How to play video inside a UIView without controls, like a background/wallpaper?

Question

The goal is to playback video file (*.mp4) inside a UIView without controls.

It will serve as a background/wallpaper on the ViewController and other controls, i.e. tableview, text fields, images will be shown over the view with video playedback.

What is the better way to do this? Thank you

Answer 1

I've reached the goal with the native AVPlayer

1.Used AVFoundation:

#import <AVFoundation/AVFoundation.h>

2.Used property for player:

@property (nonatomic) AVPlayer *avPlayer;

3.Added video file into "Video" folder and added "Video" into project

4.Initialized the player

NSString *filepath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"shutterstock_v885172.mp4" ofType:nil inDirectory:@"Video"];
NSURL *fileURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:filepath];
self.avPlayer = [AVPlayer playerWithURL:fileURL];
self.avPlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndNone;

AVPlayerLayer *videoLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:self.avPlayer];
videoLayer.frame = self.view.bounds;
videoLayer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravityResizeAspectFill;
[self.view.layer addSublayer:videoLayer];

[self.avPlayer play];

5.Subscribed for event - video did play to the end

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

6.Resumed video playing from the very start in related method

- (void)itemDidFinishPlaying:(NSNotification *)notification {
    AVPlayerItem *player = [notification object];
    [player seekToTime:kCMTimeZero];
}

Answer 2

Swift

In Swift it is similar. Add the video to your resource bundle. My fuller answer is here.

import UIKit
import AVFoundation

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    var player: AVPlayer?

    @IBOutlet weak var videoViewContainer: UIView!

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        initializeVideoPlayerWithVideo()
    }

    func initializeVideoPlayerWithVideo() {

        // get the path string for the video from assets
        let videoString:String? = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "SampleVideo_360x240_1mb", ofType: "mp4")
        guard let unwrappedVideoPath = videoString else {return}

        // convert the path string to a url
        let videoUrl = URL(fileURLWithPath: unwrappedVideoPath)

        // initialize the video player with the url
        self.player = AVPlayer(url: videoUrl)

        // create a video layer for the player
        let layer: AVPlayerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: player)

        // make the layer the same size as the container view
        layer.frame = videoViewContainer.bounds

        // make the video fill the layer as much as possible while keeping its aspect size
        layer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravity.resizeAspectFill

        // add the layer to the container view
        videoViewContainer.layer.addSublayer(layer)
    }

    @IBAction func playVideoButtonTapped(_ sender: UIButton) {
        // play the video if the player is initialized
        player?.play()
    }
}