Hi,It seems like it's pretty easy to consume HTTP Live Streaming content in an iOS app. Unfortunately, I need to consume media from an RTSP server. It seems to me that this is a very similar thing, and that all of the underpinnings for doing it ought to be present in iOS, but I'm having a devil of a time figuring out how to make it work without doing a lot of programming.For starters, I know that there are web-based services that can consume an RTSP stream and rebroadcast it as an HTTP Live Stream that can be easily consumed by the media players in iOS. This won't work for me because my application needs to function in an environment where there is no internet access (it's on a private Wifi network where the only other thing on the network is the device that is serving the RTSP stream).Having read everything I can get my hands on and exploring third-party and open-source solutions, I've compiled the following list of ideas:1. Using an iOS build of the open-source ffmpeg library, which supports RTSP, I've come up with a test app that can receive the RTSP packets, decode them, create UIImages out of the frames, and display those frames on-screen. This provides a crude player, but performance is poor, most likely because ffmpeg can't take advantage of any hardware acceleration. It also doesn't provide me with any way to integrate the video stream into AVFoundation, so I'm on my own as far as saving the stream to a file, transcoding it, etc.2. I know that the AVURLAsset class doesn't directly support the RTSP scheme. Since I have access to the undecoded RTSP packets via ffmpeg, I've thought it should be possible to implement RTSP support myself via a custom NSURLProtocol, essentially fooling AVFoundation into reading those packets as if they originated in a file. I'm not sure if this would work, since the raw packets coming from the RTSP server might lack the headers that would otherwise be present in data being read from a file. I'm not even sure if AVFoundation would recognize my custom protocol.3. If a protocol doesn't work, I've considered that I might be able to implement my own local HTTP Live Streaming server that converts the RTSP packets into an HTTP stream that the media players can read. This sounds like a terribly convoluted solution to the problem, at best, and very difficult at worst.4. Going back to solution (1), if I could speed up the decoding by using some iOS CoreVideo function instead of ffmpeg, this solution might be okay. However, I can't find any documentation for CoreVideo on iOS (Apple only documents it for OS X).5. I'm certainly willing to license a third-party solution if it works well and provides good performance. Unfortunately, everything I've found so far is pretty crummy and mostly just leverages ffmpeg and/or VLC. What is most disappointing to me is that nobody seems to be able or willing to provide a solution that neatly integrates with AVFoundation. I really want to make my RTSP stream available as an AVAsset so I can use it with AVFoundation players and other classes -- I don't want to build an app that relies on custom third-party code for everything.Any ideas, tips, advice would be greatly appreciated.Thanks,Frank

The same H265 encrypted Fairplay content can be played in all Apple devices except A1625. The clear H265 content is played in A1625. The question is: will this model (A1625) support H265 Fairplay encrypted content? A ticket was created here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255658006?sortBy=best

I use AVPlayer to play HLS video successfully on macOS Sonoma, but I encountered this error on macOS Sequoia. Please help me: Error Domain=AVFoundationErrorDomain Code=-11833 ‘Cannot Decode’ UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x600001e57330 {Error Domain=CoreMediaErrorDomain Code=-12906 ‘(null)’}, NSLocalizedFailureReason=The decoder required for this media cannot be found., AVErrorMediaTypeKey=vide, NSLocalizedDescription=Cannot Decode} Thanks!

I have an SCStreamDelegate for capturing frames from applications. On recent point releases of macOS Sonoma, I've noticed that the stream is being cancelled with no user action being taken. I started trying to debug it and when my on error method is called, the error parameter being passed is null: func stream(_ stream: SCStream, didStopWithError error: Error) { /*debugger shows this and segfaults if I try to print "\(error)" error (Error) > error = (Builtin.RawPointer) 0x0 */ From what I can tell, error should be a valid NSError so I can check the error code, based on similar code I've seen in, for example OBS (https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/265239d4174f8d291b0de437088c5b78f8e27687/plugins/mac-capture/mac-sck-common.m#L29) Usually when this happens, the menubar icon for screen sharing (where I would click to change sharing window, etc) stays there even after my app has closed an no apps are doing sharing stuff. Has anyone come across this before? Am I misinterpreting what the debugger is saying about the error parameter? I'm running macos 14.7.3, but I just updated from 14.7.2 earlier and had basically the same issue on both macos versions

