How to play video using MPMoviePlayerController?

Question

I am using the following code to play the video using the MPMoviePlayerController , but the video is not played. Can anyone tell me why ?

NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
NSString *documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
NSString *filePath = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"/one.mp4"];

NSString *mediaPath = [[[NSBundle mainBundle]resourcePath] stringByAppendingPathComponent:filePath];

    MPMoviePlayerController *moviePlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:mediaPath]];

    [[moviePlayer view] setFrame:[[self view] bounds]];
    [[self view] addSubview: [moviePlayer view]];


    moviePlayer.scalingMode = MPMovieScalingModeAspectFit;

    [moviePlayer play];

Answer 1

It's pretty weird, but it seems to work okay if you make your MPMoviePlayerController a property instead of a local variable. Seems something is going on behind the scenes. I'm thinking it's related to ARC. Are you using ARC?

It's also an issue that you've over-appended your path:

// You've already got the full path to the documents directory here.
NSString *filePath = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"/one.mp4"];
// Now you're appending the full path to the documents directory to your bundle path
NSString *mediaPath = [[[NSBundle mainBundle]resourcePath] stringByAppendingPathComponent:filePath];

When I run your code in the simulator, the path looks like this:

/Users/mlong/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/5.1/Applications/8CFB9B94-BD6A-442C-A525-573FE343506D/VidoePlayer.app/Users/mlong/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/5.1/Applications/8CFB9B94-BD6A-442C-A525-573FE343506D/Documents/one.mp4

It should just be this:

/Users/mlong/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/5.1/Applications/8CFB9B94-BD6A-442C-A525-573FE343506D/Documents/one.mp4

So just delete this line:

NSString *mediaPath = [[[NSBundle mainBundle]resourcePath] stringByAppendingPathComponent:filePath];

And then change your player instantiation to this:

_moviePlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:filePath]];

[[_moviePlayer view] setFrame:[[self view] bounds]];
[[self view] addSubview: [_moviePlayer view]];

_moviePlayer.scalingMode = MPMovieScalingModeAspectFit;

[_moviePlayer play];

So you should add the MPMoviePlayerController as a property of your containing view controller.