I'm experiencing an unexpected behavior with AVURLAsset and cookies. When setting cookies through AVURLAssetHTTPCookiesKey option, they seem to be sent only on the initial request but not on retry attempts.
Here's my current implementation:
let cookieProperties: [HTTPCookiePropertyKey: Any] = [
.name: "sessionCookie",
.value: "testValue",
.domain: url.host ?? "",
.path: "/",
.secure: true
]
if let cookie = HTTPCookie(properties: cookieProperties) {
let asset = AVURLAsset(url: url, options: [
AVURLAssetHTTPCookiesKey: [cookie],
])
}
According to the documentation, AVURLAssetHTTPCookiesKey should apply the cookies to all requests made by this asset. However, when the initial request fails and AVPlayer retries, the cookies are not included in subsequent requests.
Only when I store the cookie with HTTPCookieStorage.shared.setCookie, then it persists.
Questions:
Is this the expected behavior?
If not, what could be causing the cookies to not persist for retry attempts?
Is using HTTPCookieStorage.shared the recommended approach instead?
Environment:
iOS 16+
Using AVPlayer with AVURLAsset
Streaming HLS content
Any insights would be greatly appreciated.
Video
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Hi, I am a newbie here.
We have been given a task to build a robotic vision system to capture an immersive video in a hazed environment, which will later be played on Apple Vision Pro. I am thinking of starting with 2 or 4 basic CMOS camera sensors, such as IMX378, AR0144, or VD66GY, and designing an FPGA-based circuit to synchronously capture and store raw frame-by-frame data. Some frame initial processing such as demosaicing and filtering can also be done by the FPGA. Then, I would use software for post-processing to convert the data into a compatible video format for Apple Vision Pro.
Will this idea work? I can handle the raw data capture, but I’m unsure if this approach is feasible and what post-processing software I should use.
Thanks a lot for your suggestions!
Charlie
Topic:
Media Technologies
SubTopic:
Video
I’m currently working on a project where I capture both depth frames and RGB frames using AVCaptureDataOutputSynchronizer. Depth frames are stored as raw binary data and RGB frames are saved with AVAssetWriter.
The issue I’m facing is that AVAssetWriter enforces a fixed framerate, meaning it adds or discards frames to maintain that rate (as I understand it). This causes a desynchronization between the depth and RGB frames, which is a problem because I need each depth frame to be exactly matched with the corresponding RGB frame as they were captured.
How can I ensure that the RGB frames are saved without AVAssetWriter modifying the frame count?
I am creating an app that decodes H.265 elementary streams on iOS.
I use VideoToolBox to decode from H.265 to NV12.
The decoded data is enqueued in the CMSampleBufferDisplayLayer as a CMSampleBuffer.
However, nothing is displayed in the VideoPlayerView. It remains black.
The decoding in VideoToolBox is successful. I confirmed this by saving the NV12 data in the CMSampleBuffer to a file and displaying it using a tool.
Why is nothing displayed in the VideoPlayerView?
I can provide other source code as well.
//
// VideoPlayerView.swift
// H265Decoder
//
// Created by Kohshin Tokunaga on 2025/02/15.
//
import SwiftUI
import AVFoundation
struct VideoPlayerView: UIViewRepresentable {
// Return an H265Player as the coordinator, and start playback there.
func makeCoordinator() -> H265Player {
H265Player()
}
func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UIView {
let uiView = UIView(frame: .zero)
// Base layer for attaching sublayers
uiView.backgroundColor = .black // Screen background color (for iOS)
// Create the display layer and add it to uiView.layer
let displayLayer = context.coordinator.displayLayer
displayLayer.frame = uiView.bounds
displayLayer.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear.cgColor
uiView.layer.addSublayer(displayLayer)
// Start playback
context.coordinator.startPlayback()
return uiView
}
func updateUIView(_ uiView: UIView, context: Context) {
// Reset the frame of the AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer when the view's size changes.
let displayLayer = context.coordinator.displayLayer
displayLayer.frame = uiView.layer.bounds
// Optionally update the layer's background color, etc.
uiView.backgroundColor = .black
displayLayer.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear.cgColor
// Flush transactions if necessary
CATransaction.flush()
}
}
//
// H265Player.swift
// H265Decoder
//
// Created by Kohshin Tokunaga on 2025/02/15.
