Question

I’m using MPMoviePlayerController to play a video clip that loops. In the app delegate, I set my AVAudioSession’s category to AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient so that my video clip doesn’t interrupt iPod audio.

This works great when playing iPod audio on the device, but when using AirPlay, the audio is briefly interrupted every time my looping video starts over, which is pretty frequent (and annoying).

In AppDelegate.m:

AVAudioSession *audioSession = [AVAudioSession sharedInstance];
[audioSession setCategory:@"AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient" error:nil];

In my video view controller:

self.videoPlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:url];
self.videoPlayer.useApplicationAudioSession = YES;
self.videoPlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleNone;
self.videoPlayer.repeatMode = MPMovieRepeatModeOne;

I’ve scoured the net and can’t seem to find answers. Any advice would be great. Thanks!

Answer 1

Problem solved! I just had to use AVPlayer instead of MPMoviePlayerController.

self.avPlayer = [AVPlayer playerWithURL:url];
self.avPlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndNone;

self.avPlayerLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:self.avPlayer];
self.avPlayerLayer.frame = self.view.bounds;

[self.view.layer addSublayer:self.avPlayerLayer];
[self.avPlayer play];

And to make it loop:

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
   selector:@selector(movieDidFinish:)
   name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification
   object:[self.avPlayer currentItem]];

…

- (void)movieDidFinish:(NSNotification *)notification {
   [self.avPlayer seekToTime:kCMTimeZero];
}