AirPlay Best Practices

Portfolio supports remote display via AirPlay on the iPad 2 or newer. To enable it:

iOS 7+

Swipe up from the bottom of the screen. If you're in a fullscreen viewing mode you'll have to do it twice. Tap on the AirPlay icon near the bottom center. In the menu that pops up you should see any AirPlay-enabled device on the same network as the iPad. Select the one you want to display on and make sure Mirroring is turned on.

iOS 6

Double-click on the home button in the iPad and a row of icons will slide up. Swipe to the right and tap on the AirPlay icon near the bottom center. In the menu that pops up you should see any AirPlay-enabled device on the same network as the iPad. Select the one you want to display on and make sure Mirroring is turned on.

The most common AirPlay-enabled device is the Apple TV. All models of it through the third revision support display at a maximum of 720p for AirPlay streams (some support up to 1080p for video). Portfolio compensates for this lower resolution by downsampling to it, but the image quality will not be as good as it is on the iPad itself. Until an Apple TV update adds support for higher resolution mirroring the image quality will not improve through this display method.

Fortunately, AirPlay itself isn’t limited to 720p and there is an application available that supports it at 1080p. AirServer can be run on your Mac or Windows computer, which can then be plugged into an external screen of any size (e.g., a widescreen TV via HDMI) and display at full 1080p resolution.

The optimum configuration for external screen display is AirServer running on a Mac Mini, which is then plugged into the external screen via HDMI (this allows something like a TV to handle both the video and audio). Change the default configuration of it to turn off the addtional sharpening and processing it adds and the result will be significantly better quality than an Apple TV. Due to the higher bandwidth required for a 1080p signal, you will likely have better results if the computer hosting AirServer is directly connected to the same access point/router as the iPad and that it supports 802.11n or better.