//
import Foundation
import AVFoundation
import CoreMedia
class H265Player: NSObject, VideoDecoderDelegate {
let displayLayer = AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer()
private var decoder: H265Decoder?
override init() {
super.init()
// Initial configuration for the display layer
displayLayer.videoGravity = .resizeAspect
// Initialize the decoder (delegate = self)
decoder = H265Decoder(delegate: self)
// For simple playback, set isBaseline to true
decoder?.isBaseline = true
}
func startPlayback() {
// Load the file "cars_320x240.h265"
guard let url = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "temp2", withExtension: "h265") else {
print("File not found")
return
}
do {
let data = try Data(contentsOf: url)
// Set FPS and video size as needed
let packet = VideoPacket(data: data,
type: .h265,
fps: 30,
videoSize: CGSize(width: 1080, height: 1920))
// Decode as a single packet
decoder?.decodeOnePacket(packet)
} catch {
print("Failed to load file: \(error)")
}
}
// MARK: - VideoDecoderDelegate
func decodeOutput(video: CMSampleBuffer) {
// When decoding is complete, send the output to AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer
displayLayer.enqueue(video)
}
func decodeOutput(error: DecodeError) {
print("Decoding error: \(error)")
}
}
Topic:
Media Technologies
SubTopic:
Video
Context
We develop an iOS/Apple TV app that allows to play HLS+FP Live streams (custom playback UI), some of which use the same FairPlay content key id. All FairPlay content keys are requested to the same content key server.
Implementation
Despite Apple documentation warning to not reuse AVContentKeySessions, we use only one AVContentKeySession for all channels which allows the system to reuse the content key when a content key id is met again. As seen in another thread, people seems to think this is OK.
Issue
When reusing the AVContentKeySession and the user quickly tunes channels multiple times (up to 2 or 3 times per second using gestures), an inconsistency may occur where the content key request for a previous streams is asked to the delegate after a new stream is already being prepared and its AVURLAsset already assigned as the content key session AVContentKeyRecipient. Note that the previous content key recipient is removed before the new one is added.
We also have been reported for crashes (though I haven't experienced it myself) when performing multiple channels tunings which makes us think that the AVContentKeySession should definitely not been reused.
Note: On the other hand if a new AVContentKeySession is used for each stream, the system systematically requests a content key even if previous streams have used the same content key id. In this case, neither the crash nor the inconsistency issue are observed but it dramatically increases the number of calls to the content key server.
Questions
Should AVContentKeySessions definitely not be reused? Otherwise, how to handle the inconsistency issue described above?
Hello,
Is there a way to handle 403 error returned by the server, eg token expired ?
Cannot find any information about this and everything that I tried wasn't working (addObserver, NotificationCenter with .AVPlayerItemNewErrorLogEntry, AVPlayerItemPlaybackStalled, ...)
Thank you very much.
Topic:
Media Technologies
SubTopic:
Video
Are serialized parameters already available inside -pluginInstanceAddedToDocument via FxParameterRetrievalAPI or are they being read later?
I have an app that has a WKWebView for watching YouTube videos. When the videos are windowed the audio seems fine, positionally as well. All perfectly.
When I fullscreen the video and it goes into the native visionOS video player the audio messes up.
It will suddenly sound like it is in your ears, or maybe even just one ear channel, or the position will be wrong. It might be fine for a moment but the second I touch the controls or move the window the sound jumps across the room, away from the window, or switches to stereo.
Sometimes exiting windows entirely you will still hear the videos playing. Even if you open the window back up and go to another screen and open another video, now you hear 2 videos playing at the same time with no way to stop the first one in the background, requiring to force restart the app.
It is all sorts of glitchy. I haven't the slightest clue what is happening here. I am strongly feeling this is a visionOS bug.
I tried using AVAudioSession to change some of the sound settings, and that makes zero difference in behavior.
Multiple testers have also reported this behavior and it has been seen on both visionOS 2.3 and 2.4 betas.
Thanks for the help! This is driving me mad! It is extremely consistent behavior!
I am working on a project for macOS where I am taking an AVCaptureSession's CVPixelBuffer and I need to convert it into a MTLTexture for rendering. On macOS the pixel format is 2vuy, there does not seem to be a clear format conversion while converting to a metal texture. I have been able to convert it to a texture but the color space seems to be off as it is rendering distorted colors with a double image.
I believe 2vuy is a single pane color space and I have tried to account for that, but I am unaware of what is off.
I have attached The CVPixelBuffer and The distorted MTLTexture along with a laundry list of errors.
On iOS my conversions are fine, it is only the macOS 2vuy pixel format that seems to have issues.
