Cancel a Movie before it begins playing

Question

Hi All,

I'm streaming video to the iPhone and don't like the way MPMoviePlayerController handles things at the beginning. I noticed that when you click on the row to select a particular movie the app just sits there until it is loaded sufficiently to play it. So I popped in a UIImageView with a loading image and a nice spinner to keep the user informed.

I think they should have the option to cancel the play back of the movie if they get tired of waiting. So I've got a cancel button with a background image.

UIButton *cancel;
    UIImage *cancelImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"cancel.png"];
    cancel = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom];
    cancel.frame = CGRectMake(0,0, cancelImage.size.width, cancelImage.size.height);
    cancel.center = CGPointMake(35, 20); 
    [cancel setImage:cancelImage forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    [cancel addTarget:self action:@selector(cancelMovie) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
    [moviePreviewView addSubview:cancel];

But I'm not sure what to put in the cancelMovie method. I've tried duplicating what I have in the moviePlayBackDidFinish call back method but it crashes rather spectacularly.

I also tried:

-(void)cancelMovie {
[theMovie.view removeFromSuperview];
[theMovie release];
}

But that doesn't do anything good either. I was thinking I could call the moviePlayBackDidFinish directly but I don't think you can call a notification method directly.

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

I hate answering my own question but since this question only had 7 views it couldn't be that important I suppose. Perhaps I shouldn't post them in the middle of the night... no one sees them when you do.

Anyway, I didn't find a good solution to this problem... just a hack.

In the cancel method I told the moviePlayer to load a different, one second movie that is a the same photo I used in the previewImage. When that 'movie' finishes it then proceeds to call the MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification and cleans up and returns the user back where they were.

-(void)cancelMovie
{
cancelURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"cancel" ofType:@"m4v"]];

[theMovie setContentURL:cancelURL];

[theMovie setControlStyle:MPMovieControlStyleFullscreen];
[theMovie setFullscreen:YES];

// for some reason ... this is neccessary
[theMovie prepareToPlay];

// Register that the load state changed (movie is ready)
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self 
                                         selector:@selector(moviePlayerLoadStateChanged:) 
                                             name:MPMoviePlayerLoadStateDidChangeNotification 
                                           object:theMovie];

// Register for the PlayBackDidFinish (movie is finished)
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self 
                                         selector:@selector(moviePlayBackDidFinish:) 
                                             name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification 
                                           object:theMovie];    
 }

Not good... but it works.