I can't play video content with HEVC and DRM. Tested HEVC only: OK. Tested DRM+AVC: Ok. Tested 2 players (Clappr/Stevie and BitMovin) Master, variants and EXT-X-MAPs are downloaded Ok, DRM keys Ok and then, for instance with BitMovin Player: [BMP] [Player] [Error] Event: SourceError, Data: {"code":2001,"data":{"message":"The operation couldn’t be completed. (CoreMediaErrorDomain error -12927.)","code":-12927},"message":"Source Error. The operation couldn’t be completed. (CoreMediaErrorDomain error -12927.)","timestamp":1740320663.4505711,"type":"onSourceError"} code: 2001 [Data code: -12927, message: The operation couldn’t be completed. (CoreMediaErrorDomain error -12927.), underlying error: Error Domain=CoreMediaErrorDomain Code=-12927 "(null)"] 4k-master.m3u8.txt 4k.m3u8.txt 4k-audio.m3u8.txt

Hi Apple Team, We have integrated FairPlay Streaming Server SDK v3 into our MDRM platform since 2017, the system works stable and stayed untouched. As you know, both Widevine and Playready have requirements to upgrade the Server SDK regularly. We want to know if Apple imposes similar requirements for upgrading the FPS SDK, or if we may continue using the old one without any updates. Thanks for your support！

Hello All, I am looking for assistance with our FairPlay Streaming (FPS) certificates. We are in the process of migrating to a new video streaming vendor and need to create a new FPS certificate using SDK 4. However, we have reached the limit of allowed FPS certificates in our account and cannot create a new one. Issue Details: • We currently have two FPS certificates active in our developer account. • One of these was created using SDK 5, but our new vendor (Mux) requires an FPS certificate based on SDK 4. • Since Apple does not allow deleting FPS certificates from the developer portal, we are unable to create a new SDK 4 certificate. • We kindly request Apple to revoke one of our existing FPS certificates to allow us to generate a new SDK 4 certificate. Request: We would greatly appreciate it if you could assist us on how to delete one of our existing FPS certificates so that we can proceed with creating a new SDK 4 certificate for our vendor integration. Thank you for your support.

We are getting reports from customers that they are not able to play videos in our app after updating their phones to iOS18.3.1. (Further checking indicates that it happens on all iOS18 versions. It suddenly started occurring from February 18th, 2025) When checking logs we see that playback is failing due to CoreMediaErrorDomain error -42709. This is an undocumented error code and hence we do not know the cause of the playback issue. Does anyone know what this error code means and how the app should handle it? Reported as FB16638501.

