AirPlay/Screen Mirroring from 2021 16" M1 Pro MacBook Pro, limited to 1080p on Samsung AU7100 4K TV

[Yuddy7]

I'm trying to Mirror/Extend my MacBook Pro's display to my 4K TV using AirPlay 2, the TV is a Samsung AU7100 65" 4K TV, and it has AirPlay 2 built in. Connecting is no issue, I just simply use Mac OS's inbuilt 'Screen Mirroring' tool to mirror/extend it, and it works fine at 60hz, the issue is the resolution, its limited to 1920x1080p (very annoying!), as its a brand new 2021 4K TV, I would expect AirPlay 2 to have a 4K option? As I've seen a lot of other TV's do, along with Apple TV 4K etc.  

 

I have tried mirroring my display, extending it, playing with resolutions on the MacBook screen, and the TV screen.  On and off again, rebooting my Internet, changing the refresh rate, the colour space, changing the audio source, pressing ALT/OPTION then clicking on 'Resolution' to view extended list etc.  Nothing seems to give me an option to do this in 4K...

 

Oh, and using a HDMI to mirror/extend it works fine, full 4K at 60hz without an issue.

 

See image below for list of resolutions on the TV when screen mirroring.

 

[FUIT1985]

you can reset SMC…

 

Quote

According to a couple of comments on Reddit and Apple’s support forums, Apple’s support has said that the M1 Macs should do something similar to a SMC reset by shutting down the computer and leaving it turned off for at least 30 seconds before turning it on again. Since there is no way to test if it actually does something, we can not determine if it is true.

How to reset the SMC on an M1 or Intel Mac
 

8 hours ago, Yuddy7 said:

I'm trying to Mirror/Extend my MacBook Pro's display to my 4K TV using AirPlay 2, the TV is a Samsung AU7100 65" 4K TV, and it has AirPlay 2 built in. Connecting is no issue, I just simply use Mac OS's inbuilt 'Screen Mirroring' tool to mirror/extend it, and it works fine at 60hz, the issue is the resolution, its limited to 1920x1080p (very annoying!), as its a brand new 2021 4K TV, I would expect AirPlay 2 to have a 4K option? As I've seen a lot of other TV's do, along with Apple TV 4K etc.  

 

I have tried mirroring my display, extending it, playing with resolutions on the MacBook screen, and the TV screen.  On and off again, rebooting my Internet, changing the refresh rate, the colour space, changing the audio source, pressing ALT/OPTION then clicking on 'Resolution' to view extended list etc.  Nothing seems to give me an option to do this in 4K...

 

Oh, and using a HDMI to mirror/extend it works fine, full 4K at 60hz without an issue.

 

See image below for list of resolutions on the TV when screen mirroring.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by FUIT1985
How to reset the SMC on an M1 or Intel Mac

[Yuddy7]

Update: still nothing working, its unclear as to whether AirPlay 2 screen mirroring can actually support 4K when its not an Apple TV 4K, and instead an AirPlay 2 supported device,

[Roswell]

You can’t mirror @ 4K over AirPlay period, even if it’s to an Apple TV.
 

Bunch of reasons why, but mainly, it would require significant resource usage to encode 4K 60 on the fly with low latency.

[Yuddy7]

4 hours ago, Roswell said:

You can’t mirror @ 4K over AirPlay period, even if it’s to an Apple TV.
 

Bunch of reasons why, but mainly, it would require significant resource usage to encode 4K 60 on the fly with low latency.

Interesting! I've done so much research into this, and I've found very little in terms of actual quotes or sources to explain this to me.  Even Apple couldn't tell me that AirPlay mirroring is limited to 1080p, there's nothing on their website, and even on the live chat with them, they didn't know, and just told me to go through a bunch of hoops to try and see if I can get the 4K option up.

 

It's almost as if they've chosen not to publicly announce this, and to keep this limitation hidden which I find so weird.

 

Also, saying it would take significant recourse to do this, I can SteamLink my games from my PC to my TV/Laptop at 4K 60 without any issues at all, in fact, with even lower latency than that of AirPlay at 1080p.  I do hope Apple push an update to allow this for AirPlay 2 and Apple TV 4K devices to have this as an option. 

[Roswell]

9 hours ago, Yuddy7 said:

Interesting! I've done so much research into this, and I've found very little in terms of actual quotes or sources to explain this to me.  Even Apple couldn't tell me that AirPlay mirroring is limited to 1080p, there's nothing on their website, and even on the live chat with them, they didn't know, and just told me to go through a bunch of hoops to try and see if I can get the 4K option up.

 

It's almost as if they've chosen not to publicly announce this, and to keep this limitation hidden which I find so weird.

 

Also, saying it would take significant recourse to do this, I can SteamLink my games from my PC to my TV/Laptop at 4K 60 without any issues at all, in fact, with even lower latency than that of AirPlay at 1080p.  I do hope Apple push an update to allow this for AirPlay 2 and Apple TV 4K devices to have this as an option. 

I think it’s a common denominator thing. Steam Link assumes you have a dedicated GPU for encode. A lot of Apple laptops only have an integrated Intel GPU. Maybe once they refresh the spec again with M1 in mind they’ll enable 4K.
 

I only knew about the limitation because I remember they made a point to talk about how you can now cast photos and videos at 4K a bit ago during one of their keynotes. You can also see the “best for AirPlay” wording under resolution settings while you’re mirroring.