Keep playing sound with MPMoviePlayerController and locked screen?

Question

When you're watching a video with MPMoviePlayerController and the user presses the top button to lock the screen, the app goes to sleep and so does the sound from the video.

Is there any way to prevent the lock from stopping the sound? If not, is there a way to intercept the lock, to create a "custom lock", to save some battery but keep playing the video?

Answer 1

Sounds like you haven't set your audio session category. Set the AVAudioSession's category property to AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback to indicate that the app's major purpose is to play back audio, and it therefore should ignore the screen lock button and ring/silent switch. If you're working with the lower-level C API, you'll be using AudioSessionSetProperty(kAudioSessionCategory_MediaPlayback), but it's the same concept.