I am playing the protected HLS streams and the authorization token expires in 3 minutes. I am trying to achieve this with 'AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate'. I can refresh the token and play it, but the problem is in between the session, the player stalls for a small time, LIKE 1 SECOND. Here's my code : class APLCustomAVARLDelegate: NSObject, AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate { static let httpsScheme = "https" static let redirectErrorCode = 302 static let badRequestErrorCode = 400 private var token: String? private var retryDictionary = [String: Int]() private let maxRetries = 3 private func schemeSupported(_ scheme: String) -> Bool { let supported = ishttpSchemeValid(scheme) print("Scheme '\(scheme)' supported: \(supported)") return supported } private func reportError(loadingRequest: AVAssetResourceLoadingRequest, error: Int) { let nsError = NSError(domain: NSURLErrorDomain, code: error, userInfo: nil) print("Reporting error: \(nsError)") loadingRequest.finishLoading(with: nsError) } // Handle token renewal requests to prevent playback stalls func resourceLoader(_ resourceLoader: AVAssetResourceLoader, shouldWaitForRenewalOfRequestedResource renewalRequest: AVAssetResourceRenewalRequest) -> Bool { print("Resource renewal requested for URL: \(renewalRequest.request.url?.absoluteString ?? "unknown URL")") // Handle renewal the same way we handle initial requests guard let scheme = renewalRequest.request.url?.scheme else { print("No scheme found in the renewal URL.") return false } if isHttpsSchemeValid(scheme) { return handleHttpsRequest(renewalRequest) } print("Scheme not supported for renewal.") return false } private func isHttpsSchemeValid(_ scheme: String) -> Bool { let isValid = scheme == APLCustomAVARLDelegate.httpsScheme print("httpsScheme scheme '\(scheme)' valid: \(isValid)") return isValid } private func generateHttpsURL(sourceURL: URL) -> URL? { // If you need to modify the URL, do it here // Currently this just returns the same URL let urlString = sourceURL.absoluteString print("Generated HTTPS URL: \(urlString)") return URL(string: urlString) } private func handleHttpsRequest(_ loadingRequest: AVAssetResourceLoadingRequest) -> Bool { print("Handling HTTPS request.") guard let sourceURL = loadingRequest.request.url, var redirectURL = generateHttpsURL(sourceURL: sourceURL) else { print("Failed to generate HTTPS URL.") reportError(loadingRequest: loadingRequest, error: APLCustomAVARLDelegate.badRequestErrorCode) return true } // Track retry attempts with a dictionary keyed by request URL let urlString = sourceURL.absoluteString let currentRetries = retryDictionary[urlString] ?? 0 if currentRetries < maxRetries { retryDictionary[urlString] = currentRetries + 1 } else { // Too many retries, report a more specific error reportError(loadingRequest: loadingRequest, error: NSURLErrorTimedOut) retryDictionary.removeValue(forKey: urlString) return true } if var urlComponents = URLComponents(url: redirectURL, resolvingAgainstBaseURL: false) { var queryItems = urlComponents.queryItems ?? [] // Generate a fresh token each time let freshToken = AESTimeBaseEncription.secureEncryptSecretText() // Check if the token already exists if let existingTokenIndex = queryItems.firstIndex(where: { $0.name == "token" }) { // Update the existing token queryItems[existingTokenIndex].value = freshToken } else { // Add the token if it doesn't exist queryItems.append(URLQueryItem(name: "token", value: freshToken)) } urlComponents.queryItems = queryItems redirectURL = urlComponents.url! } let redirectRequest = URLRequest(url: redirectURL) let response = HTTPURLResponse(url: redirectURL, statusCode: APLCustomAVARLDelegate.redirectErrorCode, httpVersion: nil, headerFields: nil) print("Redirecting HTTPS to URL: \(redirectURL)") loadingRequest.redirect = redirectRequest loadingRequest.response = response loadingRequest.finishLoading() // If successful, reset the retry counter if retryDictionary[urlString] == maxRetries { retryDictionary.removeValue(forKey: urlString) } return true } }

Hello! I am trying to determine the best approach with AVPlayer for implementing auto-play, that is, playback that automatically starts without user initiation. Ideally this would work for both local and streaming audio. My current approach is using KVO and the status on an AVPlayerItem equal to readyToPlay to do this, but I was wondering if there was a better property or state to use, or, alternatively, whether this use case may already be handled when automaticallyWaitsToMinimizeStalling is true, so that I could simply write: player.replaceCurrentItem(with: AVPlayerItem(url: streamingUrl)) player.rate = 1 or let playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: streamingUrl) player = AVPlayer(playerItem: playerItem) player.rate = 1 and expect the item to be auto-played when ready. In the context of user-initiated playback, I've typically seen code that makes a button's enabled state contingent on player.currentItem.duration, e.g. in AVFoundationSimplePlayer-iOS. On the other hand, AVAutoWait, which utilizes automaticallyWaitsToMinimizeStalling, does not seem to do this. As a side note, I am not using an AVQueuePlayer.

Hello, I am developing a video streaming service that uses FairPlay. Since around February 20th, we have started receiving reports of CoreMediaErrorDomain -42709 errors. Unfortunately, there is no documentation from Apple that explains what this error means, so we are not sure how to address or fix the issue. Most of the users who reported this error are using iOS 18.2.1 and iOS 18.3.1. Could you please advise on what we should check or how we might resolve this error?

We noticed the behaviour of expiration of FairPlay license changed from iOS 16.x to some version iOS 17 and the latest iOS 18.3.2 and Safari. On iOS 16.x, the video playback will stop when the license expires, but on iOS 17.x + the video continues but no audio and no error fired. On latest Safari the video and audio all continues. Any changes for the latest FairPlay and how we adapt this from the license server? Thanks

t has been quite some time since I requested the Apple FPS package, yet I haven’t received it. I haven’t received any email either. Is there a developer support inquiry center where I can check the status of the process? Alternatively, could you share approximately how long it took for you to receive a response email?

