Answer 2

snerkler1 Author

Level 1

1 points

May 1, 2013 2:10 PM in response to Rudegar

Thanks for the help. I was on Lion hence why I couldn't mirror. Am downloading Mountain Lion again as I type (Had it before but went back to Lion as the shut down times bugged me with mountain lion).

Also, I've found out how to disable the Apple TV remote in the Macbook preferences.

I tried the mirroring with my iphone and have to say I'm very impressed, I like how sound is also played through the TV 🙂

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