Playing stacked videos - ios

Question

I have multiple imageview subviews getting stacked based on my incoming data. Basically all these subviews are either set to an image or a video layer based on my incoming data. The problem i have is playing videos. i can play the first video in the stack but every video after that is just the sound of the first video. How can i play each accordingly?
the views are navigated through with a tap event like snapchat. see below:
#interface SceneImageViewController ()
#property (strong, nonatomic) NSURL *videoUrl;
#property (strong, nonatomic) AVPlayer *avPlayer;
#property (strong, nonatomic) AVPlayerLayer *avPlayerLayer;
#end
#implementation SceneImageViewController
- (void)viewDidLoad {
[super viewDidLoad];
self.mySubviews = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
self.videoCounterTags = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
int c = (int)[self.scenes count];
c--;
NSLog(#"int c = %d", c);
self.myCounter = [NSNumber numberWithInt:c];
for (int i=0; i<=c; i++) {
//create imageView
UIImageView *imageView =[[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.bounds.size.width, self.view.bounds.size.height)];
[imageView setUserInteractionEnabled:YES]; // <--- This is very important
imageView.tag = i; // <--- Add tag to track this subview in the view stack
[self.view addSubview:imageView];
NSLog(#"added image view %d", i);
//get scene object
PFObject *sceneObject = self.scenes[i];
//get the PFFile and filetype
PFFile *file = [sceneObject objectForKey:#"file"];
NSString *fileType = [sceneObject objectForKey:#"fileType"];
//check the filetype
if ([fileType isEqual: #"image"])
{
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0), ^{
//get image
NSURL *imageFileUrl = [[NSURL alloc] initWithString:file.url];
NSData *imageData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:imageFileUrl];
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
imageView.image = [UIImage imageWithData:imageData];
});
});
}
//its a video
else
{
// the video player
NSURL *fileUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:file.url];
self.avPlayer = [AVPlayer playerWithURL:fileUrl];
self.avPlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndNone;
self.avPlayerLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:self.avPlayer];
//self.avPlayerLayer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravityResizeAspectFill;
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:#selector(playerItemDidReachEnd:)
name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification
object:[self.avPlayer currentItem]];
CGRect screenRect = [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds];
self.avPlayerLayer.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, screenRect.size.width, screenRect.size.height);
[imageView.layer addSublayer:self.avPlayerLayer];
NSNumber *tag = [NSNumber numberWithInt:i+1];
NSLog(#"tag = %#", tag);
[self.videoCounterTags addObject:tag];
//[self.avPlayer play];
}
}
UITapGestureRecognizer *tapGesture = [[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self action:#selector(viewTapped:)];
[self.view bringSubviewToFront:self.screen];
[self.screen addGestureRecognizer:tapGesture];
}
- (void)viewTapped:(UIGestureRecognizer *)gesture{
NSLog(#"touch!");
[self.avPlayer pause];
int i = [self.myCounter intValue];
NSLog(#"counter = %d", i);
for(UIImageView *subview in [self.view subviews]) {
if(subview.tag== i) {
[subview removeFromSuperview];
}
}
if ([self.videoCounterTags containsObject:self.myCounter]) {
NSLog(#"play video!!!");
[self.avPlayer play];
}
if (i == 0) {
[self.avPlayer pause];
[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:NO];
}
i--;
self.myCounter = [NSNumber numberWithInt:i];
NSLog(#"counter after = %d", i);
}

Answer 1

What Brooks Hanes said is correct you keep overriding the avplayer.
This is what i suggest for you to do:
Add the tap gesture to the imageView instead of the screen (or for a cleaner approach use UIButton instead):
UIImageView *imageView =[[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.bounds.size.width, self.view.bounds.size.height)];
[imageView setUserInteractionEnabled:YES]; // <--- This is very important
imageView.tag = i; // <--- Add tag to track this subview in the view stack
[self.view addSubview:imageView];
NSLog(#"added image view %d", i);
UITapGestureRecognizer *tapGesture = [[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:imageView action:#selector(viewTapped:)];
[imageView addGestureRecognizer:tapGesture];
This way in your viewTapped: method you could get the tag of the pressed image like so: gesture.view.tag instead of using the myCounter.
To get the video working you could create a new AVPlayer for each video but that might turn quite expensive memory wise. A better approach will be to use AVPlayerItem and switch the AVPlayer's AVPlayerItem when changing the video.
So in the for loop do something like this where self.videoFiles is a NSMutableDictionary property:
// the video player
NSNumber *tag = [NSNumber numberWithInt:i+1];
NSURL *fileUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:file.url];
//save your video file url paired with the ImageView it belongs to.
[self.videosFiles setObject:fileUrl forKey:tag];
// you only need to initialize the player once.
if(self.avPlayer == nil){
AVAsset *asset = [AVAsset assetWithURL:fileUrl];
AVPlayerItem *item = [[AVPlayerItem alloc] initWithAsset:asset];
self.avPlayer = [[AVPlayer alloc] initWithPlayerItem:item];
self.avPlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndNone;
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:#selector(playerItemDidReachEnd:)
name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification
object:[self.avPlayer currentItem]];
}
// you don't need to keep the layer as a property
// (unless you need it for some reason
AVPlayerLayer* avPlayerLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:self.avPlayer];
avPlayerLayer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravityResizeAspectFill;
CGRect screenRect = [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds];
avPlayerLayer.frame = CGRectMake(0, 0, screenRect.size.width, screenRect.size.height);
[imageView.layer addSublayer:avPlayerLayer];
NSLog(#"tag = %#", tag);
[self.videoCounterTags addObject:tag];
Now in your viewTapped:
if ([self.videoCounterTags containsObject:gesture.view.tag]) {
NSLog(#"play video!!!");
AVAsset *asset = [AVAsset assetWithURL:[self.videoFiles objectForKey:gesture.view.tag]];
AVPlayerItem *item = [[AVPlayerItem alloc] initWithAsset:asset];
self.avPlayer replaceCurrentItemWithPlayerItem: item];
[self.avLayer play];
}
Or use the self.videoFiles instead and then you don't need self.videoCounterTags at all:
NSURL* fileURL = [self.videoFiles objectForKey:gesture.view.tag];
if (fileURL!=nil) {
NSLog(#"play video!!!");
AVAsset *asset = [AVAsset assetWithURL:fileURL];
AVPlayerItem *item = [[AVPlayerItem alloc] initWithAsset:asset];
self.avPlayer replaceCurrentItemWithPlayerItem: item];
[self.avLayer play];
}
That's the gist of it.

Answer 2

Take a look at the way you're setting up the myCounter variable. It is set one time and never changes until a view is tapped, and then it is set to the count of scenes, -1.
In addition, try looking at the way you're setting to the _avPlayer pointer var. It's always being set, over and over, and it seems that in a for loop you'd want to be storing references instead of simply updating the same pointer to the value latest in collection of scenes.
Also, from Apple's documentation:
You can create arbitrary numbers of player layers with the same AVPlayer object. Only the most recently created player layer will actually display the video content on-screen.
So, it's possible that since you're using the same AVPlayer object to create all these AVPlayer layers, that you're never going to see any more than one actual video layer work.