[NewsPoster]

One of the very handiest things about Apple TV is that with it, you can use your television to watch any video on your Macs -- except you really can't, if you operate outside Apple's garden at all. If that video is in iTunes by hook or by crook, you're all set. If it isn't -- and we know you have some that isn't -- then you need to buy Silver Screen: it will stream any video, of just about any format, to your TV.

You need this. Unless you are supremely organized and have the patience of several saints in a row, you will never put all of your video into iTunes. The video your DSLR camera shot; that Final Cut Pro rough edit; the funny commercial a friend sent you in email; the DVDs you've bought (that time you temporarily moved to Canada in order to be legally able to decrypt the copy protection on them). The YouTube videos you managed to download, back when you could remember how to do that.

However you've got them, your Mac is stuffed full of videos that do not play in iTunes without conversion. Sometimes, iTunes will do that conversion, and it only costs you a lot of waiting. Other times, it can't convert without you buying extra software, and also waiting a long time. The answer for watching such videos on your Mac has long been VLC or similar software.

Now for watching it all on your TV set, the answer is Silver Screen.

Silver Screen runs as a web app: launch it on your Mac, and it guides you through looking at the contents of your Movies folder via Safari or any other browser. If a video is in the Movies folder on your Mac, it appears on this list. You can then send that Safari web page to your iPhone, and walk away with the same list in your hand.

As long as you stay on the same Wi-Fi network, you can then tap on any movie's name, and it will be streamed out to your Apple TV just as readily as anything in iTunes through the magic of on-the-fly transcoding into the formats Apple TV supports. We found scrubbing back and forth was a little more jerky than the already-jerky iTunes-hosted video, but otherwise it was simple to set up, easy to use and very handy.

Silver Screen requires a minimum of OS X 10.8, and a second- or third-generation Apple TV. It costs $19 from the official website.

Who is Silver Screen for:
Anyone with videos in the usual wild assortment of formats and types.

Who is Silver Screen not for:
If you really only ever buy videos via iTunes, or don't mind converting them (outside the US we mean), there is no benefit to Silver Screen for you.

-- William Gallagher (@WGallagher)

[rickrobin]

Of course, if you have a late model Mac, you can just mirror anything on the screen to ATV. Otherwise, if you have an i-device, just get the fantastic, free (or a couple bucks for a more convenient version),AirVideo app. Streams from your computer to your ATV - transcoding perfectly ON THE FLY (or you can make a transcoded copy) using iPhone or iPad as a remote control.

[Mike Wuerthele]

Everybody's got their own favorite solutions. I go the other way, and use StreamToMe from the Mac to an iOS device.

Anybody else got any more?

[rickrobin]

But not to the same problem, apparently. We're talking about streaming to the TV, are we not?

[buddhistMonkey]

I use AirParrot 2, by Squirrels: http://www.airsquirrels.com/airparrot/

It's a more robust solution, and lets you do things like sending to multiple devices at once, or sending audio only. You can send just the output of an app (like VLC), or an entire monitor. I've been pleased with it for the most part, although I find that I have to reset the output of the Sound panel in System Preferences even after quitting AirParrot. Minor detail, though — it's an excellent app.

[Jeronimo2000]

Much better solution that does the same thing: Beamer (beamer-app.com).

[Mike Wuerthele]

We looked at Beamer early in 2014.

Hands On: Beamer 2.0 for OS X and Apple TV | MacNN