Mirror The Contents Of Your Mac Or PC On Your Apple TV

If you have an Apple TV (2nd or 3rd generation), you can use your TV to mirror the contents of your Mac or PC, either to play web content or for using your TV as a rather large monitor!

The recent update to OS X – Mountain Lion, included the AirPlay feature which allows you to mirror the contents of your Mac through your Apple TV, just as you can with your iPhone or iPad. However, this only works on Macs that are mid-2011 or later.

Don’t panic though, head over to the AirParrot website and download the $9.99 app and your Mac OR PC will be able to use your TV as a lovely big monitor! On a Mac, you download and drag the installer to your Applications folder:

Once installed, if you want to stream audio as well, you need to install a driver and restart your system. That’s it – you will now be able to play 4OD, XBMC etc on your TV without jailbreaking your Apple TV. (Good news for 3rd gen owners.) Launch AirParrot and select the icon in your menu bar to choose the Apple TV device, the display mode and video quality/frame rate.

AirParrot plays up to 1080p (on 3rd gen ATV) and you can mirror a single app, your whole desktop or use your TV as a monitor extension. There is a 20 minute trial available to download, so you can see if it works for you.

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