I am using AVFoundation's AVPlayer to play 2 video clips made from 1 longer video (so the end of the first matches the beginning of the second)
When the first video ends and the user taps, I create a new AVPlayer and assign it to my PlayerView, and start playing the second clip.
This all works, however, there is a prominent screen "flicker".
My assumption is that this is caused by the player view removing the first clip and then showing the second clip.
What I need is for this flicker to no appear, so that going between the two clips is seamless.
Do anyone know if there is a way to stop this flickr, either via the AVPlayer* classes, or a way to "fake" it by doing something to make it so this isn't visible.
Thanks
Below is the code of my load and play method:
- (void)loadAssetFromFile
{
NSURL *fileURL = nil;
switch (playingClip)
{
case 1:
fileURL = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:@"wh_3a" withExtension:@"mp4"];
break;
case 2:
fileURL = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:@"wh_3b" withExtension:@"mp4"];
break;
case 3:
fileURL = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:@"wh_3c" withExtension:@"mp4"];
break;
case 4:
fileURL = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:@"wh_3d" withExtension:@"mp4"];
break;
default:
return;
break;
}
AVURLAsset *asset = [AVURLAsset URLAssetWithURL:fileURL options:nil];
NSString *tracksKey = @"tracks";
[asset loadValuesAsynchronouslyForKeys:[NSArray arrayWithObject:tracksKey] completionHandler:
^{
// The completion block goes here.
NSError *error = nil;
AVKeyValueStatus status = [asset statusOfValueForKey:tracksKey error:&error];
if (status == AVKeyValueStatusLoaded)
{
self.playerItem = [AVPlayerItem playerItemWithAsset:asset];
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(playerItemDidReachEnd:) name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification object:playerItem];
self.player = [AVPlayer playerWithPlayerItem:playerItem];
[playerView setPlayer:player];
[self.player seekToTime:kCMTimeZero];
[self play];
}
else {
// Deal with the error appropriately.
NSLog(@"The asset's tracks were not loaded:\n%@", [error localizedDescription]);
}
}];
}
You do not need to re-create AVPlayer
for this task. You can just have multiple AVPlayerItem
s and then switch which one is current via [AVPlayer replaceCurrentItemWithPlayerItem:item]
.
Also, you can observe for when current item has changed with the code below.
static void* CurrentItemObservationContext = &CurrentItemObservationContext;
... After creating a player, register the observer:
[player1 addObserver:self
forKeyPath:kCurrentItemKey
options:NSKeyValueObservingOptionInitial | NSKeyValueObservingOptionNew
context:CurrentItemObservationContext];
...
- (void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString*) path
ofObject:(id)object
change:(NSDictionary*)change
context:(void*)context {
if (context == CurrentItemObservationContext) {
AVPlayerItem *item = [change objectForKey:NSKeyValueChangeNewKey];
if (item != (id)[NSNull null]) {
[player1 play];
}
}
}
There are two workaround that I found. To me both approaches worked and I prefer the second one.
First, as @Alex Kennberg mentioned, create two set of AVPlayerLayer
and AVPlayer
. and switching them when you switch between videos. Be sure to set background color to clear color.
Second, use UIImageView
as the owner view of AVPlayerLayer
. Create thumbnail image of a video and set it to the imageview before switching the video. Be sure to set the view mode correctly.
I ran into the same issue with the video "flashing" and solved it this way in Swift 5.
Set my player variable to this
var player = AVPlayer(playerItem: nil)
Then inside my playVideo function, I changed this
self.player.replaceCurrentItem(with: AVPlayerItem(url: fileURL))
to this
player = AVPlayer(url: fileURL)
"fileURL" is the path to video I want to play.
This removed the flash and played the next video seamlessly for me.
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