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 guys,
I have spent a week trying all the tips I could find in this discussion to sort out the lagging which I encountered with my iMac and my Air on Apple TV3.
kmjansenNCSU is spot on I think, which works well for Apple since they have to force more people to use the isheep iTunes.
In other words, for me, the only thing that stopped the lagging (including ethernet here and there, BT off, changing wireless channels, activity monitor etc) was playing the movie in iTunes.
Even though I'm very grateful to you guys for easing my very annoyed mind I will actually now consider the Chromecast... ⚠
I have the same issue but i finaly found a solution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY2weHeKUI8
Works great for me.
By the time I had gotten to the last page of this 1,5!!! year old issue I had already switched off my BT and that helped.
However, this is not cosher!
Apple need to fix this ASAP!!!
Try convert your video file to mp4 and stream it through itune
guys I was able to fix my problem by replacing my router with a different brand. No more lag and no more disconnects.
I have a:
All equipment is up to date software wise. Airplay mirroring from my laptop to my apple tv is ok. I get frequent lag, pixelation, audio skip (every 10 mins or so).
I'm using the 5ghz specturm to connect to the airport express so shouldn't have any inteference from my neibours (accordiing to iStumbler i'm the only person with a 5ghz setup using channel 30). I've tried connecting apple tv wirelessly and wired. No issues streaming from my iPhone or an iPad!
Surprisingly, using apps such as Beemer or Air Video Server on my MBP work better than native mirroring when it comes to video play back.
Strange when you think how Air Video works:
Rather than:
Seems bizzare that my iPhone can handle better streaming than my pro laptop.
All - Since there hasn't been any action by Apple to this point I went ahead and submitted the issue as feedback here - http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html
I suggest that you all do the same as well to hopefully get some awareness created for this issue. I just tried again to show a movie using iMovie on my MacBook Pro to my ATV and it was horrible. It completely froze. Plus I had to reconnect my MacBook about 3 times at the beginning because it kept losing connection to the Airplay and not showing my screen on my TV.
2012 15" Retina Macbook Pro hooked up via thunderbolt ethernet to ethernet on the aTV 2 and the stutters are there. Even dropping the Macbook resolution to 1024x768 and aTV 720P the stutters are there. Yet I pull out my iPhone 5S/5/4S or iPad 2 with the same content and no stutters. It makes no sense. It is clearly an issue with OSX.
I have the same exact issue, but not only for video playback, even if I just try to "airplay" music from my brand new MBP retina 13" (by selecting Apple TV as output source for sound) the lag is so bad it is practically not usable.
Any ideas what may be causing this? Airplay works perfectly fine when streaming from my iPad 2 or iPhone 4S, but I get terrible lags for anything I try to airplay/stream from the MBP retina. I am running the latest OS X (10.9.1) and an Apple TV 2 also with the latest software update.
Edit: Seems it works fine when I'm playing from Youtube or iTunes, but not with Spotify, so I guess the Spotify software is the issue here for me... (although video playback is also lagging somewhat, but works flowlessly if I connect with an HDMI cable)
Just like upgrading to 10.9.1, upgrading to 10.9.2 had fixed the lag and pixelation problems ONLY TEMPORARILY
After each upgrade using AirPlay mirroring from my late 2013 MBP to my 3rd gen Apple TV worked perfectly. After a few weeks however it became unusable (quarter-inch sized pixels and multi-second lag).
Whatever is happening during the Mac OS X updates, it fixes the problem (temporarily).
Is it some kind of network related cache that only gets flushed when updating the OS?
Come on Apple, give us a fix or a workaround!
I tried everything, don't really understand the router settings as mine is a BT Hub and doesn't seem to have any settings as described. Just bought beamer for £12 and eventually I can do what I thought I would be able to with my mac and apple TV! Thanks for this post.
Hi guys, and everyone out there having a struggle with lag on the ATV.
I just opened a bunch of ports in my router, and chabam, it worked like a charm! Now streaming in full HD without any problem, on the wireless network at home.
Here is the port i opened. Important to go into the settings->about on the ATV, to find your IP-adress. Then you just open the ports listed here, and it should work.
i've tried all of the suggestions on here even swapped routers and switches. From what i've gathered it does seem to be bluetooth causing the issue. Just ensure you disable it on the apple tv as only disabling it on the mba didn't make a difference
Hardware: MBP Retina (2012), Time Capsule (2015), iPhone 6 (2015), Apple TV (2014), AirPort Express (4-5 years old)
I only use my MBP for streaming audio from iTunes. Since the Yosemite upgrade, it does not work anymore. Irrespective of Bluetooth on/off, distance, other electronic devices, etc.
My problems are exactly like the ones described above - the songs are cut up by short periods of silence. The equivalent with iPhone 6 is problem free.
I have now tested the MBP towards both my Apple TV and my older AirPort Express – and the same problem occurs with both.
Hence, this must be a software problem in OS X - not in any of the other devices.
Same here, Mac pro latest OS... The thing is that there is no lag when playing movies with Apple tv that are located in my mac, when using the Apple tv interface.
When using airplay from mac to apple tv it lags/freezes, but works fine with iPhone
