Good morning. A couple of months ago, I set aside my 2012 MacBook Pro, and picked up a new MacBook Air.

The transfer was amazingly easy, and I love that. One big difference I’ve found, though, has to do with linking it to my TV.

I have an Anker device that gets me from USB-C to HDMI, and a cable to the TV. With the old Pro, I could link to the TV and play a video, getting the sound through my receiver and big speakers (already linked to the TV). With this new Air, I don’t get the sound through the TV — it comes from the computer speakers.

So far, I’ve not yet found a setting that will allow me to change that. Am I overlooking it? Or is there something else I’m not thinking of?

Thanks, all.

I had this problem back in the day. I gave a presentation in grad school and got no sound. The only solution I found was to use screen mirroring. Which means you probably need an AppleTV connected to your TV. You may be able to cast to the tv though the tv's system if it is a smart tv.

There should be an icon in the top right corner that looks like a couple of slider bars. Click that and it should expand down and there should be a speaker icon. From there you can select which device plays sound. Switch it from your computer to the name of your tv.

Tony

Tony, you’re The Man! That solved it.

Thank you very much.

You’re welcome! Glad that solved it!

Tony.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:

I have an Anker device that gets me from USB-C to HDMI, and a cable to the TV. With the old Pro, I could link to the TV and play a video, getting the sound through my receiver and big speakers (already linked to the TV). With this new Air, I don’t get the sound through the TV — it comes from the computer speakers.

So far, I’ve not yet found a setting that will allow me to change that. Am I overlooking it? Or is there something else I’m not thinking of?

There should be a speaker icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Hold the Option key and click on the speaker icon to get a drop-down menu.

I tell ya, fellas, the more I thinker with these Macs, the more I think my Windows PC will be replaced by a Mac when it dies.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
I tell ya, fellas, the more I thinker with these Macs, the more I think my Windows PC will be replaced by a Mac when it dies.

Why wait? I would think just not having to pay Bill Gates his yearly/monthly tribute might be sufficient reason to switch immediately.

The more Apple milieu products you have, the easier and more seamless everything becomes.
Resistance is futile!

I'll bet your new MacAir has more capability than your old PC. I gave up on my MacMini, even though it had an M1 chip, because it didn't have the memory or speed my M3 MacAir has. I use a Plugable dock to connect hard drives via Thunderbolt; and to link video monitor, printer and scanner to MacAir. It looks like an octopus on the desk, but it works.
Also, since my documents are in iCloud, I have access to them no matter which of two different MacBook Airs I'm using.

We've been all Mac since 2011.

We all have Apple products in our house. iPhones, iPad and all Macbooks. I'll never go back to PC and Android products. I use the iCloud and all my files and photos are on the cloud as well. Everything just plain works.

Tony.

quote:

Originally posted by benny6:
We've been all Mac since 2011.
<snip>

I’ve been all Mac since 1984, when the “Fat Mac” was introduced.

I’ve never owned a PC.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
Why wait? I would think just not having to pay Bill Gates his yearly/monthly tribute might be sufficient reason to switch immediately.

Mine is old enough I’m not on the monthly Make-Bill-richer plan — heck, I think I’m running Office 2000.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
The more Apple milieu products you have, the easier and more seamless everything becomes.
Resistance is futile!

I'll bet your new MacAir has more capability than your old PC. I gave up on my MacMini, even though it had an M1 chip, because it didn't have the memory or speed my M3 MacAir has. I use a Plugable dock to connect hard drives via Thunderbolt; and to link video monitor, printer and scanner to MacAir. It looks like an octopus on the desk, but it works.
Also, since my documents are in iCloud, I have access to them no matter which of two different MacBook Airs I'm using.

You’re probably right, Dr. T, my PC is a few years old. I’m okay with MacBook-and-a-dock, so long as I buy a dock that will run two external monitors.

One thing that holds me up, though, is that I have a ton of stuff stored on external hard drives and jump drives. I can’t just plug those in to a Mac and read them. The big holdup there is my Quicken files and all the old scanned statements and such. (I download or scan-and-shred, for not wanting to keep all that paper.). Add to it the fact that I’m not a big fan of cloud storage. I know that will ruffle feathers for some, but I just don’t trust my data being on someone else’s media, regardless how encrypted it’s claimed to be. I’d rather make three backups to store in secure locations than farm all my data out to someone else’s servers.

