iOS video streaming and storing on device afterwards

Question

So far I know how to stream a video and how to download it and afterwards stream it, but here's the tricky bit: streaming it once, storing it on the device and in the future play it from the device.

Is that possible?

Answer 1

It's quite easy to save the video. Do something similar to this:

//Saving Movie
NSMutableData *data = [[NSMutableData alloc] init];
NSKeyedArchiver *archiver = [[NSKeyedArchiver alloc] initForWritingWithMutableData:data];          
[archiver encodeObject:*MovieObject* forKey:@"MovieObjectDataKey"];
[archiver finishEncoding];
[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setObject:data forKey:@"MovieObjectDefaultsDataKey"];
[archiver release];
[data release];

//Retrieving movie 
NSData *savedMovieData = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:@"MovieObjectDefaultsDataKey"];
if (savedMovieData != nil) {
    NSKeyedUnarchiver *unarchiver = [[NSKeyedUnarchiver alloc] initForReadingWithData:savedMovieData];
    *MovieObject* = [[unarchiver decodeObjectForKey:@"MovieObjectDataKey"] retain];
    [unarchiver finishDecoding];
    [savedMovieData release];
    [unarchiver release];
} else {
    //Download Stream of Your Movie
}

The only thing you really have to change there is * MovieObject *, once in each step.

Answer 2

Not quite sure here how you get your stream but look in to the AVAssetWriter, AVAssetWriterInput and AVAssetWriterPixelBufferAdaptor and as soon as you receive data you should be able to append the data to the to the pixel buffer adaptor using:

appendPixelBuffer:withPresentationTime:

not sure it will work for you but with some fiddling you should be able to adapt your input to match this method. There are lots of example code for setting up the writer

Answer 3

I know what you want to achieve, I only got a workaround. I had to implement the same behavior and ended up with streaming the video from the server and downloading it next to streaming. Next time the user tries to stream the video determine whether it was downloaded to disk, otherwise stream it again. In a normal case the video was downloaded properly and could be reviewed offline.

Answer 4

BOOL fileExists = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:somePath];

and

fileURLWithPath:isDirectory:

Initializes and returns a newly created NSURL object as a file URL with a specified path.

+ (id)fileURLWithPath:(NSString *)path isDirectory:(BOOL)isDir

Parameters

path

The path that the NSURL object will represent. path should be a valid system path. If path begins with a tilde, it must first be expanded with stringByExpandingTildeInPath. If path is a relative path, it is treated as being relative to the current working directory. Passing nil for this parameter produces an exception.

isDir

A Boolean value that specifies whether path is treated as a directory path when resolving against relative path components. Pass YES if the path indicates a directory, NO otherwise. Return Value An NSURL object initialized with path.

Availability

Available in iOS 2.0 and later.

You can't stream it and save it at the same time, especially with large video files as the Apple doc sais that you must use a transport stream for HTTP Live Streaming.

Answer 5

ASIHttpRequest might make your life easier.

ASIHTTPRequest *request = [ASIHTTPRequest requestWithURL:url];
[request setDownloadDestinationPath:@"video.m4v"]; // use [NSBundle mainBundle] to find a better place

From your delegate, handle this:

- (void)request:(ASIHTTPRequest *)request didReceiveData:(NSData *)data;

Do whatever data transcoding with data as you get it and push it off to your AVAssetWriter or movie player layer in real time, whatever you are using. When you're done, the asset should still be saved so you can get it later.