Can't play video file

Question

I'm probably missing something really obvious.

I've included <MediaPlayer/MediaPlayer.h> and have this code:

NSURL *videoURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:pathToFile];
MPMoviePlayerViewController *mediaPlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] initWithContentURL:videoURL];
[self presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:mediaPlayer];
mediaPlayer.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
[mediaPlayer release];

But the video won't play. I copied the code from another place where the video works perfectly.

pathToFile is correct becuase the variable is used in previous lines to move the video from the resources folder to the documents directory.

Any ideas why it might not be working?

Thanks

Answer 1

You can use following code except to presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated

NSString *movieFile=[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"movie" ofType:@"m4v"];
moviePlayer= [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:url];
moviePlayer.view.frame = self.view.frame;
[self.view addSubview:moviePlayer.view];
[moviePlayer setFullscreen:YES animated:YES];

this works fine for me.

Answer 2

I don't think presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated retains its receiver, so it looks as though you're releasing your movie player too early. You could try making mediaPlayer a retained property:

@interface MyClass : SuperClass {
    MVMoviePlayerViewController *mediaPlayer;
}
@property (nonatomic, retain) MVMoviePlayerViewController *mediaPlayer;
@end

@implementation MyClass 
@synthesize mediaPlayer;
// rest of class implementation here...
@end

Then initialise as so:

self.mediaPlayer = [[[MPMoviePlayerViewController alloc] 
                    initWithContentURL:videoURL] autorelease];

And release afterwards with:

self.mediaPlayer = nil;

(To write code that happens after the video has finished playing, check out the MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification notification.)

Also bear in mind that presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated first appeared in iOS 3.2, so this code won't work on earlier iOS versions. But I don't think that's the problem in this case.