Question

I am implementing some video into my iPad app and its works fine. But the issue I am running into is that when I leave the view to navigate somewhere else the video audio keeps playing in the background. Is there a way to completely stop the video and remove it from the view before closing the view?

I tried:

[moviePlayerController stop]; – But that does not seem to stop the movie it just crashes the app.

[moviePlayerController.view removeFromSuperview]; – That removes the video from the view but does not stop the audio.

This is what I have for the code:

- (IBAction)PlayMediaButton:(id)sender
{   

[moviePlayerController stop];

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(moviePlayBackDidFinish:) 
                                             name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification object:nil];

NSString *movpath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"albert" ofType:@"mp4"];
MPMoviePlayerViewController* mpviewController = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] 
                                                 initWithContentURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:movpath]];

if ([[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:movpath])      //Does file exist?
{
    moviePlayerController = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:movpath]];

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                             selector:@selector(moviePlaybackComplete:)
                                                 name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification
                                               object:moviePlayerController];  

    moviePlayerController.view.frame = CGRectMake(38, 37, 986, 618);
    [self.view addSubview:moviePlayerController.view];
    [moviePlayerController play];

    if ([moviePlayerController respondsToSelector:@selector(setAllowsAirPlay:)])    //Allow airplay if availabe
        [moviePlayerController setAllowsAirPlay:YES];

    [moviePlayerController play];

}            
}



- (void)moviePlaybackComplete:(NSNotification *)notification
{
    MPMoviePlayerController *moviePlayerController = [notification object];
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self
                                                    name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification
                                                  object:moviePlayerController];

    [moviePlayerController.view removeFromSuperview];
    [moviePlayerController release];
}

Answer 1

If I’m following you correctly, you should stop the movie player controller in -viewWillDisappear:.

- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
    [super viewWillDisappear:animated];
    [moviePlayerController stop];
}

Edit Just noticed that you’re creating a MPMoviePlayerViewController instead of an MPMoviePlayerController. The former is meant to be displayed modally since it as a subclass of UIViewController. This explains the crash because MPMoviePlayerViewController doesn’t respond to a -stop message. So either, display moviePlayerController with -presentModalViewController:animated: or change it’s type to MPMoviePlayerController and add it to your view as you are doing now.