Play video on UITableViewCell when it is completely visible

Question

I have an Array which contains video URLS, I want to play those videos on UITableviewcell when it is fully visible.

I have tried this

- (void)scroll         


        

Answer 1

You're loading your video items synonymously in the main thread; that means your video items are being downloaded and loaded in table view cells at the same time the table view cells are being created. That causes the issue and make the scrolling very laggy and slow. To fix the problem you need to load your videos asynchronously, in a separate thread.

Therefore, you must avoid loading images synchronously, but asynchronously instead, using a different thread other than the main thread, so that the scrolling and loading + displaying images can be done dependently, avoiding any kind of lag.

This is possibly a duplicate question, since it's already been asked and there are tutorials out there, but since I myself always had a problem with this (but for pictures) on my first iOS app and found it very confusing, I'm posting the answer here, hoping it's helpful.

Try moving all the lines related to the video load/display, especially playerItemWithURL in your - (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath: to a separate block. Also do search and read other post about "asynchronous video loading in table view cells". There are lots of in-depth tutorials and Q/As about this.

dispatch_queue_t queue = dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_HIGH, 0ul);

dispatch_async(queue, ^{
cell.videoItem = [AVPlayerItem playerItemWithURL:url];

dispatch_sync(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
    cell.videoPlayer = [AVPlayer playerWithPlayerItem:cell.videoItem];
        cell.avLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:cell.videoPlayer];
        cell.videoPlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndNone;
        [cell.videoItem addObserver:self forKeyPath:@"playbackBufferEmpty" options:NSKeyValueObservingOptionNew context:nil];
        [cell.videoItem addObserver:self forKeyPath:@"playbackLikelyToKeepUp" options:NSKeyValueObservingOptionNew context:nil];

        [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(itemDidBufferPlaying:) name:AVPlayerItemPlaybackStalledNotification object:nil];
        [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(itemDidFinishPlaying:) name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification object:nil];

         cell.avLayer.frame = CGRectMake(5, 9, 310, 310);
         [cell.contentView.layer addSublayer:  cell.avLayer];
         [ cell.videoPlayer play];
         [cell.contentView addSubview:cell.videoActivity];
    });
});