Question

Is there a way to know whether an AVPlayer playback has stalled or reached the end?

Answer 1

To get notification for reaching the end of an item (via Apple):

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] 
      addObserver:<self>
      selector:@selector(<#The selector name#>)
      name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification 
      object:<#A player item#>];

And to track playing you can:

“track changes in the position of the playhead in an AVPlayer object” by using addPeriodicTimeObserverForInterval:queue:usingBlock: or addBoundaryTimeObserverForTimes:queue:usingBlock:.

Example is from Apple:

// Assume a property: @property (retain) id playerObserver;

Float64 durationSeconds = CMTimeGetSeconds([<#An asset#> duration]);
CMTime firstThird = CMTimeMakeWithSeconds(durationSeconds/3.0, 1);
CMTime secondThird = CMTimeMakeWithSeconds(durationSeconds*2.0/3.0, 1);
NSArray *times = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:[NSValue valueWithCMTime:firstThird], [NSValue valueWithCMTime:secondThird], nil];

self.playerObserver = [<#A player#> addBoundaryTimeObserverForTimes:times queue:NULL usingBlock:^{
    // Passing NULL for the queue specifies the main queue.

    NSString *timeDescription = (NSString *)CMTimeCopyDescription(NULL, [self.player currentTime]);
    NSLog(@"Passed a boundary at %@", timeDescription);
    [timeDescription release];
}];