Chapter 28. Video

Basic video playback is performed in a view owned by an 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 from one system version to the next. It is difficult to use it compatibly with multiple system versions. In this chapter, I describe only its current behavior, 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.

A simple interface for trimming video (UIVideoEditorController) is also supplied.

Sophisticated video playing and editing can be performed through AV Foundation. I won’t go deeply into AV Foundation in this book, but I’ll introduce it at the end of this chapter: I’ll talk a little about AVPlayer, an alternative class for playing a movie or a sound, and I’ll provide some code that demonstrates AV Foundation’s video- and audio-editing capabilities.

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. ...

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