Question

I’m currently using an AVPlayer, along with an AVPlayerLayer to play back some video. While playing back the video, I’ve registered for time updates every 30th of a second during the video. This is used to draw a graph of the acceleration at that point in the video, and have it update along with the video. The graph is using the CMTime from the video, so if I skip to a different portion of the video, the graph immediately represents that point in time in the video with no extra work.

Anywho, as far as I’m aware, if I want to get an interface similar to what the MediaPlayer framework offers, I’m going to have to do that myself.

What I’m wondering is, is there a way to use my AVPlayer with the MediaPlayer framework? (Not that I can see.) Or, is there a way to register for incremental time updates with the MediaPlayer framework.

My code, if anyone is interested, follows :

[moviePlayer addPeriodicTimeObserverForInterval: CMTimeMake(1, 30) queue: dispatch_queue_create("eventQueue", NULL) usingBlock: ^(CMTime time) {
 loopCount = (int)(CMTimeGetSeconds(time) * 30);
 if(loopCount < [dataPointArray count]) {
  dispatch_sync(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
   [graphLayer setNeedsDisplay];
  });
 }
}];

Thanks!

Answer 1

If you’re talking about the window chrome displayed by MPMoviePlayer then I’m afraid you are looking at creating this UI yourself.

AFAIK there is no way of achieving the timing behaviour you need using the MediaPlayer framework, which is very much a simple “play some media” framework. You’re doing the right thing by using AVFoundation.

Which leaves you needing to create the UI yourself. My suggestion would be to start with a XIB file to create the general layout; toolbar at the top with a done button, a large view that represents a custom playback view (using your AVPlayerLayer) and a separate view to contain your controls.

You’ll need to write some custom controller code to automatically show/hide the playback controls and toolbar as needed if you want to simulate the MPMoviePlayer UI.