AVPlayer, notification for play/pause state?

Question

I'm searching for a way to get notified the exact moment when AVPlayer starts playing. There's the "rate" property, but currently I am checking it periodically with an NSTimer to get updates.

I tried KVO, but apparently it's not KVO compliant.

I know that there are events when the player ENDED. But i'm talking about pause here.

I also KVO subscribed to AVPlayerItem's "status", but it's showing me when the HTTP asset has finished caching, no play/pause. I also started collecting all calls of play/pause, requesting an instant UI update afterwards, but it takes some more runloops before AVPlayer really starts playing. I'd just love to update my button instantly.

There is a way to monitor whether the AVPlayer is playing listed here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/9288642/2383604 — matt.writes.code, Jun 02 '16 at 19:27

score 51 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 09 '11 at 04:20

51

Why do you say that "rate" is not KVO complaint? It works for me.

Here is what I did:

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    ...

    [self.player addObserver:self forKeyPath:@"rate" options:0 context:nil];
}

And then:

- (void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath ofObject:(id)object change:(NSDictionary *)change context:(void *)context {
if ([keyPath isEqualToString:@"rate"]) {
    if ([self.player rate]) {
        [self changeToPause];  // This changes the button to Pause
    }
    else {
        [self changeToPlay];   // This changes the button to Play
    }
}
}

answered Oct 09 '11 at 04:20

raixer

1,844
3
15
16

really? did you try that on iOS4 or iOS5? Will re-do my tests; maybe it was just my mistake after all. – steipete Oct 10 '11 at 11:55
3

I tried it in iOS5. In order to my observer get called, I had to add the observer with options: `NSKeyValueObservingOptionInitial | NSKeyValueObservingOptionNew`. – Bianca Daniciuc Sep 12 '13 at 14:55
1

Is there any alternative for iOS 10? – Aymen HARRATH Dec 20 '16 at 12:53
@AymenHARRATH Check my answer for iOS 10. – The iCoder Dec 21 '17 at 12:32
Is there a way to differentiate who was the person pausing it? Like did the user pause it, or did we pause it programmatically, or was it due to error? – PhoenixB Feb 17 '23 at 01:05

The iCoder · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-10T07:25:24.157

23

For iOS 10 onwards You can check new property of AVPlayer timeControlStatus.

if(avPlayerObject.timeControlStatus==AVPlayerTimeControlStatusPaused)
{
//Paused mode
}
else if(avPlayerObject.timeControlStatus==AVPlayerTimeControlStatusPlaying)
{
 //Play mode
}

edited Dec 10 '18 at 07:25

answered Sep 13 '17 at 14:27

The iCoder

1,414
3
19
39

6

but how do you actually get notified when it changes? – Reimond Hill Sep 11 '20 at 11:37

score 6 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 11 '20 at 11:04

AVPalyer as default observer to track the current duration of the video ,when you pause or resume the video you can get paused time by using one global variable (inside observer update that variable)

CMTime interval = CMTimeMake(1, 1);

//The capture of self here is coming in with your implicit property access of self.currentduration - you can't refer to self or properties on self from within a block that will be strongly retained by self.

//You can get around this by creating a weak reference to self before accessing timerDisp inside your block
__weak typeof(self) weakSelf = self;

self.timeObserverToken = [_player addPeriodicTimeObserverForInterval:interval queue:NULL usingBlock: ^(CMTime time)
{
    _currentDuration = (int)CMTimeGetSeconds (_player.currentTime);

    if(!_isPlaying)
    {
        _pausedDuration = _currentDuration;
    }
}

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 16 '21 at 10:50

If you're targeting iOS 13 and up, you can pull this off elegantly using Combine:

cancellable = myAVPlayerInstance.publisher(for: \.timeControlStatus)
    .sink { [unowned self] status in
       ...
    }

where status is any case of AVPlayer.TimeControlStatus

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 08 '18 at 13:59

    player = AVPlayer(url: URL(fileURLWithPath: path))
player.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "rate", options: NSKeyValueObservingOptions.new, context: nil)

override func observeValue(forKeyPath keyPath: String?, of object: Any?, change: [NSKeyValueChangeKey : Any]?, context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) {
    if keyPath == "rate" {
        if player.rate > 0 {
            print("video started")
        }
    }
}

in swift

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 07 '21 at 16:23

Add an observer to your AVPlayer object's rate value:

player.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "rate", options: [], context: nil)

And override the method that will be called when the rate changes:

override func observeValue(forKeyPath keyPath: String?, of object: Any?, change: [NSKeyValueChangeKey : Any]?, context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) {
    if keyPath == "rate", let player = object as? AVPlayer {
        if player.rate == 1 {
            print("Playing")
        } else {
            print("Paused")
        }
    }
}

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 27 '22 at 20:27

Need to add an observer to AVPlayer object's rate value:

player?.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "rate", options: NSKeyValueObservingOptions.new, context: nil)

Override below method to observe changes in rate property

override func observeValue(forKeyPath keyPath: String?, of object: Any?, change: [NSKeyValueChangeKey : Any]?, context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) {
    if keyPath == "rate" {
        if let status = player?.timeControlStatus {
            switch status{
            case .paused:
                //Paused mode
                print("paused")
            case .waitingToPlayAtSpecifiedRate:
                //Resumed
                print("resumed")
            case .playing:
                //Video Ended
                print("ended")
            @unknown default:
                print("For future versions")
            }
        }
    }
}

AVPlayer, notification for play/pause state?

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