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

When playing several short HLS clips using AVPlayer connected to a TV using Apple's Lightning-to-HDMI adapter (A1438) we often fail with those unknown errors. CoreMediaErrorDomain -12034 and CoreMediaErrorDomain -12158 Anyone has any clue what the errors mean? Environment: iPhone8 iOS 15.4 Lightning-to-HDMI adapter (A1438)

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 have an HDR10+ encoded video that if loaded as a mov plays back on the Apple Vision Pro but when that video is encoded using the latest (1.23b) Apple HLS tools to generate an fMP4 - the resulting m3u8 cannot be played back in the Apple Vision Pro and I only get back a "Cannot Open" error. To generate the m3u8, I'm just calling mediafilesegmenter (with -iso-fragmented) and then variantplaylistcreator. This completes with no errors but the m3u8 will playback on the Mac using VLC but not on the Apple Vision Pro. The relevant part of the m3u8 is: #EXT-X-STREAM-INF:AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=40022507,BANDWIDTH=48883974,VIDEO-RANGE=PQ,CODECS="ec-3,hvc1.1.60000000.L180.B0",RESOLUTION=4096x4096,FRAME-RATE=24.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS=NONE,AUDIO="audio1",REQ-VIDEO-LAYOUT="CH-STEREO" {{url}} Has anyone been able to use the HLS tools to generate fMP4s of MV-HEVC videos with HDR10?

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!

iOS18 Added support for WebRTC HEVC RFC 7789 RTP Payload Format. (112001659)，How can i determine whether iOS 18 WebRTC uses hardware or software decoding for HEVC?

Hello, we have HLS stream app and we use AVPlayer for HLS stream. We want to implement dynamic resulotion feature as user's selection. For example, if user want to watch only 1080p user has to watch only 1080p but we have tried to implement "preferredMaximumResolution" and "preferredPeakBitRate" parameters and but AVPlayer does not force it which means that setting preferredMaximumResolution= CGSize(width: 1920, height: 1080) player does not only force to play 1080p profile, player drops resulotion to 720p but we do not want 720p stream if user selected 1080p resulotion. Is there any method to force it even if stream stalls? Thank you in advance

We are experiencing an issue with our HLS MPEG-TS streams on Apple devices, where the AVPlayer in our iOS app and Safari jumps back to the start when the player automatically changes quality. This occurs despite the stream still indicating that it is live and there is no change in the seekbar. After testing our streams with the Apple HLS Validator, the only problem that occured was an "Measured peak bitrate compared to multivariant playlist declared value exceeds error tolerance"-Error. On Chrome and on our Android-App this playback bug does not happen. Has someone else experienced similar issues with the AVPlayer?

We're integrating a web based group calling application within a native iOS application and finding that every time a CallKit session gets fully established the web based media streams break, rendering as gray with no audio. Up to iOS 18 we worked around it by not fulfilling the call start action but that's no longer an option as the audio stopped getting automatically redirected to the speakers. We would now need the CXProvider's didActivateAudioSession callback but that would break the video. The sample project loads up a simple webpage in a WKWebView which contains a video tag streaming the media from the device's camera. At the same time it sets up a new CallKit session by requesting and fulfilling a CXStartCallAction transaction. You will notice that the media doesn't render and, if you are to follow the warnings we left, you will find that not fulfilling the CXStartCallAction fixes it. Unfortunately that's not a workaround we can use as we need the CXProvider delegate to inform us about audio session changes so we can redirect the audio to the speaker (so the proximity sensor doesn't activate and locking the screen doesn't end the call) Any insights or workarounds would be greatly appreciated.

Hello, I used AVPlayer in my project to play network movie. Most movie could play normally, but I found the sound will disappear sometimes if I play specified 4K video network stream. The video will continue playing but audio stops after video is played for a while. If I pause player and then resume, the sound will be back but disappeared again after several seconds Check AVPlayerItem status: isPlaybackLikelyToKeepUp` == true isPlaybackBufferEmpty` = false player.volume > 0 According the value above, it seems not cause by empty playback buffer or volume issue. I am so confused for this situation. Movie information Video Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : High L5.1 Codec ID : avc1 Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 100.0 Mb/s Width : 3 840 pixels Height : 2 160 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate mode : Constant Frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS Audio Format : AAC LC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity Codec ID : mp4a-40-2 Duration : 5 min 19 s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 192 kb/s Nominal bit rate : 48.0 kb/s Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel layout : L R Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF) Does anyone know if AVPlayer has this limitations when playing high-bitrate movie streams, and are there any solutions?

