Replay items in AVQueuePlayer after last

Question

I need to create something like an infinite loop in my AVQueuePlayer. Especially, I want to replay the whole NSArray of AVPlayerItems

Answer 1

I figured out a solution to loop over all the videos in my video queue, not just one. First I initialized my AVQueuePlayer:

- (void)viewDidLoad
{
    NSMutableArray *vidItems = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
    {
        // create file name and make path
        NSString *fileName = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"intro%i", i];
        NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:fileName ofType:@"mov"];
        NSURL *movieUrl = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:path];
        // load url as player item
        AVPlayerItem *item = [AVPlayerItem playerItemWithURL:movieUrl];
        // observe when this item ends
        [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                                 selector:@selector(playerItemDidReachEnd:)
                                                     name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification
                                                   object:item];
        // add to array
        [vidItems addObject:item];


    }
    // initialize avqueueplayer
    _moviePlayer = [AVQueuePlayer queuePlayerWithItems:vidItems];
    _moviePlayer.actionAtItemEnd = AVPlayerActionAtItemEndNone;

    // create layer for viewing
    AVPlayerLayer *layer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:_moviePlayer];

    layer.frame = self.view.bounds;
    layer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravityResizeAspectFill;
    // add layer to uiview container
    [_movieViewContainer.layer addSublayer:layer];
}

When the notification is posted

- (void)playerItemDidReachEnd:(NSNotification *)notification {
    AVPlayerItem *p = [notification object];

    // keep playing the queue
    [_moviePlayer advanceToNextItem];
    // if this is the last item in the queue, add the videos back in
    if (_moviePlayer.items.count == 1)
    {
        // it'd be more efficient to make this a method being we're using it a second time
        for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
        {
            NSString *fileName = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"intro%i", i];
            NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:fileName ofType:@"mov"];
            NSURL *movieUrl = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:path];

            AVPlayerItem *item = [AVPlayerItem playerItemWithURL:movieUrl];

            [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
                                                     selector:@selector(playerItemDidReachEnd:)
                                                         name:AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTimeNotification
                                                       object:item];

             // the difference from last time, we're adding the new item after the last item in our player to maintain the order
            [_moviePlayer insertItem:item afterItem:[[_moviePlayer items] lastObject]];
        }
    }
}