Customizable non-full screen video player in iPhone

Question

Hi,

I know that there is an MPMoviePlayerController present in iPhone to play movies from. But it isn't customizable in the real sense. Also, if I wanted to play movies is a non-full screen mode, it isn't possible today.

1. I wanted to inquire if anyone knows about the future roadmap of iPhone SDK, is there going to be any such customizable video player upcoming?

2. Also, is it possible to write a new video player from scratch (maybe including the codecs), then in that case which part of the SDK should be referred to and how?

Some help in this area will be really appreciated.

Thanks,

Saurabh

Answer 1

Hi Saurabh,

I don't know of anything in the future about a customizable video player. However, if there are just a few videos you want to play in non-fullscreen mode, there is an option. UIImageView supports animation. So, if you can export your videos as images, you can have them display in an UIImageView.

For example,

//load your images here
youImageView.animationImages = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:[UIImage imageNamed:@"1.png"],
                                     [UIImage imageNamed:@"2.png"],
                                     [UIImage imageNamed:@"3.png"],
                                     [UIImage imageNamed:@"4.png"],
                                     [UIImage imageNamed:@"5.png"],
youImageView.animationDuration = 1; //this is the duration of the animation and can be any value
[youImageView startAnimating];

Answer 2

This blog post http://www.nightirion.com/2010/01/scaling-a-movie-on-the-iphone/ mentions a method that will allow you to play non-fullscreen video. However, I'm not sure if this method will be approved by the app store verification process.