How to release MPMoviePlayerController?

Question

What I've found is that the MPMoviePlayerController has to be sent the stop message before you can safely release it. So I do it in handlePlaybackEnd - first I stop it, then I autorelease it. Calling release doesn't seem to work too well:

- (void) moviePlayBackDidFinish : (NSNotification *) notification
{
  VideoPlayerController * player = notification.object;
  [player stop];
  [player autorelease];
}

The whole thing becomes a bit trickier in that the MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification can get sent more than once, but calling stop/autorlease twice won't do you any good either. So you need to guard against that somehow.

Lastly, it seems to take a few iterations of the main run loop until you can safely create a new MPMoviePlayerController instance. If you do it too quickly, you'll get sound but no video. Great fun, huh?

To answer 4thSpace's comment on the answer above, you can remove the notification observer so you don't receive it multiple times:

- (void)moviePlayBackDidFinish:(NSNotification *)notification {
    MPMoviePlayerController *theMovie = [notification object];
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self
        name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification
        object:theMovie];
    [theMovie stop];
    [theMovie release];
}

for iphone os 3.2 you need to call [moviePlayer pause]; before calling [moviePlayer stop];

Stopping and releasing was not enough for me if the player did not reach to its end.

My solution is setting the moviePlayer.initialPlaybackTime = -1 at the moviePlayBackDidFinish: before releasing it:

-(void)playMovie: (NSString *)urlString{ 
    movieURL = [NSURL URLWithString:urlString]; 
    moviePlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:movieURL]; 
    moviePlayer.initialPlaybackTime = 0; 
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(moviePlayBackDidFinish: ) name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification object:moviePlayer] ;

    moviePlayer.scalingMode = MPMovieScalingModeAspectFit; 
    moviePlayer.movieControlMode = MPMovieControlModeDefault;
    moviePlayer.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];

    [moviePlayer play];
}

-(void)moviePlayBackDidFinish: (NSNotification*)notification{ 
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification object:moviePlayer] ; 

    moviePlayer.initialPlaybackTime = -1; 

    [moviePlayer stop]; 
    [moviePlayer release]; 
}