Programming iOS 4

Chapter 28. Video

Basic video playback is performed in a view owned by a MPMoviePlayerController. You’ll need to link to MediaPlayer.framework and import <MediaPlayer/MediaPlayer.h>. There are two relevant classes supplied by the Media Player framework:

MPMoviePlayerController

Vends and controls a view that plays a movie.

The behavior of this class has changed very greatly since it was introduced in iOS 2.0. It is difficult to use it compatibly with multiple system versions. In this chapter, I describe only its current behavior (in iOS 4.2 or later), with no attempt to discuss earlier differences or to advise you on backward compatibility.

MPMoviePlayerViewController

Owns an MPMoviePlayerController, and presents its view as a fullscreen view. Introduced in iOS 3.2.

A simple interface for trimming video (UIVideoEditorController) is also supplied. Starting in iOS 4, sophisticated video editing can be performed through AV Foundation, which this book does not discuss in depth.

A mobile device does not have unlimited power for decoding and presenting video in real time. A video that plays on your computer might not play at all on an iOS device. See the “Media Layer” chapter of Apple’s iOS Technology Overview for a list of specifications and limits within which video is eligible for playing.

Note

A web view (Chapter 24) supports the HTML 5 <video> tag. This can be a simple lightweight way to present video and to allow the user to control playback. Starting in iOS 4.3, both web view ...