With that in mind, I figure I’ll need to work up a NAS or something and copy my old work to that for easy integration with a “Mac as main” computer until I can get fully converted. Either that, or I need to learn a lot more about Boot Camp and such. Cold weather is coming, so I’ll have lots of indoor time to do such learning.

Odd thing: I love my iPads, but I hated the iPhone my previous employer issued me. I can’t really describe it well, but I really prefer my Android phone over the Apple phone. Maybe I’m just weird….

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
One thing that holds me up, though, is that I have a ton of stuff stored on external hard drives and jump drives. I can’t just plug those in to a Mac and read them.

for goodness sake, why not? macOS natively supports most MS file systems (except NTFS, which is read-only, and there is third-party software available that adds writeability). I bet most of your stuff in on some variant of FAT, which is plug'n'play on macOS.

quote:

I just don’t trust my data being on someone else’s media, regardless how encrypted it’s claimed to be. I’d rather make three backups to store in secure locations than farm all my data out to someone else’s servers.

This is wise, IMHO. However, it can be somewhat mitigated through the use of multiple cloud providers, all of which are unlikely to fail or be compromised at the same time. You can always use your own encryption before storing on the cloud.

With that in mind, I figure I’ll need to work up a NAS or something and copy my old work to that for easy integration with a “Mac as main” computer until I can get fully converted. Either that, or I need to learn a lot more about Boot Camp and such. Cold weather is coming, so I’ll have lots of indoor time to do such learning.[/QUOTE]A NAS sounds like a pretty good strategy. Consider building rather than buying, perhaps using the no-cost version of FreeNAS/TrueNAS as your base, or even from a basic FreeBSD install. You'll learn a lot more that way. The only real added value the commercial NAS folks add is the web-based configuration UI, the free OS distributions have all the basic functionality needed.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
for goodness sake, why not? macOS natively supports most MS file systems (except NTFS, which is read-only, and there is third-party software available that adds writeability). I bet most of your stuff in on some variant of FAT, which is plug'n'play on macOS.

For real?! Cool! That's a great thing to have learned today. I'll try it out after work this evening.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
A NAS sounds like a pretty good strategy. Consider building rather than buying, perhaps using the no-cost version of FreeNAS/TrueNAS as your base, or even from a basic FreeBSD install. You'll learn a lot more that way. The only real added value the commercial NAS folks add is the web-based configuration UI, the free OS distributions have all the basic functionality needed.

Yep... I've got LOTS of learning to do.

Holy smokes, it does work! I always (incorrectly, it seems) thought Mac wouldn't read PC drives.

Now maybe I don't even need a NAS! Though I did find what seems like a bargain on a Buffalo dual-drive unit at Amazon this afternoon...

You will want to have your new hard drives formatted in APFS, and encrypt the drive.
I’m using LaCie Big Disk drives because they’re solid Thunderbolt drives. Thunderbolt remains much faster than USB for file transfers. You would see major improvements in file copying and other tasks with your Apple silicon MacBook Air and a Thunderbolt HD or SSD.

Also, you can use Parallels for legacy Windows apps like Quicken.
I abandoned Quicken when it abandoned Mac users decades ago. I use Banktivity for keeping track of finances, have for years, and have had no problems with it. Transferring Quicken files to Banktivity was pretty straightforward.

Dr. T and architect (among others), you're opening yourselves up to a bunch more questions from me!

Quicken abandoned Mac users? That stinks! Quicken is probably the program I depend on most at home, aside from the usual Office and email things. I have Quicken on the old MacBook Pro, but only used it there briefly, relying on the old PC instead. I do have some work-related software (PC-only) that I'll have to figure out how to use, but I suppose that's where I get to learn Parallels.

I use quicken classic every day on my Mac. I have my accounts backed up on Quicken’s cloud and every day my files are synced both on my computer and my cloud backup.

My Quicken use goes back to the early 2000’s.

Tony

quote:

Originally posted by benny6:
My Quicken use goes back to the early 2000’s.

I'm with ya! I got started with Quicken in 1991.


Dr. T (and others), what dock do you like?

quote:

Originally posted by benny6:

I use quicken classic every day on my Mac.

Couple questions:

Are you using the subscription version? If so, which level? I prefer a buy-it-once product, if available.

Can you use this on two (or more) Mac computers? If so, will data sync between the devices?

Is there an iPad / iPhone version that integrates with the computer version?