Media Callbacks with Embedded YouTube Videos on iOS

Question

I’m embedding YouTube videos in a UIWebView for an iOS app. I’m using “Method 2” at this YouTube blog post to embed the video. This works great, except that because iOS manages the media player, I can’t determine whether the video is playing or is done. I don’t want to swap that view out with another one while the video is playing, but I don’t see a good way to determine that. Any ideas? If there’s a way to get a JavaScript callback, that will work, or if there’s a way to embed YouTube videos using the HTML5 <video> tag, that will work as well (I’ve tried that and not gotten success).

See this question and its answers: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8518719/how-to-receive-nsnotifications-from-uiwebview-embedded-youtube-video-playback — Till, Jan 14 '12 at 21:53

score 9 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 26 '12 at 00:22

Just add observer for MPAVControllerPlaybackStateChangedNotification.

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                             selector:@selector(playbackStateDidChange:)
                                                 name:@"MPAVControllerPlaybackStateChangedNotification"
                                               object:nil];

then start listening:

- (void)playbackStateDidChange:(NSNotification *)note
{
    NSLog(@"note.name=%@ state=%d", note.name, [[note.userInfo objectForKey:@"MPAVControllerNewStateParameter"] intValue]);
    int playbackState = [[note.userInfo objectForKey:@"MPAVControllerNewStateParameter"] intValue];
    switch (playbackState) {
        case 1: //end
            ;
            break;
        case 2: //start
            ;
            break;    
        default:
            break;
    }
}

Explore other states if you're curious. Additionally everyone interested in bunch of other notifications can register to see all:

CFNotificationCenterAddObserver(CFNotificationCenterGetLocalCenter(), 
                                    NULL, 
                                    noteCallbackFunction, 
                                    NULL, 
                                    NULL,  
                                    CFNotificationSuspensionBehaviorDeliverImmediately);

then check what's coming on:

void noteCallbackFunction (CFNotificationCenterRef center,
                 void *observer,
                 CFStringRef name,
                 const void *object,
                 CFDictionaryRef userInfo)
{
    NSLog(@"notification name: %@", name);
    NSLog(@"notification info: %@", userInfo);
}

Have fun!

This approach would get me 95% of the way there, but since I have multiple YouTube players on screen at once, it wouldn’t allow me to see *which* video started. Thanks though! — Jeff Kelley, Jan 26 '12 at 01:30
You could decode the more Notifications from the header file: https://github.com/nst/iOS-Runtime-Headers/blob/master/Frameworks/MediaPlayer.framework/MPAVController.h e.g. MPAVControllerItemPlaybackDidEndNotification — Morten Holmgaard, Mar 08 '13 at 12:53

Yahia · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-14T21:51:28.140

3

you can inject javascript into a UIWebView (see http://iphoneincubator.com/blog/windows-views/how-to-inject-javascript-functions-into-a-uiwebview)... other interesting stuff about javascript and UIWebView can be found here and here.

try using this together with this experimental youtube API (see http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/iframe_api_reference.html)... this should be able to get you what you want.

Another useful resource for this to make a callback from javascript to your code is here.

edited Jan 14 '12 at 21:51

answered Jan 14 '12 at 17:29

Yahia

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That’s if you use the YouTube app to play videos. I’m embedding them in a `UIWebView`. On iPhone, this pushes a modal view controller, but on iPad, they play inline. – Jeff Kelley Jan 14 '12 at 17:53
I understands - for that I don't have any idea... deleting my answer. hope someone can give your a working answer. – Yahia Jan 14 '12 at 17:57
@JeffKelley found an option... though can't test it... HTH – Yahia Jan 14 '12 at 21:46
Unfortunately this is for a high-volume application. From the API link: “Note: The IFrame player API described in this document is an experimental feature that represents the next stage of YouTube Player APIs. You should not yet build business-critical applications using this API nor should you launch any applications using this API into a production environment.” – Jeff Kelley Jan 14 '12 at 21:56
@JeffKelley that's why I wrote *experimental*... although I would expect Google to make this API official at some point... don't know your timeframe - perhaps it is worth a shot ? – Yahia Jan 14 '12 at 21:58
(But don’t worry, I am definitely looking into it as we speak.) – Jeff Kelley Jan 14 '12 at 22:00
This works well enough for my immediate needs. I’m still a little concerned about the experimental nature of the API, but it looks like it’s been a while since people started using it on iOS, so I’ll have to be content with it. Thanks! – Jeff Kelley Jan 15 '12 at 05:01

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 18 '12 at 11:02

For iPhone I used some tricky method. You could get a notification when video modal view controller was dismissed.

-(void) onUIWebViewButtonTouch:(id) sender
{
     self.isWatchForNotifications = YES;
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter]
     addObserver:self
     selector:@selector(windowNowVisible:)
     name:UIWindowDidBecomeVisibleNotification
     object:self.view.window
     ];
}

- (void)windowNowVisible:(NSNotification *)note
{
 if (isWatchForNotifications == YES)
 {
   //modal viewcontroller was dismissed
 }
  self.isWatchForNotifications = NO;
}

That works, but only on iPhone where videos play full-screen. — Jeff Kelley, Jan 18 '12 at 15:16

Media Callbacks with Embedded YouTube Videos on iOS

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