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 ! !
Thanx krissoundz,
I did try turning BT off on Apple TV and macbook as well.
No improvement
Same problem here.
I can stream hd content just fine from my iPhone 5s to my atv3. However, my expensive macbook pro retina cannot not stream the same exact content without severe stuttering/lag. Why is this?
atv3 is hard wired to the router. Both my other devices are using the same wireless connection to the router. How is it possible that the less powerful 5s (and any other iOS device) can stream it without quality loss, but the mbp retinas cannot?
i'm experiencing the exact same problem, lagging (alot) when playing from my brand new MacBook PRO retina , or even my iMac but lagging not when airplaying from my IPhone 4s o Ipad 2. Someone told me it might been caused by interference with other network routers (because I live in a apartment complex)... Tho I discarded this theory when I experienced the exact same problem when airplaying at my parentes house where no other routers are interfering..
I Would really like for this problem to be solved. I really love all of my Apple products but customers shouldnt have to create work-arounds for this problem, such as finding the same content on our iPhones and iPads for a error-free airplay stream.
Just bumping this as I have the exact same issue. I have the original ATV but the latest software update. Using iPhone 5S and original iPad with AirPlay to ATV causes no problems. But every time I use AirPlay from my MacBook Pro to ATV it skips about every 20 seconds. Audio is fine as you mention above. But video is very skippy.
I really hope Apple figures out a solution to this. I've restarted/unplugged/ and done all the typical things that a support bar will tell you to do. There is definitely an issue with this AirPlay connection.
I got same problem..
My macbook pro retina got 2.6 i7, 16GB on it..
And I got new apple TV last night..
Also my iPad is brand new iPad air 128 GB......
Exactly same thing happens to me..
the apple TV flies with my iPad.. but..
with my mac..
it's laggy or even frozen..
APPLE!! please solve this issue!!
Got exactly the same problem. Brand new MBA with OSX 10.8.5 running.
In addition I can say that since the new updates released for ATV (mine is a 2nd gen) the problem became severe and the Airplay mirroring not usable.
Apple, please share with us your thoughts and plan about this issue.
Same here, too.
MBP 13" Retina 2.6/i5, 8 GB, OS X 10.9
ATV 3. Gen., 6.0.2
iTunes 11.1.3
Full speed mirroring with iPhone 4S via personal hotspot, low speed mirroring with MBP via W-LAN (Netgear WGR614v7 without any issues).
No Parallels in progress. Just Mavericks and iTunes.
Feedback submitted to AppleCare.
Mac OS X 10.9.1 has fixed the problem for me.
Pixelation is gone.
The delay between mouse/keyboard input and display is noticible but manageable.
Streaming video works well (with audio / video just a tiny bit out of sync).
This is seriously driving me crazy, I tried changing the resolution on TV and on my Mac, my software is up to date, bluetooth is off, tried everything but Apple TV is lagging when connected to computer but works perfect on ipad and iphone,
Just now I spent 35 minutes on iPad to find the movie where as takes a minute on Mac. Apple TV just not working on my brand new MAC air, I tried in 3 diffrent houses and basically Apple TV is not working as it should be with Airplay / Mirroring. This is not a wifi strenght issue or any other outside source it is just not working with Mac as it should.
I am sooooooo ****** of and its just wasting my time at this point, impossible to watch anything from the computer, even the movies from my computer is lagging including the mouse movements whereas works perfect with other devices.
Using my computer on TV was the reason I purchased it and its absolute garbage.
Exactly what I needed in that link. I had changes around some wifi router settings unintentionally, so that article sent me back to reset them. I feel bad about blaming my ISP now. Well, there, I got over it.
Same issue.
No reply from Apple for over 5 months?!
Just bought Apple TV today, Iphone and Ipad work just fine, MacBook Pro 2012 has severe streaming issues. I don't see why this would be a router issue if the other devices are working just fine...
So what is the deal here? People come here, search out other people who have the same problem and they just keep posting asking the same question with no answer? I have the same problem, streaming Audio to AppleTV is unusable, just like everyone else here, running newest OS on everything, took my Old Apple TV in to Apple today and they gave me another one, come home and the same thing is happening. So what we are a Support group here and no resolution ever comes? Its 2014, I want to stream music from my Laptop or Iphone to my Apple TV 18' feet away.
I have to disagree with you on the GPU power as the Retina Macbooks have very powerful GPU's in them (mine has the Nvidia GeForce GT 650M). Also, on my iPad I can mirror the image no problem, which has an inferior GPU. Don't forget with Mavericks we can processes the image offscreen, which is how I use it.
While my earlier post said my lag went away, that isn't entirely true. It is much better, but every few minutes it definately freezes for a second or two and continues to work normally.
Laptop class components doesn't make a difference. The fact is I can push my resolution to 3840x2400 on my laptop screen while pushing 1080P out of my HDMI port without issue. Thanks to VLC I can play differnt videos on both screens without a single hickup. Horsepower and optimization is definately not the issue.
Lots of people spending money on extra items to get this thing to work, remember when Apple products worked with other Apple products and that's why we bought them? Even paid More for them knowing they would do so and laughed at other companies who needed Drivers etc..? No I am not buying anything, ATT has come and swapped out routers 3 times now for me now, each time better model etc.. I was on the phone for 96 minutes with tech support the other day, he had me do everything, even open up the router and reconfigure some items in there etc... and it still doesnt work, I told him "so this is just garbage and I cannot return it because its too old so I am stuck?" and he said Yes. and that was that. I guess I should be happy that it's the least expensive Apple item I ever bought and takes up very little room.
When using airplay from mac to apple tv it lags/freezes, but works fine with iPhone
