How to loop video with AVPlayerLooper

Question

I try to loop a video in a TV OS app with the AVPlayerLooper because this should get rid of the pause/hicup when playing the video again. I watched the WWDC2016 video https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/503/ and try to implement the code but it doesn't loop. I have one PlayerViewController which inherits AVPlayerViewController. I put the code to let the video loop. If I have the following code, it shows nothing. If I change the second line to self.queuePlayer = AVQueuePlayer(playerItem:playerItem), it only plays once.

  let playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: url as URL)
  self.queuePlayer = AVQueuePlayer()   //I declared this as a variable in the view controller
  self.playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: self.queuePlayer) //I declared this as a variable in the view controller
  let playerLooper = AVPlayerLooper(player:  self.queuePlayer!, templateItem: playerItem)
  self.view.layer.addSublayer(self.playerLayer!)
  self.playerLayer?.frame = self.view.frame
  self.queuePlayer?.play()

Have any of you succeeded in playing looped video with the latest AVPlayerLooper?

Answer 1

I fixed the problem myself.

The playerLooper must be a member variable in the class otherwise it doesn't work because a local variable is gone after the method has been called. So I put this line at the beginning of the class to declare it. I didn't declare it as an AVPlayerLooper because this is only for tvos10.0 and newer versions. I want my class to be adaptive to tvos9.0. This is my working code.

var playerLooper: NSObject?
var playerLayer:AVPlayerLayer!
var queuePlayer: AVQueuePlayer?


func playVideo(_ filmName: String){
    if let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: filmName, ofType: "mov") {
        let url =  URL(fileURLWithPath: path)

        if #available(tvOS 10.0, *) {

            // Use a new player looper with the queue player and template item
            let playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: url as URL)
            self.player = AVQueuePlayer(items: [playerItem])
            self.playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: self.player)
            self.playerLooper = AVPlayerLooper(player: self.player! as! AVQueuePlayer, templateItem: playerItem)
            self.view.layer.addSublayer(self.playerLayer!)
            self.playerLayer?.frame = self.view.frame
            self.player?.play()


        } else {
            // Fallback on earlier versions, this solution has hicup at end
            player = AVPlayer(url: url)
            player?.play()
            loopVideo(player!)
        }

    }
}

func loopVideo(_ videoPlayer: AVPlayer) {
    NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(forName: NSNotification.Name.AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTime, object: nil, queue: nil) { notification in
        if(!self.isStopped){

            videoPlayer.seek(to: kCMTimeZero)
            videoPlayer.play()

        }
    }
}

Answer 2

Objective-C version:

@implementation ViewController
{
    // As explained in accepted answer, the playerLooper must be a
    // member (I put everything as member for simplicity):
    AVPlayerItem *_playerItem;
    AVQueuePlayer *_player;
    AVPlayerLooper *_playerLooper;
    AVPlayerLayer *_playerLayer;
}

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];

    // ...

    NSString *videoFile = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"example" ofType:@"mov"];
    NSURL *videoURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:videoFile];

    _playerItem = [AVPlayerItem playerItemWithURL:videoURL];
    _player = [AVQueuePlayer queuePlayerWithItems:@[_playerItem]];
    _playerLooper = [AVPlayerLooper playerLooperWithPlayer:_player templateItem:_playerItem];
    _playerLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:_player];
    _playerLayer.frame = self.view.bounds;
    [self.view.layer addSublayer:_playerLayer];
    [_player play];
}

Answer 3

Swift 5 custom class for playing a video looped without any glitches

import Foundation
import AVKit

class VideoPlayerLooped {

    public var videoPlayer:AVQueuePlayer?
    public var videoPlayerLayer:AVPlayerLayer?
    var playerLooper: NSObject?
    var queuePlayer: AVQueuePlayer?

    func playVideo(fileName:String, inView:UIView){

        if let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: fileName, ofType: "mov") {

            let url = URL(fileURLWithPath: path)
            let playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: url as URL)

            videoPlayer = AVQueuePlayer(items: [playerItem])
            playerLooper = AVPlayerLooper(player: videoPlayer!, templateItem: playerItem)

            videoPlayerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: videoPlayer)
            videoPlayerLayer!.frame = inView.bounds
            videoPlayerLayer!.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravity.resizeAspectFill

            inView.layer.addSublayer(videoPlayerLayer!)

            videoPlayer?.play()
        }
    }

    func remove() {
        videoPlayerLayer?.removeFromSuperlayer()

    }
}

Usage:

let videoHolder = UIView()
videoHolder.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 200, height: 200)

var myVideoPlayerLooped = VideoPlayerLooped()
videoPlayerLooped.playVideo(video: "myLocalMovFile", inView: videoHolder)