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At our school there are (not smart) BenQ multimedia projectors in every classrom, every one of these is connected to an AppleTV (AppleTVs are not connected to WiFi) via HDMI cable and more and more colleagues are telling me that there seems to be no way to play a video stream (or a movie from the media library they own) containing image and sound via AirPlay or even via HDMI (using the official Apple adapter) now: the sound is perfectly fine, but there is only black rectangle instead of video even if the MacBook is connected directly to the beamer via HDMI.

So my question is: is there a way to stream a movie without using a Windows laptop?

YouTube (not YouTube Movies!) works perfectly fine btw.

Are our (quite) old projectors causing the problem?

Update: Looks like it's a DRM problem. VGA connection (via Apple adapter) works perfectly fine: the movie and its soundtrack are there.

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A projector is nothing more than a monitor that projects an image using a lamp and lens rather than an LED panel. Treat it as such for simplicity.

every one of these is connected to an AppleTV (AppleTVs are not connected to WiFi)….there seems to be no way to play a video stream … via AirPlay or even via HDMI….

AirPlay requires WiFi

If you’re not using the same WiFi for both the Mac/iPhone/iPad, AirPlay won’t work.

Use an Active HDMI adapter.

The “official” Apple adapter is a passive one, meaning it just reorders the DisplayPort (DP or mDP) signal into HDMI. You need an adapter that actually recreates the signal, I wrote on this topic: What’s Wrong with HDMI previously. Whether you have an older MacBook with a mini DisplayPort (mDP) or Thunderbolt 1 or 2 port, or if you have a newer Mac with Type-C ports, when converting to HDMI, always use an Active Adapter

Update: Looks like it's a DRM problem. VGA connection (via Apple adapter) works perfectly fine: the movie and its soundtrack are there.

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  • I do, but any monitor connected to our MacBooks works just fine. AppleTV is able to create its own WiFi hotspot, but still needs a WiFi connection for streaming? It might explain why screen sharing (like GoodNotes via AirPlay) works perfectly fine, but movies don't.
    – georgmierau
    Commented Mar 28, 2023 at 14:00
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    Looks like it's a DRM problem. VGA connection (via Apple adapter) works perfectly fine: the movie and its soundtrack are there.
    – georgmierau
    Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 10:42
  • That makes sense. Glad to see you got it sorted
    – Allan
    Commented Mar 29, 2023 at 13:12
  • @georgmierau It would be great to write your finding up into a brief answer and mark it as accepted!
    – Cai
    Commented Apr 28, 2023 at 9:20
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Looks like it's a DRM problem and the only way to "solve" it is using a VGA adapter. Still waiting for a "stripper" to be delivered.

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