iPhone SDK Custom Video Player with YouTube

Question

I'm making this iPhone app that allows people to watch youtube videos and vimeo videos. I was wondering if there's a custom player I can incorporate into my app that will play the video from the youtube link or vimeo link. This has to be iOS 7 compatible as well. Thanks!

Answer 1

Possibly you are looking for AVFoundation.framework. Just add it to your project and you can use its AVPlayer component to allow a total customization of your interface. It would be something like this:

-(void)viewDidLoad {
//prepare player
self.videoPlayer = [AVPlayer playerWithURL:<# NSURL of your youtube video #>];
self.videoPlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndPause;

//prepare player layer
self.videoPlayerLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:self.videoPlayer];
self.videoPlayerLayer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravityResizeAspectFill;
self.videoPlayerLayer.frame = self.view.bounds;
[self.view.layer addSublayer:self.videoPlayerLayer];

//add player item status notofication handler
[self addObserver:self forKeyPath:@"videoPlayer.currentItem.status" options:NSKeyValueObservingOptionNew context:NULL];

//notification handler when player item completes playback
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(playerItemDidReachEnd:) name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification object:self.videoPlayer.currentItem];
}

//called when playback completes
-(void)playerItemDidReachEnd:(NSNotification *)notification {
[self.videoPlayer seekToTime:kCMTimeZero]; //rewind at the end of play

//other tasks
 }

-(void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath ofObject:(id)object change:(NSDictionary *)change context:(void *)context {
if ([keyPath isEqualToString:@"videoPlayer.currentItem.status"]) {
//NSLog(@"player status changed");

    if (self.videoPlayer.currentItem.status == AVPlayerItemStatusReadyToPlay) {
        //player is ready to play and you can enable your playback buttons here
    }
 }
}

And like normal VC you can add buttons or other items to invoke these methods for playback:

-(IBAction)play:(id)sender {
    [self.videoPlayer play];
}
-(IBAction)pause:(id)sender {
    [self.videoPlayer pause];
}

Make sure that you remove the observers previously added before you leave the VC or else those are gonna leak:

//remove observers
@try {
[self removeObserver:self forKeyPath:@"videoPlayer.currentItem.status" context:NULL];
}
@catch (NSException *exception) {}
@try {
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification object:self.videoPlayer.currentItem];
}
@catch (NSException *exception) {}

A detailed explanation from Apple is available here. Hope you would find it helpful.

Answer 2

1) Youtube uses flash which does not work with native mediaplayer. 
2) Native media player either needs a file or it can live stream url which use HTTPLiveStreaming (it does not support RTSP). 

In simple words they work on different protocol and can't talk to each other. However, you can use third party API's to download youtube video and then play but this requires your user to wait until the entire file is downloaded.

I would recommend you to use webview. here is a good article which shows how to do so. YoutubeHacks is an opensource tool for the same.