Implementation of HTTP Live Streaming in iOS

Question

I want to write a little iOS video client and have to use HTTP Live Streaming. The videos come from a Wowza Media Server which supports HTTP Live Streaming, so the server-side implementation is not my problem. I have already watch the WWDC videos and read the Apple documentation about HTTP Live Streaming.

But there is nowhere explained how to play back the videos on an iOS device. In a WWDC-talk was mentioned that there are 3 possibilities to display the videos:

UIWebView
MPMoviePlayerController
AVPlayerItem

Which one is the best?

And how can I read out the video-URL's from a HTML-Page like these, which become provided by the server?

<html>
<head>
    <title>HTTP Live Streaming Example</title>
</head>
<body>
    <video
        src="http://devimages.apple.com/iphone/samples/bipbop/bipbopall.m3u8"
        height="300" width="400"
    >
    </video>
</body>
</html>

(Source: Apple HTTP Live Streaming Overview)

I really don't know where to start with coding...Maybe somebody know better example code than the annoying "Stitched Stream Player" or can write a little tutorial.

score 57 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 15 '17 at 14:13

A short and to the point implementation. The included URL points to a valid stream (as of 12/15/2015), but you can just replace with your own URL to a .m3u8 file.

Objective-C:

#import <MediaPlayer/MediaPlayer.h>
@interface ViewController ()
@property (strong, nonatomic) MPMoviePlayerController *streamPlayer;
@end

@implementation ViewController

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    [super viewDidLoad];

    NSURL *streamURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://qthttp.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1010qwoeiuryfg/sl.m3u8"];

    _streamPlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:streamURL];

    // depending on your implementation your view may not have it's bounds set here
    // in that case consider calling the following 4 msgs later
    [self.streamPlayer.view setFrame: self.view.bounds];

    self.streamPlayer.controlStyle = MPMovieControlStyleEmbedded;

    [self.view addSubview: self.streamPlayer.view];

    [self.streamPlayer play];
}

- (void)dealloc
{
     // if non-ARC
    // [_streamPlayer release];
    // [super dealloc];
}

@end

Swift:

import UIKit
import MediaPlayer

class ViewController: UIViewController {

     var streamPlayer : MPMoviePlayerController =  MPMoviePlayerController(contentURL: NSURL(string:"http://qthttp.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1010qwoeiuryfg/sl.m3u8"))

     //Let's play
     override func viewDidLoad() {
         super.viewDidLoad()
         // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
         streamPlayer.view.frame = self.view.bounds
         self.view.addSubview(streamPlayer.view)

         streamPlayer.fullscreen = true
         // Play the movie!
         streamPlayer.play()
    }

}

Updated answer for both the languages. Also MPMoviePlayerController is deprecated in iOS 9, but you can use AVPlayerViewController instead. Happy Coding.!!!

H Chris. Thanks for the simple example. It works great. I'm wondering how do you create a .m3u8 file from a video? — Isuru, Jul 02 '13 at 10:22
Hey thanks for the heads up. I got sick of paying for hosting a blog that I obviously wasn't updating. So I just moved the blog post to a Gist page here: https://gist.github.com/chrislavender/cad26500c9655627544f — GnarlyDog, Mar 04 '15 at 20:05
If want to create your own HLS content then you can create clear and encrypted content by mediafilesegmenter to use this HLS content you need to upload this TS chuck to apache server(HTTP or HTTPS with CA signed) — Prabhat Pankaj, Nov 20 '17 at 04:19

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 14 '12 at 07:33

5

If you point a UIWebView at that target m3u8 URL, it will just work.

answered Feb 14 '12 at 07:33

jab

4,053
3
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score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 02 '18 at 18:28

Below is my Swift 4 solution with AVPlayer

[since MPMoviePlayerController is deprecated in iOS 9]

import UIKit
import AVKit
...

class VideoPlayerViewController: UIViewController {

    var player: AVPlayer?

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        guard let url = URL(string: "http://stream-url.com/file.m3u8") else {
            print("Umm, looks like an invalid URL!")
            return
        }

        player = AVPlayer(url: url)
        let controller = AVPlayerViewController()
        controller.delegate = self
        controller.player = player

        // present the player controller & play
        present(controller, animated: true) {
            self.player?.play()
        }
    }

}

Implementation of HTTP Live Streaming in iOS

3 Answers3

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