In our logging tools (Firebase) I see a lot of errors reported when users are playing content and the app transitions to the background. A AVPlayerItemFailedToPlayToEndTime notification is fired with an error containing error codes like -1102 and 1852797029 which seem to correspond to NSURLErrorNoPermissionsToReadFile and kCMIOHardwareIllegalOperationError respectively. To me, it looks like these might have something to do with caching logic. The items being played are HLS streams and we make use of AVAssetDownloadTask to make any streamed content offline available. Our setup is similar to the sample provided here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/using-avfoundation-to-play-and-persist-http-live-streams. Whenever an item is selected for playback the app will check if a cached version is available and if so gets the url to the stored file like the "localAssetForStream()" method in the example, or get the asset from a currently running AVAssetDownloadTask for the item, or else, starts a new AVAssetDownloadTask and returns a AVAsset from that task to play. This seems to work fine, and I can't reproduce the issues our users and our logging tools are reporting. Is there some case I am missing where AVAssetDownloadTask and associated AVAssets might become unreadable when the app transitions to the background? Or do these errors indicate a different problem entirely?

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to receive a 2018 iMac, and I’ve been using it to create content for my social media. I was truly impressed by the power of its processors. Even with this older model, I’ve been able to grow my presence online—something I couldn’t achieve with newer computers from other brands that I previously purchased. I would love to become a promoter of your brand in the gaming world. All I ask for is technological support with more recent equipment and a minimal payment for collaborating with you. I am genuinely interested in being part of your company and leveraging the potential and reputation of Apple to reach even greater heights.

I have an iOS app that downloads HLS files, which are protected by FairPlay. These files are stored locally, and their locations are managed using Core Data. When playing these tracks, I use AVURLAsset to access the stored file paths. Recently, a client upgraded to a new iPhone and used Quick Start to transfer data from his old device. While all other app data was successfully transferred, including Core Data records and UserDefaults, the actual HLS files were missing. As a result, the app retained metadata about the downloaded content, but the files themselves were gone, causing playback failures. Does Quick Start exclude certain types of locally stored files, especially DRM-protected HLS downloads, or is the issue related to how FairPlay-protected content is handled during the transfer of locally stored files?

FairPlay-Protected HLS Files Not Transferred via Quick Start I have an iOS app that downloads HLS files, which are protected by FairPlay. These files are stored locally, and their locations are managed using Core Data. When playing these tracks, I use AVURLAsset to access the stored file paths. Recently, a client upgraded to a new iPhone and used Quick Start to transfer data from his old device. While all other app data was successfully transferred, including Core Data records and UserDefaults, the actual HLS files were missing. As a result, the app retained metadata about the downloaded content, but the files themselves were gone, causing playback failures. Does Quick Start exclude certain types of locally stored files, especially DRM-protected HLS downloads, or is the issue related to how FairPlay-protected content is handled during the transfer of locally stored files?

I am playing FairPlay + Multi-Key content (fMP4) in Safari browser. I want to implement the implementation to distinguish between SD and HD video quality, and play it in HD if HDCP is supported, and in SD if HDCP is not supported. I have already confirmed that HDCP support is the default, and that a black screen is output in non-HDCP environments. What I want is to improve the user experience by appropriately switching to SD/HD depending on HDCP support when playing DRM content. Question: Is there an API or function that can detect HDCP support in Safari through JavaScript or other methods? Or is there a way to indirectly guess it?

Since iOS and tvOS 18, CMCD can now be automatically sent by AVPlayer (https://developer.apple.com/streaming/Whats-new-HLS.pdf). However, after enabling CMCD, our streams occasionally fail with the following error: CoreMediaErrorDomain Error -17383 This issue appears to affect only DRM-protected (FairPlay) streams so far. We activate CMCD via the resource loader of an AVURLAsset, before assigning the item to an AVPlayer. Unfortunately, we haven’t found a reliable way to reproduce the issue, and we’ve been unable to gather any useful diagnostic information. Has anyone else observed this behavior when enabling CMCD on FairPlay streams?

Hello, hope everybody is doing well. I have some reels (of aspect ratio 9X16) content, which I want to playback on iOS phones. My question is does AV player support out of box playback of encrypted Mp4. Please note, this is not HLS fMp4, rather unfragmented Mp4 content. If it is supported, what algorithm of encryption shall be used? Please let me know.