App: Mirror for Chromecast
Developer: AirBeamTV BV
Genres: Photo & Video, Entertainment

Application to mirror the screen and audio of your Mac to a Chromecast 1, 2 or Ultra. You can also stream individual video files from your Mac to your TV. Also, we included the option to watch one window on your Mac, and another window on your TV!

When using this app with a Chromecast 1, the Screen Mirroring will start about 30 seconds after you start mirroring, please wait during this startup time. Chromecast 2 and Ultra are much faster to start.

In using the app, there will be a about 2 to 3 seconds of latency (lag). So this mirroring is not suitable for gaming. 

However, it is very suitable for watching movies, giving presentations, watching photos, and much more!

The quality of your experience will be dependent on the quality of your local network. Some tips to enhance the experience:

1. Restart your router. Just take out the power plug, wait 10 seconds and put it back in. This resets your router and will make your home network faster and more stable. Why this works? Routers are in essence little computers, with software. Software will have small memory leaks and some processes will stop working correctly over time. That’s why it is a good idea to reset your router once in a while. Our recommendation: once a week. 

2. Don’t do network intense work while screen mirroring. As explained, screen mirroring is network intense. For the best performance, don’t do other network intense work at the same time. This includes making timemachine backups over the network and uploading/downloading large files from the internet while screen mirroring.

3. Put your Mac and your Chromecast on the same router channel. Some routers (dual band) have create both a 2.4Ghz and a 5Ghz wireless network. For the best performance, put your Mac and your TV on the same network. Preferably the 5Ghz network. But definitely not the Mac on 5Ghz and the TV on 2.4Ghz, because that will negatively impact the performance of screen mirroring.

4. Use an AC or N router. Newer routers support Wifi AC and N. Older routers might only have Wifi B and/or G. B and G are not really up to scratch anymore for modern networking tasks, so go for an AC or N router. If your router supports AC and N, also make sure that your router is set to use either the Wifi N or Wifi AC networking. 

How the app works:
First, make sure that your Chromecast is on the same local network and same subnet as your Mac. After launching the app, you will see the app icon appearing in the top bar of your Mac and the app will look for your Chromecast on the network. It will show your Chromecast when it has found it. Now, you have two options:

Mirror your Mac Screen:
Use this option to put the screen of your Mac on TV. In source, you can select which screen (or attached monitor) you want to display on TV. If you are running multiple applications on your Mac, you can also select which application window you want to see on TV.

Enable Sound: check this to hear the sound of your Mac coming from the TV. You will need the additional (free) audio driver, which you can download here: http://bit.ly/MirrorAudio

Play Video File:
Use this option if you have a video file on your Mac and you want to play just the file on TV. Drop it in the box and it will play on TV.

Settings (the icon in the bottom right of the app): click here to request support from our 24/7 support staff. They usually respond within 2 hours on any query that you might have. If your question is technical, please also include the diagnostics information.

Limitations: Apple has HDCP DRM protection for playing iTunes movies. This means that screen mirroring is not possible when watching movies from iTunes.

When you like the app, please don't forget to give it a positive rating! Thanks in advance from the AirBeamTV development team!

Please give us feedback by mailing to support@airbeam.tv

Release notes:
- Bugfixes and Stability Improvements