AirPlay: Sharing Your Screen on Your Television

My wife and I had a rare moment last night with some unscheduled time. Rather than waste it, I told her I would teach her something new. In the end, I learned something new.

Lately my wife has been waking up early to exercise before heading off to the law firm where she works. As it is early in the morning, she likes to log in on her computer and exercise with some pre-made videos that she pays an annual fee to access. A few days ago she asked how she can connect her computer to our large television. Last night I figured I would show her.

My usual method for connecting a computer to our TV is to use an HDMI cable and plug it into our receiver. There is a nice HDMI outlet on the front of the receiver which makes it very simple. I grabbed a cable that connects to her laptop only to discover it wouldn't work. I had a cable with a display output that fit her MacBook Air. That is not the same as an HDMI cable so it didn't work with the receiver.

Interestingly enough, the solution was staring me right in the face, literally. There is a sticker on my receiver that says it is capable of AirPlay. I had never used it before but knew it is used to transfer computer displays to televisions. I turned on the receiver and television. Then I went into my wife's System Preferences on her computer. There I selected "Displays." In the bottom-left corner is a pull-down list that says: "AirPlay Display:" with a selection of "Off." I opened the pull-down list and saw my receiver listed by its model number. I selected it and was given a 4-digit code from the television to enter on the computer. Once I entered it, the computer display was mirrored on the television.

As AirPlay is from Apple, I looked on my iPhone and saw that I could transfer the display from my phone to the TV. That got me excited. I hoped I could play games from my phone on a larger screen. Unfortunately that is not the case. I can display photos or play videos on my television from the phone but not use the TV as a second screen.

This morning my wife got up and headed down to the TV room to do her morning exercise. Normally I can keep sleeping and not notice she is down there early in the morning. The high-end surround sound system woke me right up. I'm glad she figured it out.