### MoviePlayer ###

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DESCRIPTION:

Demonstrates how to use the Media Player Framework to play a movie full-screen. The sample will play either a local movie file or a movie loaded from a network-based URL. The sample also contains code to configure the movie playback controls, scaling mode, and the background color when transitioning to and from movie playback.

The Media Player framework provides basic facilities for playing movie files. Within the Media Player framework, a MPMoviePlayerController object defines a full-screen movie player. You can use this class to play back movies stored in your application’s bundle directory or support directories. You can also use it to play movies loaded from a network-based URL. With iPhone OS version 3.0 or later, iPhone is capable of receiving streaming audio and video over HTTP from an ordinary web server.

Supported Formats

The MPMoviePlayerController class supports any movie or audio files that already play correctly on an iPod or iPhone. For movie files, this typically means files with the extensions .m4v, .mov, .mp4 and .3gp and using one of the following compression standards:

- H.264 Baseline Profile Level 3.0 video, up to 640 x 480 at 30 fps. Note that B frames are not supported in the Baseline profile.

- MPEG-4 Part 2 video (Simple Profile)

If you use the MPMoviePlayerController class to play audio files, it displays a QuickTime logo while the audio plays. For audio files, this class class supports AAC-LC audio at up to 48 kHz, and MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) up to 48 kHz, stereo audio.

Media Delivery

iPhone can display movie files delivered by any web server using HTTP protocols. Refer to your web server documentation to learn how to configure your web server for movie file delivery. This means movie files shared on a user's MobileMe iDisk can be displayed on iPhone.  See the Apple MobileMe website to learn how to share files with your MobileMe iDisk.

When a file is delivered over a network or downloaded over the Internet, the entire file is not available immediately, but a typical QuickTime movie can be played while it downloads. This is called progressive download, or Fast Start. It works because the movie atom is stored at the beginning of the file, so QuickTime knows how to interpret the movie sample data even before it arrives, and because the movie data is intelligently interleaved with respect to display time. 

It is also possible to create a movie file with the sample data stored first, followed by the movie data structure. This is not usually desirable, because the entire file must download before QuickTime can interpret the sample data. You can correct this kind of data inversion simply by opening the movie file in QuickTime and saving it as a new, self-contained file. QuickTime stores the movie data structure at the beginning of the file by default.

With iPhone 3.0 or later, iPhone is capable of receiving streaming audio and video over HTTP from an ordinary web server. Currently, the supported format is MPEG-2 transport streams containing H.264 video and HE-AAC audio. Audio-only streams can be either HE-AAC with ADTS headers, or MP3. In a typical configuration, a hardware encoder takes audio-video input and turns it into an MPEG-2 transport stream, which is then broken into a series of short media files by a software stream segmenter. The segmenter also creates and maintains an index file containing a list of the media files. 

The URL of the index file is published on the web server, which responds to file requests in the usual way. The client software reads the index, then requests the listed media files in order and displays them without any pauses or gaps between segments. Media segments are saved as .ts files (MPEG-2 streams) and index files are saved as .m3u8 files, an extension of the .m3u format used for MP3 playlists. For more information about streaming audio and video over HTTP for iPhone, see the "HTTP Live Streaming Overview" document which is available on the iPhone Developer Center.

Using the Application

After the application launches, press the Tab Bar labeled "Local" to go to the application screen to play the local movie file that is stored in the application bundle. Press the Play Movie button (or touch anywhere in the movie preview image) and the local movie file will play full-screen. When launched, notice the background color, playback controls and scaling mode. Touch anywhere on the movie during playback and the playback controls will show (unless you've turned them off via the "Settings" application). Also notice the custom overlay controls that are drawn on top of the movie. Touches anywhere on the overlay controls are handled specifically by the application, not by the movie player. 

Press the Tab Bar labeled "Streaming" go to the application view to play movies loaded from a network-based URL.  Enter a valid movie URL and press the Play Movie button to begin playback (Note: for MPEG-2 transport streams this would be the URL of the index file, for example http://media.example.com/mymedia/index.m3u8). Touch anywhere on the screen during playback to display the movie playback controls. Touch the screen again to make them go away.

Quit the application and launch the built-in "Settings" application. Scroll down and you will find a section for "MoviePlayer". Open it and from there you can set the background color when transitioning to movie playback, playback controls and scaling mode. Quit Settings and return to MoviePlayer. Press the Play Movie button again and notice the above settings have changed. 

This sample offers an Xcode project already pre-configured to build your Settings bundle as a target. To customize your settings UI, change the Root.plist file.

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BUILD REQUIREMENTS:

Mac OS X 10.5.6, Xcode 3.1.3, iPhone OS 3.0

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RUNTIME REQUIREMENTS:

Mac OS X 10.5.6, iPhone OS 3.0

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PACKAGING LIST:

MoviePlayerAppDelegate.h

MoviePlayerAppDelegate.m

A simple UIApplication delegate class that adds the MyMovieViewController view to the window as a subview. Instantiates a MPMoviePlayerController object and begins movie playback. Also sets the application settings based on the defaults in the application bundle. Defines notification routines that are called when the movie preroll has completed, when the movie has finished playing and when the movie scaling mode is changed.

MyMovieViewController.h

MyMovieViewController.m

A UIViewController controller subclass that loads the MoviePlayer nib file that contains its view. Contains an action method that is called when the Play Movie button is tapped to play the movie. Overrides the inherited shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: method so that the view can respond to device rotation.

MyStreamingMovieViewController.h

MyStreamingMovieViewController.m

A UIViewController controller subclass that loads the SecondView nib file that contains its view. Contains an action method that is called when the Play Movie button is tapped to play the movie. Provides a text edit control for the user to enter a movie URL. Overrides the inherited shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation: method so that the view can respond to device rotation.

MyImageView.h

MyImageView.m

A UIImageView subclass that implements the UIResponder event-handling method touchesBegan: withEvent: in order to receive finger touch event messages. Any finger touch events in this view will start the movie playing.

MyOverlayView.h

MyOverlayView.m

A UIView subclass that is added as a subview to the movie player window. This view and its associated controls will display on top of the movie window and receive any touch events while the movie plays underneath it.

MainWindow.xib

Interface Builder 'nib' file that defines the interface for the application: the main window, the view and other user interface items. Also contains the movie file used for playback, and the plist files defining the application movie playback settings.

SecondView.xib

Interface Builder 'nib' file that defines the interface for the streaming movie window, view, movie URL text edit control and other user interface items.

main.m

Entry point for the application. Creates the application object and causes the event loop to start.

Root.plist

The scheme file for the settings bundle.

Movie.m4v

The movie file to be played.

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CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS:

1.0 - First Release

1.1 - Updated for and tested with iPhone OS 2.0. First public release.

1.2 - Added custom overlay controls that draw on top of the movie.

1.2.1 - Fixed dealloc method in MyMovieViewController.m 

1.3 - Added support for receiving streaming audio and video over HTTP.

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Copyright (C) 2008-2009 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.