Display H.264 encoded images via AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer

Question

I've been exploring options on iOS to achieve hardware accelerated decoding of raw H.264 stream and so far I only found that the only option is to write the H.264 stream into an MP4 file and then pass the file to an instance of AVAssetReader. Although this method works, it's not particulary suitable for realtime applications. AVFoundation reference indicates the existence of a CALayer that can display compressed video frames (AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer) and I believe this would be a valid alternative to the method mentioned above. Unfortunately this layer is only available on OSX. I would like to file an enchament radar but before I do so I would like to know from someone that has experience with this layer if indeed could be use to display H.264 raw data if was available on iOS. Currently in my app, the decompressed YUV frames are rendered via openGLES. Using this layer means that I will not need to use openGLES anymore?

Answer 1

In iOS 8 the AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer class is available now.

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