display all videos stored in document directory

Question

I stored videos in my document directory from photo library. Now i want to show all videos which are stored in my document directory.. but i don't know how its possible??? Actually i want to display all videos as like its open in photo library(four videos in a single row).. and when i click on any video... the video is start playing...

can anybody help me which is the best way to show all videos from document directory to ViewController.... Thanx......

- (void) imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController *)picker didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo:(NSDictionary *)info
 {
    NSURL * movieURL = [info valueForKey:UIImagePickerControllerMediaURL] ;
    NSData * movieData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:movieURL];
    NSArray *documentPaths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES); 
    NSString *documentsDirectory = [documentPaths objectAtIndex:0];
    NSString *fullPath = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:[[self imageNameTextField]text]];
    fullPath = [fullPath stringByAppendingFormat:@".MOV"];
    [ movieData writeToFile:fullPath atomically:YES]; 

}

Is your document directory containing only MOV videos or any other file? — Sanchit Paurush, Jul 09 '12 at 07:53
Well in that case you can fetch all the files of document directory. Do you know how to do that? or should I tell you the code of it? — Sanchit Paurush, Jul 09 '12 at 08:01

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

I recommend you to use an open-source grid-view control. You can find them in GitHub. For instance, BDDynamicGridViewController is interesting. But it is not the only option. There is also AQGridView.

Also, there is a popular open-source library, called Three20 and it has it's upgrade, called Nimbus. This library has a custom control for displaying photos grid. You can use the same for displaying video thumbnails grid. For instance, try this.

After you will manage to use or create Grid view control, you will need thumbnail generator for the videos. Use this topic for that purpose.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 09 '12 at 07:40

To get access to the videos stored in the photo library on the device you need to use the Asset library. The following code shows you how to get access to the first video in the photo library :

ALAssetsLibrary *library = [[ALAssetsLibrary alloc] init];


// Enumerate just the photos and videos group by using ALAssetsGroupSavedPhotos.

[library enumerateGroupsWithTypes:ALAssetsGroupSavedPhotos usingBlock:^(ALAssetsGroup *group, BOOL *stop) {


// Within the group enumeration block, filter to enumerate just videos.

[group setAssetsFilter:[ALAssetsFilter allVideos]];


// For this example, we're only interested in the first item.

[group enumerateAssetsAtIndexes:[NSIndexSet indexSetWithIndex:0] options:0

       usingBlock:^(ALAsset *alAsset, NSUInteger index, BOOL *innerStop) {

       // The end of the enumeration is signaled by asset == nil.

       if (alAsset) {

           ALAssetRepresentation *representation = [alAsset defaultRepresentation];

           NSURL *url = [representation url];

           AVAsset *avAsset = [AVURLAsset URLAssetWithURL:url options:nil];

           // Now you have the AV asset for the video.

        }

      }];

    }

     failureBlock: ^(NSError *error) {

     // Typically you should handle an error more gracefully than this.

     NSLog(@"No groups");

     }];


[library release];

This example is in the AVFoundation Programming guide, more details on the Apple developer website

Thanx werner... but i want to fetch videos from Document directory — Rox, Jul 09 '12 at 07:48
ok, that means you need to duplicate or move them, right ? , that is why i prefer to show them directly from the Photo library. How will you show them ? You may need to generate a thumbnail to be able to display them. AQGridView is a good library to display them in your own ViewController. — werner, Jul 09 '12 at 07:51
yes, i want to move video from photo library and when i record any video it also stored in my document directory...and i don't know how to display all movies.. so i asked this question — Rox, Jul 09 '12 at 07:57

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 09 '12 at 08:16

I have made the same project for one of my client. I can tell you the idea but cann't tell you the code. The idea is while taking or saving video take the starting frame of every video and save it as PNG image as icon of the video. By this way you will get the icon of every video. Save all the Images in different folder in such a manner that each image can be link with its video. Now retrieve all videos from the document folder by below code

NSFileManager *filemgr;
filemgr = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
filelist = [filemgr contentsOfDirectoryAtPath:path error:nil];

*filelist is the NSArray

In the same manner retrieve the icons of the videos.

Make a grid view of buttons. Set images of the buttons as icons of the videos. Show the video names. When click on the video open a new view controller and make a video player ther play the video there.

can u plz explain how can i save the starting frame of every video and save it as icon of video.... — Rox, Jul 09 '12 at 08:22
http://www.codza.com/extracting-frames-from-movies-on-iphone This link will help you to extract the frame from the video — Sanchit Paurush, Jul 09 '12 at 09:11
you can go with this also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1259316/iphone-sdk-3-0-video-thumbnail/1301311#1301311 — Sanchit Paurush, Jul 09 '12 at 09:13

display all videos stored in document directory

3 Answers3

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