HLS live streaming 4k is not displaying any video, but is streaming audio. Getting the following errors in the console where it shows that it is failing to decode every frame. Can I get some help as to what these error codes refer to and why it would fail to decode? 08:30:42.675879-0800 videocodecd AppleAVD: AppleAVDDecodeFrameInternal(): avdDec - Frame# 3588, DecodeFrame failed with error: 0x196 08:30:42.675908-0800 videocodecd AppleAVD: AppleAVDDisplayCallback(): Asking fig to drop frame # 3588 with err -12909 - internalStatus: 315 08:30:42.697412-0800 videocodecd AppleAVD: AppleAVDDecodeFrameResponse(): Frame# 3589 DecodeFrame failed with error 0x00000196 08:30:42.697876-0800 videocodecd AppleAVD: AppleAVDDecodeFrameInternal(): failed - error: 406

Hi, I have a usecase where I'd like to handle and prevent automatic retries whenever certain errors occur during FairPlay content key requests. Here's the current flow: FairPlay certificate is requested and obtained from my server makeStreamingContentKeyRequestData is called on the keyRequest The license server will return a 403 along with a body response containing a json with the detailed code and message The error is caught and handled properly by calling AVContentKeyRequest.processContentKeyResponseError The AVContentKeySession automatically retries up to 8 times by providing a new key request through public func contentKeySession(_ session: AVContentKeySession, didProvide keyRequest: AVContentKeyRequest) My license server gets hit with 8 requests that will always result in a 403, these retries are useless My custom error is succesfully caught later down the line through AVPlayerItem.observe(\.status), this is great Thing is.. I'd like to catch the 403 error and prevent any retry from being made at step 5, ideally through public func contentKeySession(_ session: AVContentKeySession, contentKeyRequest keyRequest: AVContentKeyRequest, didFailWithError err: Error) I've looked for quite a while and just can't seem to find any way of achieving this. Is this not supported at all?

Hi, I have a IOS app and we are using fairplay DRM to play videos. In IOS app we are allowing offline download of the videos and hence we are getting a persistent fairplay license. In IOS app everything is working fine. Now we have used the same app and built for MacOS catalyst. In MAC OS catalyst app we are not able to play the video and getting error code -42650 We are able to get the persistent license from server, but when we play the video with the license we are getting the error. Below are the logs: 2024-12-06 22:05:48.911266+0530 0x4dffe2 Default 0x0 85505 0 teachonline: (MediaToolbox) [com.apple.coremedia:] <<<< FigPKDKeyManager >>>> keyManager_processOfflineKeyInternal: 0x600000322000 160D4519-C60B-4FD0-B69A-20B2A4597017 created decrypt context:0x0 with offline key; updated offline key:0x0 err:-42650 2024-12-06 22:05:48.911369+0530 0x4dffe2 Default 0x0 85505 0 teachonline: (MediaToolbox) [com.apple.coremedia:player] <<<< FigStreamPlayer >>>> fpfs_ensureDecryptorHasStarted: [0x7fc44e4dc520|P/NW] <0x7fc44fa44000|I/SRA.01>: track 1 latching decryptorFailure -42650 85505 0 teachonline: (MediaToolbox) [com.apple.coremedia:player] <<<< FigStreamPlayer >>>> fpfs_StopPlayingItem: [0x7fc44e4dc520|P/NW] <0x7fc44fa44000|I/SRA.01>: Pausing, err=Error Domain=CoreMediaErrorDomain Code=-42650 "(null)" I have copied only the lines which has errors. You can download the full logs from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1feb9pKZERUr--PMt6m-6IrO_mDvoFbjO/view?usp=sharing Can you please help me to fix the issue.

In an m3u8 manifest, audio EXT-X-MEDIA tags usually contain CHANNELS tag containing the audio channels count like so: #EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=AUDIO,URI="audio_clear_eng_stereo.m3u8",GROUP-ID="default-audio-group",LANGUAGE="en",NAME="stream_5",AUTOSELECT=YES,CHANNELS="2" Is it possible to get this info from AVPlayer, AVMediaSelectionOption or some related API?

