How to loop video with AVPlayerLooper - ios

Question

I try to loop a video in a TV OS app with the AVPlayerLooper because this should get rid of the pause/hicup when playing the video again. I watched the WWDC2016 video https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/503/ and try to implement the code but it doesn't loop.
I have one PlayerViewController which inherits AVPlayerViewController. I put the code to let the video loop. If I have the following code, it shows nothing. If I change the second line to self.queuePlayer = AVQueuePlayer(playerItem:playerItem), it only plays once.
let playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: url as URL)
self.queuePlayer = AVQueuePlayer() //I declared this as a variable in the view controller
self.playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: self.queuePlayer) //I declared this as a variable in the view controller
let playerLooper = AVPlayerLooper(player: self.queuePlayer!, templateItem: playerItem)
self.view.layer.addSublayer(self.playerLayer!)
self.playerLayer?.frame = self.view.frame
self.queuePlayer?.play()
Have any of you succeeded in playing looped video with the latest AVPlayerLooper?

Answer 1

I fixed the problem myself.
The playerLooper must be a member variable in the class otherwise it doesn't work because a local variable is gone after the method has been called. So I put this line at the beginning of the class to declare it. I didn't declare it as an AVPlayerLooper because this is only for tvos10.0 and newer versions. I want my class to be adaptive to tvos9.0.
This is my working code.
var playerLooper: NSObject?
var playerLayer:AVPlayerLayer!
var queuePlayer: AVQueuePlayer?
func playVideo(_ filmName: String){
if let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: filmName, ofType: "mov") {
let url = URL(fileURLWithPath: path)
if #available(tvOS 10.0, *) {
// Use a new player looper with the queue player and template item
let playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: url as URL)
self.player = AVQueuePlayer(items: [playerItem])
self.playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: self.player)
self.playerLooper = AVPlayerLooper(player: self.player! as! AVQueuePlayer, templateItem: playerItem)
self.view.layer.addSublayer(self.playerLayer!)
self.playerLayer?.frame = self.view.frame
self.player?.play()
} else {
// Fallback on earlier versions, this solution has hicup at end
player = AVPlayer(url: url)
player?.play()
loopVideo(player!)
}
}
}
func loopVideo(_ videoPlayer: AVPlayer) {
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(forName: NSNotification.Name.AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTime, object: nil, queue: nil) { notification in
if(!self.isStopped){
videoPlayer.seek(to: kCMTimeZero)
videoPlayer.play()
}
}
}

Answer 2

Objective-C version:
#implementation ViewController
{
// As explained in accepted answer, the playerLooper must be a
// member (I put everything as member for simplicity):
AVPlayerItem *_playerItem;
AVQueuePlayer *_player;
AVPlayerLooper *_playerLooper;
AVPlayerLayer *_playerLayer;
}
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
// ...
NSString *videoFile = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"example" ofType:#"mov"];
NSURL *videoURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:videoFile];
_playerItem = [AVPlayerItem playerItemWithURL:videoURL];
_player = [AVQueuePlayer queuePlayerWithItems:#[_playerItem]];
_playerLooper = [AVPlayerLooper playerLooperWithPlayer:_player templateItem:_playerItem];
_playerLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:_player];
_playerLayer.frame = self.view.bounds;
[self.view.layer addSublayer:_playerLayer];
[_player play];
}

Answer 3

Swift 5 custom class for playing a video looped without any glitches
import Foundation
import AVKit
class VideoPlayerLooped {
public var videoPlayer:AVQueuePlayer?
public var videoPlayerLayer:AVPlayerLayer?
var playerLooper: NSObject?
var queuePlayer: AVQueuePlayer?
func playVideo(fileName:String, inView:UIView){
if let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: fileName, ofType: "mov") {
let url = URL(fileURLWithPath: path)
let playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: url as URL)
videoPlayer = AVQueuePlayer(items: [playerItem])
playerLooper = AVPlayerLooper(player: videoPlayer!, templateItem: playerItem)
videoPlayerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: videoPlayer)
videoPlayerLayer!.frame = inView.bounds
videoPlayerLayer!.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravity.resizeAspectFill
inView.layer.addSublayer(videoPlayerLayer!)
videoPlayer?.play()
}
}
func remove() {
videoPlayerLayer?.removeFromSuperlayer()
}
}
Usage:
let videoHolder = UIView()
videoHolder.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 200, height: 200)
var myVideoPlayerLooped = VideoPlayerLooped()
videoPlayerLooped.playVideo(video: "myLocalMovFile", inView: videoHolder)

Answer 4

The problem with your implementation is that you are declaring the AVPlayerLayer on function level whereas it should be declared on class level.