I have a tabbed application. Each tab loads a table view controller inside a navigation controller to maintain the upper navigation bar.
The table view controller presents a list of videos. Upon clicking a table cell, the user is presented with a MPMoviePlayerViewController which loads the requested video using the following code:
VideoViewController * playerController = [[VideoViewController alloc] initWithContentURL:url];
[self.navigationController pushViewController:playerController animated:YES];
[playerController.moviePlayer prepareToPlay];
[playerController.moviePlayer play];
UIBarButtonItem *mailButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:#"Email Link" style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:self action:#selector(openMailBasket:)];
playerController.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = mailButton;
Note: VideoViewController is a subclass of MPMoviePlayerViewController.
This works great. However, if I click a tab at the bottom to navigate to another section, then go back to the Videos section, it misbehaves.
In IOS 5, the video starts back at the beginning. This is fine.
In IOS 6, I get a blank video screen that says "Loading..." and never loads.
In IOS 7, I am given a black video player with a total time of 0:00.
Its like the video has been 'unloaded' in IOS 6 and IOS 7. However, if I execute this in viewWillAppear:
NSString *vidURL = [self.moviePlayer.contentURL absoluteString];
NSLog(#"URL: %#",vidURL);
The URL is valid.
Note: I must use MPMoviePlayerViewController instead of MPMoviePlayerController because I need the 'Email Link' button to appear at the top.
Do I need to do anything special to get MPMoviePlayerViewController to maintain the video's state when I navigate elsewhere? Is ARC deallocating my video, and if so, why does it work in IOS 5, and what can I do about it?
Well, apparently typing it out on here led me to find the solution, so I'll lay it out.
I got to thinking about why it was working on IOS 5 and not 6 or 7. It seemed to me that ARC was probably autoreleasing my video data, and I needed a way to tell IOS that I want to bring the movie back.
All I needed to do was add:
-(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[self.moviePlayer prepareToPlay];
}
to my VideoViewController class.
Related
Using MPMoviePlayerController, if I make a fullscreen video with ControlStyleFullscreen, then I close it, then I instantiate a new one, the progress bar is gone from the controls in iOS 8 in the second one. This happens 100% of the time. Has anyone else encountered this? Is this an iOS bug? It still happens in 8.2.
Another way to reproduce: using an embedded video with ControlStyleEmbedded, if I run the following code, the progress bar also disappears. Note that the code is intended to force the controls to show after a programmatic pause:
[self.videoPlayer pause];
self.videoPlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleNone;
self.videoPlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleEmbedded;
I'm finding it difficult to search for this, background video searches for iOS typically refer to multitasking and switching apps with video.
I want to know if it's possible to have a video playing full screen without movie player controls, while displaying another view on top of that with logo, buttons, text, etc...
So,
Background: 15 second video loop -
Foreground: login / signup buttons, logo, etc...
There are a number of options, but the simplest will be to use a MPMoviePlayerController, with its repeatMode property set to loop forever, and its controlStyle set to none. That will give you a view with a looped movie with no controls that you can use as a background by adding it to your view hierarchy.
OP here - I was able to display a video full screen using this code (in viewDidLoad):
(don't forget to substantiate player as a property with MPMoviePlayerController *player;)
player = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"videoname" ofType:#"m4v"]]];
[player.view setFrame: self.view.bounds];
player.repeatMode = MPMovieRepeatModeOne;
player.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleNone;
[myView addSubview:player.view];
[player play];
And that worked fine - it displays a video fullscreen without video controls. What I had a problem with was displaying buttons and graphics above that. Even though my view hierarchy had the player.view seemingly behind my view with buttons, I couldn't get the buttons to appear.
I fixed that by adding in:
[player.view addSubview:overlayView];
Just set the layer you intend to display above the video to an IBOutlet and then use the video view to add that view (overlayView in this case) as a subview.
I actually prefer a way that is portrayed in this tutorial
basically the idea is to create a gif of your video, crop it to iPhone Screen size and load it into an un-interactive UIWebView. I believe this will get the job done if you don't need any audio, and it's basically done effortlessly.