Hi, I'm trying to decode a HLS livestream with VideoToolbox. The CMSampleBuffer is successfully created (OSStatus == noErr). When I enqueue the CMSampleBuffer to a AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer the view isn't displaying anything and the status of the AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer is 1 (rendering). When I use a VTDecompressionSession to convert the CMSampleBuffer to a CVPixelBuffer the VTDecompressionOutputCallback returns a -8969 (bad data error). What do I need to fix in my code? Do I incorrectly parse the data from the segment for the CMSampleBuffer? let segmentData = try await downloadSegment(from: segment.url) let (sps, pps, idr) = try parseH264FromTSSegment(tsData: segmentData) if self.formatDescription == nil { self.formatDescription = try CMFormatDescription(h264ParameterSets: [sps, pps]) } if let sampleBuffer = try createSampleBuffer(from: idr, segment: segment) { try self.decodeSampleBuffer(sampleBuffer) } func parseH264FromTSSegment(tsData: Data) throws -> (sps: Data, pps: Data, idr: Data) { let tsSize = 188 var pesData = Data() for i in stride(from: 0, to: tsData.count, by: tsSize) { let tsPacket = tsData.subdata(in: i..<min(i + tsSize, tsData.count)) guard let payload = extractPayloadFromTSPacket(tsPacket) else { continue } pesData.append(payload) } let nalUnits = parseNalUnits(from: pesData) var sps: Data? var pps: Data? var idr: Data? for nalUnit in nalUnits { guard let firstByte = nalUnit.first else { continue } let nalType = firstByte & 0x1F switch nalType { case 7: // SPS sps = nalUnit case 8: // PPS pps = nalUnit case 5: // IDR idr = nalUnit default: break } if sps != nil, pps != nil, idr != nil { break } } guard let validSPS = sps, let validPPS = pps, let validIDR = idr else { throw NSError() } return (validSPS, validPPS, validIDR) } func extractPayloadFromTSPacket(_ tsPacket: Data) -> Data? { let syncByte: UInt8 = 0x47 guard tsPacket.count == 188, tsPacket[0] == syncByte else { return nil } let payloadStart = (tsPacket[1] & 0x40) != 0 let adaptationFieldControl = (tsPacket[3] & 0x30) >> 4 var payloadOffset = 4 if adaptationFieldControl == 2 || adaptationFieldControl == 3 { let adaptationFieldLength = Int(tsPacket[4]) payloadOffset += 1 + adaptationFieldLength } guard adaptationFieldControl == 1 || adaptationFieldControl == 3 else { return nil } let payload = tsPacket.subdata(in: payloadOffset..<tsPacket.count) return payloadStart ? payload : nil } func parseNalUnits(from h264Data: Data) -> [Data] { let startCode = Data([0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x01]) var nalUnits: [Data] = [] var searchRange = h264Data.startIndex..<h264Data.endIndex while let range = h264Data.range(of: startCode, options: [], in: searchRange) { let nextStart = h264Data.range(of: startCode, options: [], in: range.upperBound..<h264Data.endIndex)?.lowerBound ?? h264Data.endIndex let nalUnit = h264Data.subdata(in: range.upperBound..<nextStart) nalUnits.append(nalUnit) searchRange = nextStart..<h264Data.endIndex } return nalUnits } private func createSampleBuffer(from data: Data, segment: HLSSegment) throws -> CMSampleBuffer? { var blockBuffer: CMBlockBuffer? let alignedData = UnsafeMutableRawPointer.allocate(byteCount: data.count, alignment: MemoryLayout<UInt8>.alignment) data.copyBytes(to: alignedData.assumingMemoryBound(to: UInt8.self), count: data.count) let blockStatus = CMBlockBufferCreateWithMemoryBlock( allocator: kCFAllocatorDefault, memoryBlock: alignedData, blockLength: data.count, blockAllocator: nil, customBlockSource: nil, offsetToData: 0, dataLength: data.count, flags: 0, blockBufferOut: &blockBuffer ) guard blockStatus == kCMBlockBufferNoErr, let validBlockBuffer = blockBuffer else { alignedData.deallocate() throw NSError() } var sampleBuffer: CMSampleBuffer? var timing = [calculateTiming(for: segment)] var sampleSizes = [data.count] let sampleStatus = CMSampleBufferCreate( allocator: kCFAllocatorDefault, dataBuffer: validBlockBuffer, dataReady: true, makeDataReadyCallback: nil, refcon: nil, formatDescription: formatDescription, sampleCount: 1, sampleTimingEntryCount: 1, sampleTimingArray: &timing, sampleSizeEntryCount: sampleSizes.count, sampleSizeArray: &sampleSizes, sampleBufferOut: &sampleBuffer ) guard sampleStatus == noErr else { alignedData.deallocate() throw NSError() } return sampleBuffer } private func decodeSampleBuffer(_ sampleBuffer: CMSampleBuffer) throws { guard let formatDescription = CMSampleBufferGetFormatDescription(sampleBuffer) else { throw NSError() } if decompressionSession == nil { try setupDecompressionSession(formatDescription: formatDescription) } guard let session = decompressionSession else { throw NSError() } let flags: VTDecodeFrameFlags = [._EnableAsynchronousDecompression, ._EnableTemporalProcessing] var flagOut = VTDecodeInfoFlags() let status = VTDecompressionSessionDecodeFrame( session, sampleBuffer: sampleBuffer, flags: flags, frameRefcon: nil, infoFlagsOut: nil) if status != noErr { throw NSError() } } private func setupDecompressionSession(formatDescription: CMFormatDescription) throws { self.formatDescription = formatDescription if let session = decompressionSession { VTDecompressionSessionInvalidate(session) self.decompressionSession = nil } var decompressionSession: VTDecompressionSession? var callback = VTDecompressionOutputCallbackRecord( decompressionOutputCallback: decompressionOutputCallback, decompressionOutputRefCon: Unmanaged.passUnretained(self).toOpaque()) let status = VTDecompressionSessionCreate( allocator: kCFAllocatorDefault, formatDescription: formatDescription, decoderSpecification: nil, imageBufferAttributes: nil, outputCallback: &callback, decompressionSessionOut: &decompressionSession ) if status != noErr { throw NSError() } self.decompressionSession = decompressionSession } let decompressionOutputCallback: VTDecompressionOutputCallback = { ( decompressionOutputRefCon, sourceFrameRefCon, status, infoFlags, imageBuffer, presentationTimeStamp, presentationDuration ) in guard status == noErr else { print("Callback: \(status)") return } if let imageBuffer = imageBuffer { } }

