Looping a video with AVFoundation AVPlayer?

Question

Is there a relatively easy way of looping a video in AVFoundation?

I've created my AVPlayer and AVPlayerLayer like so:

avPlayer = [[AVPlayer playerWithURL:videoUrl] retain];
avPlayerLayer = [[AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:avPlayer] retain];

avPlayerLayer.frame = contentView.layer.bounds;
[contentView.layer addSublayer: avPlayerLayer];

and then I play my video with:

[avPlayer play];

The video plays fine but stops at the end. With the MPMoviePlayerController all you have to do is set its repeatMode property to the right value. There doesn't appear to be a similar property on AVPlayer. There also doesn't seem to be a callback that will tell me when the movie has finished so I can seek to the beginning and play it again.

I'm not using MPMoviePlayerController because it has some serious limitations. I want to be able to play back multiple video streams at once.

Answer 1

You can get a Notification when the player ends. Check AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification

When setting up the player:

ObjC

  avPlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndNone; 

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

this will prevent the player to pause at the end.

in the notification:

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

this will rewind the movie.

Don't forget un unregister the notification when releasing the player.

Swift

avPlayer?.actionAtItemEnd = .none

NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self,
                                       selector: #selector(playerItemDidReachEnd(notification:)),
                                       name: .AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTime,
                                       object: avPlayer?.currentItem)

@objc func playerItemDidReachEnd(notification: Notification) {
    if let playerItem = notification.object as? AVPlayerItem {
        playerItem.seek(to: kCMTimeZero)
    }
}

Swift 4+

@objc func playerItemDidReachEnd(notification: Notification) {
    if let playerItem = notification.object as? AVPlayerItem {
        playerItem.seek(to: CMTime.zero, completionHandler: nil)
    }
}