Use Beamer to Stream Virtually Any Video from Mac to Apple TV

Apple covers a lot of the basics when it comes to watching videos on Apple TV but one thing it failed to do was provide support for all the different video formats available. For this you need a simple solution: Appendix Beamer .

When it comes to Mac for Apple TV streaming, Apple provides airplay mirroring, but for a more standards-compliant alternative, many Mac users choose to use the Tupil Beamer 3.0 app.

What is a Beamer?

Beamer is a Mac app that will stream videos to your Apple TV or device Google Chromecast . It is a highly efficient solution that will play all common video formats, codecs and resolutions and can handle the most widely used subtitle formats.

This means that it can play AVI , MP4 MKV, FLV, MOV, WMV, SRT SUB / IDX and many other formats. It cannot play videos from Blu-ray discs or DVD because they use copy protection.

Depending on the source file, your video will be streamed at up to 1080p quality, and the app will even stream content from Macs that don’t support AirPlay Mirroring. You can even use Apple TV Siri Remote Control to control video playback.

How can I use Beamer?

Beamer available for downloads here . To give you a chance to see what it can do while you decide if you want to purchase it, the app will play the first 15 minutes of any video you throw at it. If you want to watch longer clips, you need to purchase the app.

Here is how to use Beamer after installing it on Mac:

Launch Beamer.
A small window will appear on the screen, in which you will be prompted to «Drag movies here to stream on …»
The app should automatically detect and name any Apple TV found in the same WiFi networks .
Select the Apple TV or Chromecast device you want to stream video to using the device menu in the lower right corner of the app window (it looks like a TV).
You will need to find the video you want to play. Select it with the cursor and drag it into the Beamer window.
Playback will start immediately. You don’t need to transcode videos to Apple TV compatible formats.

If the video you want to play has them, you can select different audio tracks and subtitle languages in Beamer’s playback settings.

Playback window

The Beamer playback window will list the movie title and duration at the top of the window.

Below that, you’ll find audio and video playback settings, a progress bar, forward/backward and play/pause buttons, and a device menu.

On the left (just below the progress bar) you’ll find the playlist item (three dots next to the three lines). You can drag multiple movies into Beamer and then use the playlist item to arrange them in the order you want to play them. It doesn’t matter what format any of these videos are in as long as you set the playback order.

If it is unlikely that playback will be incorrect or videos will not work with Beamer, you can find many useful resources at company support website .