Ive recently bought a apple tv 3rd generation. Everything seems to be working fine with airplay from my iphone to apple tv, but when I try and use airplay from my mac book pro, it is extremely slow, and if I try and stream a movie or something its that terrible it is unwatchable and usually freezes then stops. How can I resolve this problem? is this a problem with the apple tv?
The problem is not with you AppleTV or your Mac. Your problem is the network. I had the same problem and finally solved it.
airplay makes screen mirroring, there is a lot more data to be sent from you mac than from your iPhone or iPad
-> airplay can be okay from the small monitor, but jumpy/lag from your mac->Network handles the smaller data sufficiently enough.
"five bars on my wifi" does not mean you get great signal strength.
-->press "alt"-key on your keyboard and then click on the WiFi symbol on your mac to get more data.
You want to look at "RSSI" and "Noise".
- RSSI (=received signal strength indication) can go from 0 to -100 (on apple). Closer to 0 is better, closer to -100 is worse. My RSSI is -54dBm meaning that the signal strength is 54dBm less powerful when it reaches my mac than when it left the base station. For WiFi normal range is from -45 to -87. Below -85 is more or less unusable (for example -90 is just horrible).
- Noise is a combination of all unwanted interfering signal sources (your wifi is not the only one in the neighbourhood, radio frequencies interference etc). this is valued form 0 to -120dBm. Closer to -120 is better(little to no ninterference), closer to 0 is worse. My Noise is -94dBm.
Calculate your SNR margin by doing the following:
SNR margin = RSSI(dBm) - Noise(dBm)
for example my RSSI is -54dBm and my Noise is -94dBm and thus
my SNR margin = -54dBm - (-94dBm)= +40 --> the higher the better.
SNR over 40 excellent, 25 to 40 good, 15 to 25 airplay probably will lag, under 15 is just horrible.
What can you do to get better SNR margin which means of course no lag/jumpy video on airplay form you mac to AppleTV.
1. You can use a router that has 5Ghz instead of "the normal 2.4GHz"
-5GHz is faster with a good signal, but 2,4GHz will go through walls better. A couple of walls(even thin walls) will kill 5GHz quickly, distance also kills it more quicker than a 2,4GHz. Most people use 2.4 GHz and the channels on 2.4GHz are more crowded.
2. You can use ethernet cables to connect either your mac or your apple tv to you router. Beware there are different ethernet cables though, I tried an old ethernet cable which i got in 2000, but boy did my internet connection (internet speed test) get worse readings than through WiFi.
3. You can buy a powerline adapters (sends your network to your power line)
What did I do?
a) My router is upstairs (I get internet from 4g antenna mounted on my outer wall). ->Airplay really bad (new AppleTV 3rd gen, new 27' iMac).
b) I bought a router that handles 2.4gHz and 5Ghz (TP-Link Archer C7, cheap & got lots of awards), connected it with a new ethernetcable to my upstairs router. Connected appleTV and iMac to the new router on the 5Ghz bandwidth. -> Airplay got better but still bad.
c) put my MacBook Pro into use, pressed "alt" key and then pressed the WiFI symbol on the top right corner, looked at my RSSI and Noise and noticed that next to my apple TV my SNR margin was a lot better than next to my iMac, so the problem was the WiFi connection between my iMac to router rather than between my router and appleTV.
d) Used a longer ethernet cable so that my Archer was upstairs above the room my iMac is in-> SNR margin got better-> airplay got better ->still not watchable enough.
e) bought power line adapters (didn't know they existed, didn't believe they were good, my brother recommended them, the shop offered a 30 days trial & return policy) (Netgear powerline AV500 (XAVB5401)). Now I get internet through 4g to my original upstairs router. Upstairs router to Netgear powerline via ethernetcable. Downstairs the internet comes from my power outlet via the second Netgear powerline through ethernet cable to my Archer C7 router. iMac and appleTv are connected to Archer-router via 5Ghz WiFi. ->Airplay works wonderfully with VLC,iDVD,Quicktime,iTunes, from a movie DVD connected to my iMac.
One could of course just use router to powerline via ethernet cable and then powerline to mac and another poweline to appleTv that would have been the neater solution.
You can also look what channels your neighbors use (press "alt"-key + click on WiFI symbol). there are some charts in the net that show what channels interfere , what channel should you put your router on.
An easy test should be to put your router, computer and Apple TV next to each others and try airplay (hey your router doesn't have to be connected to the internet to be able to do this), if that solves the lag, then your network is definately the problem (SNR margin remember?).
Hope this helped, i cursed that I didn't find an explanation like this, people just say "bad apple", "why doesn't apple fix this", "I have 5 bars on my Wifi so the network can not be my problem" "solved it by lowering my resolution (=less data to be send so they had almost enough of SNR margin, enough for low resolution(less data), not enough for higher resolution or something like that)! !
Click "this helped me" if this really helped, you so more people find this lengthy text easier ! !
Hi Sheila, Please answer this question to me:
When I mirror my MAC it sends the image and sound to the Apple TV properly. I have also connected an Airport Extreme to the Apple TV to send the sound to an external speakers.