I hope it helps you =)
I'm using MPMoviePlayerViewController, When the scale button is clicked for the first time, the icon does not change, making the icon showing as reverse.
This error happend on Simulator and on Device.
I think this is an apple bug i created a small project to reproduce the bug, can be downloaded here
The code i'm using to show the video:
MPMoviePlayerViewController *moviePlayerController = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithContentURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:theFilePath]];
[self presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:moviePlayerController];
I'm working on an iPad project where i have to play short video files one after another smoothly. For playing the videos i'm using MPMoviePlayerController. The problem i'm facing is that when i call
[self.moviePlayer setContentURL:videoURL]
it does start the next video, but there is ±1 sec delay of black screen before it starts to play the next video (the videos are read from the disk, not streamed). I need to avoid this black screen as well as the delay.
So maybe some of you also experienced this problem and have some solutions? Thanks.
Btw, for now, as to at least avoid the black screen, I capture the last frame of the ending video, show it in a UIImageView, and remove it after 1 sec delay. But i'm hoping to find a more elegant fix.
The effect you are talking about is actually a combination of two problems: a black blink when you change the video (which doesn't happen upon assigning the video for the first time) and the delay before the controller starts playing video.
I'm currently screwed with the second one and don't know how to solve yet. As for the first one, just try to use another instance of MPMoviePlayerController. I mean when a video finishes playing (you can subscribe to a corresponding notification) just remove the old player, create a new one and put video there. This way you will avoid blinking, but there will be a delay (not sure, because of loading the video or because of player creation) before the next video starts playing.
Hope this helps a bit.
Fond solution here
http://joris.kluivers.nl/blog/2010/01/04/mpmovieplayercontroller-handle-with-care/
you need to use [self.moviePlayer prepareToPlay]; and catch MPMoviePlayerReadyForDisplayDidChangeNotification to use [self.moviePlayer play];
Old post but Googlers will still come. :)
Creating a new MPMoviePlayerController then assigning it back to my previous player worked for me, no more black screen!
...
[self playVideoWithFilename:#"video1.mp4"];
}
- (void)playVideoWithFilename:(NSString *)fileName
{
MPMoviePlayerController *player = [MPMoviePlayerController new];
_myVidPlayer = player;
player = nil;
NSURL *vidPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:fileName withExtension:nil];
[_myVidPlayer.view setBackgroundColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
[_myVidPlayer.view setFrame:CGRectMake(0, 64, 320, 320)];
[_myVidPlayer setContentURL:vidPath];
[_myVidPlayer setControlStyle:MPMovieControlStyleNone];
[_myVidPlayer setRepeatMode:MPMovieRepeatModeOne];
[_myVidPlayer prepareToPlay];
[self.view addSubview: _myVidPlayer.view];
[_myVidPlayer play];
}
Note:
Available in iOS 2.0 and later
Deprecated in iOS 9.0
"Use AVPlayerViewController in AVKit."
I think that the problem is that the controller will fade out and back in between the movies.
You can control the background view color and contents, but I'm not sure that you can eliminate the fade in/out.
Hey All,
Im working on an app for the iPad and Ive run across an issue that I need some guidance on. I have an app that uses the TabBarController. The TabBarController contains 4 UIViewController...one for each screen in the app. On each of these 4 screens, there are 4 tiles that need to act as buttons and play a video when clicked. I would like to play the video in a view that hovers over the rest of the screen and is dismissed if the user touches anywhere outside the playing video.
My question is: How do I go about implementing the custom view to play the video? It seems to me that it should be just another view with a viewController...but I dont know if that is the correct way to go about this. Also, how do I get it to play the right video depending on what button was clicked?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Alex
I'm not sure if I entirely get what the question is, if my answer is not enough please be more precise.
first you initialize your video player view controller class MPMoviePlayerController, then you can do whatever you want with it's .view property, or the container view to display your 4 buttons.
NSBundle *bundle = [NSBundle mainBundle];
NSString *moviePath = [bundle pathForResource:#"someMovie" ofType:#"m4v"];
MPMoviePlayerController *player = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:url]];
player.view.frame = CGRectMake(someX, someY, someWidth, someHeight);
[self.view addSubview:player.view];
[player play];