My code for the conversion is also attached.
If there are any suggestions or guidance on how to properly convert a 2vuy CVPixelBuffer to a MTLTexture I would greatly appreciate it.
Many Thanks
Conversion_Logs.txt
ConversionCode.swift
When I play an m3u8 video using AVPlayer, it can play smoothly at 2x speed. However, when I set it to 3x speed, the playback is not smooth and there is no sound.
Topic:
Media Technologies
SubTopic:
Video
As of iOS 18, as far as I can tell, it appears there's still no AVPlayer options that allow users to toggle the caption / subtitle track on and off. Does anyone know of a way to do this with AVPlayer or with SwiftUI's VideoPlayer?
The following code reproduces this issue. It can be pasted into an app playground. This is a random video and a random vtt file I found on the internet.
import SwiftUI
import AVKit
import UIKit
struct ContentView: View {
private let video = URL(string: "https://server15700.contentdm.oclc.org/dmwebservices/index.php?q=dmGetStreamingFile/p15700coll2/15.mp4/byte/json")!
private let captions = URL(string: "https://gist.githubusercontent.com/samdutton/ca37f3adaf4e23679957b8083e061177/raw/e19399fbccbc069a2af4266e5120ae6bad62699a/sample.vtt")!
@State private var player: AVPlayer?
var body: some View {
VStack {
VideoPlayerView(player: player)
.frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: 200)
}
.task {
// Captions won't work for some reason
player = try? await loadPlayer(video: video, captions: captions)
}
}
}
private struct VideoPlayerView: UIViewControllerRepresentable {
let player: AVPlayer?
func makeUIViewController(context: Context) -> AVPlayerViewController {
let controller = AVPlayerViewController()
controller.player = player
controller.modalPresentationStyle = .overFullScreen
return controller
}
func updateUIViewController(_ uiViewController: AVPlayerViewController, context: Context) {
uiViewController.player = player
}
}
private func loadPlayer(video: URL, captions: URL?) async throws -> AVPlayer {
let videoAsset = AVURLAsset(url: video)
let videoPlusSubtitles = AVMutableComposition()
try await videoPlusSubtitles.add(videoAsset, withMediaType: .video)
try await videoPlusSubtitles.add(videoAsset, withMediaType: .audio)
if let captions {
let captionAsset = AVURLAsset(url: captions)
// Must add as .text. .closedCaption and .subtitle don't work?
try await videoPlusSubtitles.add(captionAsset, withMediaType: .text)
}
return await AVPlayer(playerItem: AVPlayerItem(asset: videoPlusSubtitles))
}
private extension AVMutableComposition {
func add(_ asset: AVAsset, withMediaType mediaType: AVMediaType) async throws {
let duration = try await asset.load(.duration)
try await asset.loadTracks(withMediaType: mediaType).first.map { track in
let newTrack = self.addMutableTrack(withMediaType: mediaType, preferredTrackID: kCMPersistentTrackID_Invalid)
let range = CMTimeRangeMake(start: .zero, duration: duration)
try newTrack?.insertTimeRange(range, of: track, at: .zero)
}
}
}
How can I setup correctly AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer for video display when I have input picture format kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA?
Currently video i visible in simulator, but not iPhone, miss I something?
Render code:
var pixelBuffer: CVPixelBuffer?
let attrs: [String: Any] = [
kCVPixelBufferPixelFormatTypeKey as String: kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA,
kCVPixelBufferWidthKey as String: width,
kCVPixelBufferHeightKey as String: height,
kCVPixelBufferBytesPerRowAlignmentKey as String: width * 4,
kCVPixelBufferIOSurfacePropertiesKey as String: [:]
]
let status = CVPixelBufferCreateWithBytes(
nil,
width,
height,
kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA,
img,
width * 4,
nil,
nil,
attrs as CFDictionary,
&pixelBuffer
)
guard status == kCVReturnSuccess, let pb = pixelBuffer else { return }
var formatDesc: CMVideoFormatDescription?
CMVideoFormatDescriptionCreateForImageBuffer(
allocator: nil,
imageBuffer: pb,
formatDescriptionOut: &formatDesc
)
guard let format = formatDesc else { return }
var timingInfo = CMSampleTimingInfo(
duration: .invalid,
presentationTimeStamp: currentTime,
decodeTimeStamp: .invalid
)
var sampleBuffer: CMSampleBuffer?