In this case, the Apple TV doesn't send the sound to the Airport Extreme. WHY? The Airplay Sound in the Apple TV is well configured as it works for content which is in Apple TV. But not when I use Airplay mirroring for my MAC.
Why it happens?
If I use third party apps as Beamer it works properly.
Just another frustrated consumer here. Cannot mirror a full screen video from my MacBook Pro to my Apple TV via Verizon FiOS wifi.
Tried connecting the laptop to router with a Ethernet cable but that didn't matter.
The video lags, hangs up, freezes, stutters … anyway, it's useless.
It's absurd that we pay premium prices for Apple products and cannot get their devices to work as promised.
it's now 2015 and I'm having the same issue. I have a great TV w/ identical resolution - NOT THE TV's PROBLEM. Wow. Same with the router and Internet I have 20mbps down and 5mbps up NOT HTE PROBLEM LOL. I've run my dell pc over air stream to multiple apple tv's for years and NO PROBLEMS. The first time I go to stream over my brand new MacBook Pro there is immediate jumping, skipping, stalling, every 1-2 seconds, not 20 seconds. I can't get out of a frame. It's horrible. If this issue is not resolved or blog abandoned shame on APPLE. That's terrible. If anyone has figured this out please help!!! Thank you!
it's now 2015 and I'm having the same issue. I have a great TV w/ identical resolution - NOT THE TV's PROBLEM. Wow. Same with the router and Internet I have 20mbps down and 5mbps up NOT HTE PROBLEM LOL. I've run my dell pc over air stream to multiple apple tv's for years and NO PROBLEMS. The first time I go to stream over my brand new MacBook Pro there is immediate jumping, skipping, stalling, every 1-2 seconds, not 20 seconds. I can't get out of a frame. It's horrible. If this issue is not resolved or blog abandoned shame on APPLE. That's terrible. If anyone has figured this out please help!!! Thank you!
Definitely did NOT do the trick for me. Bluetooth off didn't help me in any way
I always used my macbook pro retina nov 2014 with airplay to mirror my screen on the apple tv. Since the update to yosemite, this is no longer possible. The lag is terrible.
I used my iMac for Airplay as well, until two weeks ago: I updated to Yosemite, and guess what: 4-5 sec. lag. This is clearly an Yosemite problem.
When to the apple store, called apple: "we are not aware of such issue".
Wow, I too am having the same problem. I can stream with my iPhone 5s but not with my Macbook Pro retina display. I notice the original post is from 2013 and here we are in 2015 and still not fixed.
Still the same problem years later. Tried everything. Turning WMM off, using ethernet, changing channel etc..
Please Apple you should be able to help the thousands of people having this issue!! - But apparently you don´t give a ****
I have tried everything does not seem to work. latest iOS, wifi -100mbps, BT off, still both audio and video are jerky and freeze.
There is definitely some problem with Macbook. iPhone plays perfectly fine.
Are these post monitored by Apple or we are just bunch of disgrunted users, venting our frustrations
M
Well the problem with lag is when mirroring, so a solution is not extending your desktop (which always worked). If you have a problem with making a call on your iPhone, sending a sms instead is not a fix.
Right... so 2 weeks later. I made a film of my daughter and followed these exact steps and gues what.... the f%cking lag and jitters were back. 😠
I visited this thread and then turned Bluetooth off... no resolution. 😢 So my initial excitement has now gone.
I'd like to personally thank all the Apple representatives for following this thread and offering their support and knowledge on what is an OFFICIAL APPLE FORUM......Not.
I have exactly the same issues, bought a new macbook pro, new apple tv, and it is impossible to stream audio from macbook pro to apple tv. A non-apple-airplay receiver doesn't have problems. My post https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7156638
It is unbelievable that apple sells this crap, and don't fix it... 😢
Tried tip above but it is not a wifi-channel issue, its something else...
I have the same issue of freezing/lag/choppy streaming from my Macbook Pro Retina 2014 and Macbook Air 2015 - both on Yosemite 10.10.5 - to Apple TV 3rd Gen. It's started a couple fo months ago so must have to do with the latest updates. However the videos stream perfectly fine with iPhone 6 and 5c.Apple has no resolution for this. Apple needs to refund my money for the Apple TV and make a public statement of this defect. How can Apple get away with making false claims about its products, not have a fix for defects and try to get away with zero resolution?!! This is preposterous and a total lack of customer orientation. Apple, needs to get its act together and FIX the issue or take the product back with a refund and publically declare that the system is faulty.
Didn't work for me. I have tried turning off bluetooth, resetting all the settings on my apple tv, doing this last suggestion, resetting my routers, unplugging the ethernet cable, nothing works. Still have choppy video on both of my Apple Tv's.
Also want to add, I have the same problem on my MacBook Air.
Somewhere around page 9 there was a comment that
Apple support said this was not meant to work except
in iTunes.
I am able to AirPlay iTunes content with no lag.
Very strange.
Some can get it to work while others like me have tried everything with no luck.
Ken
This appears to be working well. I had just about given up on having this work on my Macbook Pro as I have stopped updating it at 10.9.5 while my iMac is up to date and appears to have worked itself out of this problem.
When using airplay from mac to apple tv it lags/freezes, but works fine with iPhone
