How do I play a video on tvOS for Apple TV?

Question

I started a blank tvOS project and created the following code:

- (void)viewDidLoad  
{  
    [super viewDidLoad];  

    AVPlayer *avPlayer = [AVPlayer playe         


        

Answer 1

You could also use TVML and TVMLJS https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/tvos/documentation/TVMLJS/Reference/TVJSFrameworkReference/

Adhere to the 'TVApplicationControllerDelegate' protocol and add some properties.

AppDelegate.h

@interface AppDelegate : UIResponder 

...

@property (strong, nonatomic) TVApplicationController *appController;
@property (strong, nonatomic) TVApplicationControllerContext *appControllerContext;

Then add the following to 'didFinishLaunchingWithOptions'

AppDelegate.m

#define url @"http://localhost:8000/main.js"

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
// Override point for customization after application launch.    
    self.window = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];

    self.appControllerContext = [[TVApplicationControllerContext alloc] init];
    NSURL *javascriptURL = [NSURL URLWithString:url];

    self.appControllerContext.javaScriptApplicationURL= javascriptURL;

    for (id key in launchOptions) {
        id val=[launchOptions objectForKey:key];
        NSLog(@"key=%@ value=%@", key, val);
        if([val isKindOfClass:[NSString class]]) [self.appControllerContext.launchOptions objectForKey:val];

        self.appController = [[TVApplicationController alloc] initWithContext:self.appControllerContext window:self.window delegate:self];
    }

    return YES;
}

create a folder and add the following files

• main.js
• index.tvml

main.js

function launchPlayer() {  
   var player = new Player();  
   var playlist = new Playlist();  
   var mediaItem = new MediaItem("video", "http://trailers.apple.com/movies/focus_features/9/9-clip_480p.mov");  
   player.playlist = playlist;  
   player.playlist.push(mediaItem);  
   player.present();
   //player.play() 
}

//in application.js  
App.onLaunch = function(options) {  
   launchPlayer();  
}

careful with this url in the mediaItem

Set up a template of your choice.

index.tvml

  
      
      …
      
          …
      
      …
  

open terminal and navigate to this folder then run

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000

make sure the port here is the port in your ObjC url. The Apple examples use 9001.

See these tutorials for more info

http://jamesonquave.com/blog/developing-tvos-apps-for-apple-tv-with-swift/ http://jamesonquave.com/blog/developing-tvos-apps-for-apple-tv-part-2/

One issue I ran into was trying to play a local video file. It wouldn't work and there were constraint issues etc. It looks like you can't use python to play the videos so either try apache or link to a video on the web. This SO answer pointed me there.