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How to Play Movies from the Application Bundle or from a Remote Server (URL)

- (id)initWithURL:(NSURL *)URL
{
  if (self = [super init])
  {
    movieURL = URL;
    [movieURL retain];
 
  }
  return self;
}
 
- (id)initWithPath:(NSString *)moviePath
{
  if (self = [super init])
  {
    movieURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:moviePath];    
    [movieURL retain];
  }
  return self;
}

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- (void)loadMoviePlayer
{  
/*
  // Play movie from app bundle
  NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"Movie-1" ofType:@"mp4" inDirectory:nil];
  moviePlayer = [[[CustomMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithPath:path] autorelease];
*/
 
  // Play movie from URL
  NSURL *movieURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://someurlsomewhere.com/movie.mp4"];
  moviePlayer = [[[CustomMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithURL:movieURL] autorelease];
 
  // Show the movie player as modal
  [self presentModalViewController:moviePlayer animated:YES];
 
  // Prep and play the movie
  [moviePlayer readyPlayer];    
}

Comments

• Wasif Malik says:

  July 21, 2010 at 12:17 am

  Hi, thank you very much for sharing the source code.

  I will definitely try this out tonight.

  [Reply]
• Forrest says:

  July 22, 2010 at 7:59 pm

  This can play online remote video ? Just several questions:
  1. What is the protocol ?
  2. Who manages downloading ?
  3. What are supported video formats ?

  [Reply]

  

  John Muchow Reply:
  July 26th, 2010 at 8:15 pm

  All the details are managed by the OS. All you need to provide is a URL to a movie in a format supported by the player. Common formats are .mov, .mp4, .mpv, and .3gp

  [Reply]
• Philip Borges says:

  March 26, 2011 at 3:58 am

  Hi,

  Thank you for posting this. The sample code on playing movies from Apple’s iOS Reference Library doesn’t work so I was glad that I found your site. I have a question though:

  I’ve built an RSS reader that plays video podcasts. It works fine when connected to WIFI network but stalls every 7 seconds to load when on 3G network. Therefore Apple rejected the app because it didn’t comply with HTTP live streaming protocol. Now I’ve added the MediaPlayer framework and your code but I’m having troubles loading the vidoes.

  Any ideas?

  My Code:
  // Play movie from URL
  NSURL *movieURL = [NSURL URLWithString:[item objectForKey:@"podcastLink"]];

  mp = [[[MoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithURL:movieURL] autorelease];

  // Show the movie player as modal
  [self presentModalViewController:mp animated:YES];

  // Prep and play the movie
  [mp readyPlayer];

  [Reply]
• Bill says:

  May 12, 2011 at 12:24 pm

  Thanks very much for posting this. I would like to make the video start as soon as the app launches but I have been unsuccessful so far.

  I tried calling [self loadMoviePlayer]; from within the TestViewController’s viewDidLoad() but nothing happens. Am I missing something?

  Thanks,

  Bill

  [Reply]

  

  John Muchow Reply:
  May 12th, 2011 at 12:31 pm

  It may be a timing issue with the views. In place of [self loadMoviePlayer] you could try tinkering with something like this:

  [self performSelector:@selector(loadMoviePlayer) withObject:nil afterDelay:1];

  [Reply]

  

  Bill Reply:
  May 12th, 2011 at 1:11 pm

  Thanks so much for the immediate reply, John. Your technique worked great. Looks like I got it down to a very small delay as well…

  - (void) viewDidLoad
  {
  [super viewDidLoad];
  [self performSelector:@selector(loadMoviePlayer) withObject:nil afterDelay:0.01];
  }

  seems to work fine.

  Thanks again,

  Bill

  [Reply]
• Dave says:

  May 16, 2011 at 1:21 pm

  Thanks dude! Your docs are better than Apple’s!!! :)

  [Reply]