CMSampleBufferCreateForImageBuffer(
allocator: kCFAllocatorDefault,
imageBuffer: pb,
dataReady: true,
makeDataReadyCallback: nil,
refcon: nil,
formatDescription: format,
sampleTiming: &timingInfo,
sampleBufferOut: &sampleBuffer
)
if let sb = sampleBuffer {
if CMSampleBufferGetPresentationTimeStamp(sb) == .invalid {
print("Invalid video timestamp")
}
if (displayLayer.status == .failed) {
displayLayer.flush()
}
DispatchQueue.main.async { [weak self] in
guard let self = self else {
print("Lost reference to self drawing")
return
}
displayLayer.enqueue(sb)
}
frameIndex += 1
}
I have added some custom views on my pip. These controls disappeared after opening the camera in the Xcode16 environment and iOS 18 system, and it was found that these custom views were not removed and seemed to be obscured. They were displayed normally in the Xcode15.4 environment. I would like to ask how to make my custom views display normally
Topic:
Media Technologies
SubTopic:
Video
My app allows users to capture and save videos to the Photos app using the following Swift code:
PHPhotoLibrary.shared().performChanges {
PHAssetChangeRequest.creationRequestForAssetFromVideo(atFileURL: fileURL)
} completionHandler: { success, error in
Videos are successfully saved to Photos and play correctly. However, users report that when they AirDrop these videos from the Photos app to another device (e.g., iPad to iPhone), the videos are saved in the Files app on the receiving device instead of the Photos app. This issue is more common with higher-resolution videos, such as 2K, recorded in HEVC format at 30 fps.
I wasn't able to reproduce the issue locally.
I've found a thread in public apple forum: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255276865?sortBy=rank but I wonder maybe there are some special flags that I should clear or add to my videos (e.g. PHAssetChangeRequest)?
Thank you!
I am currently developing an HEVC player using VideoToolbox on an iOS device.
I have successfully created an HEVC decoder that receives HEVC streams from our custom image capture and encoding device, and it can decode and display images properly.
However, when my image capture and encoding device configures the encoder to output HEVC streams with fragmented NALUs (i.e., an I-frame or P-frame is split and stored across multiple slice NALUs), the iOS decoder can be initialized successfully but fails to decode and output images.
Can VideoToolbox properly decode HEVC bitstreams when a single frame is split into multiple slice NALUs?
Key Observations:
1. Single-NALU frames work fine.
2. Multi-NALU frames (sliced I/P-frames) cause decoding failure.
3. The decoder session is created successfully (VTDecompressionSessionCreate returns no error).
Hello,
I need to enumerate built-in media devices (cameras, microphones, etc.). For this purpose, I am using the CoreAudio and CoreMediaIO frameworks.
According to the table 'Daemon-Safe Frameworks' in Apple’s TN2083, CoreAudio is daemon-safe. However, the documentation does not mention CoreMediaIO.
Can CoreMediaIO be used in a daemon?
If not, are there any documented alternatives to detect built-in cameras in a daemon (e.g., via device classes in IOKit)?
Thank you in advance,
Pavel
Is there any way we can detect the status of the Show When Muted and Show on Skip Back device settings in code ?
In Final Cut Pro, keyframes for transform parameters (such as Position, Scale, and Rotation) are automatically set to “Smooth” interpolation. This often results in undesired easing between keyframes, especially when linear motion is required.
Currently, we have to manually adjust each keyframe to "Linear" using the Video Animation Editor, which can be time-consuming when working with many keyframes.
Would it be possible to add an option to set the default keyframe interpolation to "Linear"—either globally in Preferences or per parameter in the Inspector?
This would greatly streamline the animation workflow for many editors.
Thank you for considering this request!
I'm currently using ReplayKit for background screen recording, but I can't determine whether the screen is in landscape mode from the CMSampleBuffer. All other APIs for detecting screen orientation are foreground-based. What should I do?
I'm seeking to a specific sync frame in a video file (HEVC, recorded on iPad). When I feed the buffers from that sync frame on to VTDecompressionSession it consistently drops the 2.,3.,4. buffer with a kVTVideoDecoderReferenceMissingErr (or no error but no buffer on the simulator). If I feed all the buffers from the penultimate sync frame prior to the desired frame the buffers come out fine but that would just create a massive overhead to always do it. Tried multiple OS versions, devices etc. Seems a consistent problem.
Here's a sample project with the offending video (disregard memory handling etc):
https://github.com/marcuseckert/vtSample
I've filed a radar FB18228296 but would appreciate any feedback on circumventing or at least detecting this behavior prior to decoding.