AirPlay and Apple TV

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So I noticed that when I was "streaming" some types of video from my iPhone or iPad to my Apple TV that it never ran the battery down or appeared to use a lot of processing power on the device. I looked it up and as I suspected when the video isn't on the device but is coming from a provider's website the Apple TV is actually getting the video directly from the Internet rather than streaming it from or through the device. This even works when you have to be signed in to the website to view content. How does this work? Clearly the iPhone or iPad is somehow "transferring" your credentials to the Apple TV but how?
 
When you hook to something on iPhone/iPad whatever you get a connection key of some sort and its likely passing it over to the apple TV to continue the connection over there.
 
The iPhone/iPad just has to send the link to the video to the Apple TV after that it's just a controller.
 
Yes, the phone would only need to send a token to authorize the access to the content; remember it is still going through your phone, it's just that the entire datastream isn't going through the phone.

Don't forget the World Wide Web has secure connections ( https instead of http). Restricted content would use that protocol.
 
Oh yeah it makes total sense, I just didn't know how it did it with protected content like Spotify or any other service that requires a login.

Last summer before my daughter got wifi she was streaming Netflix on her phone out to an HDMI cable to the TV. Her phone was quite warm after doing this for a while. That was probably due to having to use her LTE connection rather than wifi, but still I noticed how my phone didn't seem to be doing much of anything even after a couple hours of AirPlay viewing.
 
Apple Tv is hooked up to your TV. Your phone is simply acting as a remote control for the apple tv device. Your phone isn't doing anything other than telling the apple tv what to fetch and play.
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
Oh yeah it makes total sense, I just didn't know how it did it with protected content like Spotify or any other service that requires a login.


Your phone and Apple TV share the same public IP address when they're on the same wifi network so it should be easy enough for the TV to take over where the phone leaves off. More specific than that though it's hard to say.
 
Well if the content is on the device then it is actually streamed to the Apple TV of course (also when I mirror one of my Mac screens). But I was mostly asking how the Apple TV is able to play password-protected content without a login.

Originally Posted By: bvance554
Apple Tv is hooked up to your TV. Your phone is simply acting as a remote control for the apple tv device. Your phone isn't doing anything other than telling the apple tv what to fetch and play.
 
Originally Posted By: kschachn
But I was mostly asking how the Apple TV is able to play password-protected content without a login.

Doesn't your AppleTV use the same Apple ID as your iPhone?
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: kschachn
But I was mostly asking how the Apple TV is able to play password-protected content without a login.

Doesn't your AppleTV use the same Apple ID as your iPhone?


Well yeah it does, and you have to put in your AppleID in on the Apple TV too. Maybe I'm just dense. What I was confused by was that for other sites, let's say The History Channel - that requires a Login ID and password, and I put that in on my phone. But apparently the Apple TV is able to acquire the content directly from the Internet, not through my phone. I just thought that was interesting because I didn't understand how the Apple TV gets the content. I mean, if I put the URL into another browser on another computer it goes to the login screen. It doesn't play the video unless I log in from that device.
 
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