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By using iPhone 5s/6/7/7Plus Airplay on an AppleTV 4th Generation on a Full HD TV, photos are not shown in their best resolution.
This feeling is confirmed by using the built-in TV software to show the same photos and they looks much better.
Is there a way to set the resolution of photos or iOS mirroring in general on the AppleTV?
Many thanks.
Apple TV (4th generation)
Hi. You'll get better results with basic AirPlay, not mirroring. To AirPlay photos (iOS 10), tap the Sharing icon while viewing a photo, and select AirPlay. You can enable AirPlay in a slideshow by pausing it and tapping the AirPlay icon that appears at the top of the screen.
Hi Winston Churchill. Yes, you are absolutely correct. When I open Photos while mirroring, the app appears on the TV screen as expected. But when I open a specific photo, the photo appears on the screen, then jumps to fill the TV screen, as it switches from mirroring to basic. It remains in that mode while scrolling through the album. So, it's hard to explain the OP's observation. Could they be lower resolution photos being processed differently?
Another consideration might be the TV applying some kind of processing that AppleTV doesn't such as sharpening or displaying a slightly different colour gamut.
I can vaguely recall not being overly impressed with AppleTVs display of Photos some years ago and did a few tests but can't for the life of me remember the details!
I guess they could be from a photo stream album on the phone but a library album from the cloud or perhaps an optimised photo that hadn't had chance to download. I'd also wondered if perhaps they were using another app to view photos or whether they had the Apple TV set to output at 720p or if they had a 4k TV.
Hi All and apologies for the late reply, I have been working and out of home these days.
I hope I am going to reply to your questions:
- with the latest iOS, whatever Airplay feature I am using it doesn't change the result: basic AirPlay (selecting airplay while scrolling photos on my iPhone) gives the same behaviour of mirroring via AirPlay, only for photos; i.e.: by selecting AirPlay mirroring, as soon as I open Photos on my iPhone, the single photo is shown on the TV via the AppleTV without the Photo App screen being mirrored. Anyway, the resolution is the same.
- The TV software I am using is an App downloaded by my SONY smart TV which is downloading from the internet the photos I upload on a specific dedicated website.
- AppleTV resolution: I cannot see any Menu to set AppleTV resolution. However it is supposed to be to its maximum as I can see purchased films and videos in FullHD and fantastic Apple Live screen savers.
- The TV is a FULL HD LCD 50inches.
Regards.
On the iPhone photos are stored to a lower resolution, is that correct?
I am now trying to switch to ICPL and we'll see, in maybe a couple of weeks when all the process will be completed, if things would be improved.
I will be able to download full resolution photos from iCloud, so I guess no excuse... 🙂
There are some circumstances where photos on the phone are stored at a lower resolution.
The first is if you use an optimised library, however when you open a photo in an optimised library the full resolution image should download almost immediately, this might not be the case if you have a poor or no network or cellular signal.
The second is if you are not viewing photos from your library but rather a photo stream library or a shared album.
On other thought that occurred to me after my last post is that perhaps you have some setting on the TV which degrades the image from the Apple TV, such as motion settings etc.
There are some circumstances where photos on the phone are stored at a lower resolution.
The first is if you use an optimised library, however when you open a photo in an optimised library the full resolution image should download almost immediately, this might not be the case if you have a poor or no network or cellular signal.
Probably I was not clear enough in my previous post, apologies for this. I just switched to ICPL to test it, but I need to wait the upload process to end, which requires days and days.
The events described in my original post are related to AirPlay streaming via my iPhone where photos are synched directly via iTunes.
The fact I am wondering if they have a lower resolution on the iPhone is because I tried to sync all my library, which is 78GB on the Mac, while on the iPhone all these photos are occupying only 27GB. That's a sign of lower resolution stored on the iPhone, isn't it?
On other thought that occurred to me after my last post is that perhaps you have some setting on the TV which degrades the image from the Apple TV, such as motion settings etc.
Apologies again: I believed you were referring to an AppleTV setting and not to a TV setting.
Well, I cannot find anything on my TV which is limiting my AppleTv, and I believe there is nothing active like that as all Movies I purchased on the iTunes and shown on the AppleTV are 100% Full HD and very well displayed, without resolution issues.
The issue I am talking about is only related to photos. They are not bad, they are quite ok but, with respect to the quality seen on my Mac or when loaded on my TV remote web page, AppleTv Airplay is doing a less spectacular job.
The events described in my original post are related to AirPlay streaming via my iPhone where photos are synched directly via iTunes.
It's been a long time since I've synced photos with iTunes and I can't be 100% sure whether they are lower resolution or not, but I think they may be, iTunes creates a folder with the synced photos in them if I remember correctly its called something like 'iPod Photo Cache'. Either Apple have the same photos sitting in 2 places on your computer or they are different in some way, the latter does seem more logical to me.
Apologies again: I believed you were referring to an AppleTV setting and not to a TV setting.
No, I did mean on the TV. Often on modern TV's there are lots of settings and in some cases some of them degrade the actual picture from the Apple TV.
The issue I am talking about is only related to photos. They are not bad, they are quite ok but, with respect to the quality seen on my Mac or when loaded on my TV remote web page, AppleTv Airplay is doing a less spectacular job.
You mustn't expect them to be as good as on your Mac, the Apple TV only outputs at 1080 x 1920, you should get many more pixels on a computer screen. You should, however, get equally as good images as you do with the TV software, assuming, of course, it's accessing the same resolution images.
Which software are you using to view the photos on your phone and what do you mean by built in TV software, I'm unable to replicate your experience.
For me at least, photos doesn't use mirroring, even if you use the mirroring option from the slide up control panel, to the best of my knowledge this has always been the case.
As I can't see what your TV app is doing it's hard to say. One reason may be that it has access to a different resolution version than your phone.
How to improve iPhone Photo resolution on Airplay?
