Quick Tip: How to use iOS to screengrab tvOS

[Fofer]

As a followup to this (now closed) thread:

Quick Tip: How to use macOS to screengrab tvOS

I'm asked about this often enough that I think more people should know about this old, yet-still-cool feature. It works wirelessly. Launch QuickTime Player. File → New Movie Recording. Any AppleTV's on your same network will appear under the "Screen" section in the controller overlay. Choose which AppleTV you'd like mirrored. You can make recordings, take screenshots, etc. The first time you’re doing so, your Mac will show a popup saying, "Enter the AirPlay code for...” At the same time, you…

I discovered this app on the iPhone's App Store, that works really nicely:

‎ChMirror

[bnhf]

Both of these approaches to ATV screengrabs were causing the new integrated multiview to freeze yesterday when I tried them. Exiting multiview and beginning a new multiview would get it going again. Has anyone else seen this?

[Fofer]

Interesting. Good catch! I've used the QuickTime Player method on macOS for years now, and ChMirror on iOS for a couple of months. Both have worked well without any issue. The only screens that neither have been able to capture, was DRM'ed, i.e. playing content from the Netflix, Disney+ and AppleTV+ apps.

Trying it with Multiview in Channels now, is the first time I've seen it impact anything else. And in my experiments, one of the four grids keep playing, while the other three get paused. I'm not sure what would explain that.

Regardless I've found these easy screesnshotting tools to be very helpful when sharing bug reports and/or tips. At the very least, the end results certainly look a lot better than photographs of TV screens, glare and all.