Airplay vs. HDMI for best quality Keynote Display on 4K TV

Question

JimRobertson Author

Level 1

35 points

Airplay vs. HDMI for best quality Keynote Display on 4K TV

Hardware:

MacBook Pro 15 inch late 2016 Touch Bar, 2.7 GHz Processor

LG 65" 4K TV with 3 4K-capable HDMI inputs

4th Gen Apple TV providing Airplay reception for the TV

Home WiFi network provided by two latest generation Apple AirPort Extremes (one provides the SSID, the other is in extender mode)

When I use Airplay to view my KeyNote presentation on the TV, embedded videos stutter both their audio and video on the TV, whereas playback is flawless on the laptop itself.

Am I likely to see better results if I use the Apple USBc-DVI adapter and a high speed HDMI cable?

I'm hoping for some real-world experience here, because the Apple dongle is $69 and a longish HDMI 2 cable isn't cheap either.

Thanks so much

Jim Robertson

MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS Sierra (10.12.5), 15", 512 GB Storage, 1 GB RAM

Posted on Jul 16, 2017 7:59 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 17, 2017 10:30 PM in response to JimRobertson

As a general rule, a wired connection is always going to be better than a wireless connection. For the best quality, you'll want to use the HDMI cable and adapter to connect your Mac to your TV. Yes, it's less convenient, but the AppleTV doesn't even support 4K output anyway. This way, you'll preserve the native resolution and refresh rate for your presentation, as well as the video and audio playback rate.

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