How do you determine a user's current location within a MPMoviePlayer instance?

Question

I have a long movie that I'll be putting in an app, and I wanted to know what the best way to put the user back to the point they left off. Can someone point me in the right direction?

So if the user is watching the film, hit done, is there a notification of the current time or something that I can store and load the instance again with that time?

Thanks!

Answer 1

This question duplicates or is related to the following other questions here:

• chapters in videos for the iPhone
• How to jump to certain time with the MPMoviePlayer of iPhoneSDK?
• MPMoviePlayerController movie length

To reiterate the answers from those questions, there is no current public API to start a movie at a specific frame or point in time. While there are private APIs available (-currentTime and -setCurrentTime), they are subject to change and will get your app rejected during the approval process.

Answer 2

I've found an OS 3.0 technique that doesn't make use of private API components.

You can register to receive MPAVControllerTimeDidJumpNotification notifications and grab the MPAVControllerTimeParameter NSNumber out of that notification's userInfo Dictionary.

For example, just before you start playback register to receive the notifications:

#define MPAVControllerTimeDidJumpNotification @"MPAVControllerTimeDidJumpNotification"

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(handleTimeChanged:) name:MPAVControllerTimeDidJumpNotification object:nil];

Then start the movie playing. Add a method that will be called for each time change as the movie plays:

-(void)handleTimeChanged:(NSNotification *)notification
{
    NSDictionary * userInfo = notification.userInfo;
    int lastPositionInSeconds = [[userInfo valueForKey:@"MPAVControllerTimeParameter"] intValue];
    NSLog( @"Last time was %d", lastPositionInSeconds );
}

And when the movie stops playing (you know this by listening for MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification notifications) stop listening for the MPAVControllerTimeDidJumpNotification notifications.

Answer 3

This is another question in this branch to Jason. Jason, Could you give us a hint to an analogous event, but it should be activated during a movie play back. I need it to make a progress bar that will be displaying current time of the movie.

Thank you!

Answer 4

Slava,

I actually watched for all events getting fired by the system during movie playback and didn't see anything else that might help. That MPAVControllerTimeDidJumpNotification does get fired periodically during playback, but not as often as, say, every second. It may get fired for each keyframe, but I'm not sure about that.

Answer 5

    `NSDictionary * userInfo = notification.userInfo;
    int lastPositionInSeconds = [[userInfo valueForKey:@"MPAVControllerTimeParameter"] intValue];
`// saving an NSInteger
    NSUserDefaults *prefs = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
    [prefs setInteger:lastPositionInSeconds forKey:@"currentMovieTime"];

    // getting an NSInteger
     NSUserDefaults *prefs = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
     NSInteger myInt = [prefs integerForKey:@"currentMovieTime"]; // default is zero if nil
        currentMovieTime = myInt;
        self.streamMoviePlayer.initialPlaybackTime = currentMovieTime;

You can use this to set/get the variable and use that to start the movie at the right time. This will work even if the user restarts their phone or restarts the application.

Answer 6

Hi, great hint. However I added this to the MoviePlayer sample and all I get are notifications at the beginning and the end, so e.g. 0, 22, 0. Nothing inbetween :( Frank

Answer 7

This is very useful. However, it seems that if i stop listening for MPAVControllerTimeDidJumpNotification during MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification, the time is incorrect. Any suggestion on how it should be done?