I have a low latency hls with fragmented mp4 setup. When I try to validate it with mediavalidatorstream tool, it gives following error: Detail: '(null)' is not a valid URL Source: media playlisturl - segment url in that playlist What does that error mean?

I try to validate low latency HLS fragmented MP4 setup with meadistreamvalidator. I get following error: Error: Invalid URL Detail: '(null)' is not a valid URL Source: mediaplaylistURL.m3u8 - segmentURL.mp4 meadistreamvalidator version is 1.23.14 What does that error mean?

Hello, I'm writing a program to create CMAF compliant HLS files, with encryption. I have a copy of ISO_IEC_23001-7_2023 to attempt to follow the spec. I am following the 1:9 pattern encryption using CBCS, so for every 16 bytes of encrypted NAL unit data (of type 1 and 5), there's 144 bytes of clear data. When testing my output in Safari with 'identity' keys Quickly Diagnosing Content Key and IV Issues, Safari will request the identity key from my test server and first few bytes of the CMAF renditions, but will not play and console gives away no clues to the error. I am setting the subsample bytesofclear/protected data in the senc boxes. What I'm not sure of, is whether HLS/Safari/iOS acknowledges the senc/saiz/saio boxes of the MP4. There are other third party packagers Bento4, who suggest that they do not: those clients ignore the explicit encryption layout metadata found in saio/saiz boxes, and instead rely purely on the video slice header size to determine the portions of the sample that is encrypted So now I'm fairly sure I need to decipher the video slice header size, and apply the protected blocks from that point on. My question is, is that all there is to it? And is there a better way to debug my output? mediastreamvalidator will only work against unencrypted variants (which I'm outputting okay). Thanks in advance!

I'm developing a tutorial style tvOS app with multiple videos. The examples I've seen so far deal with only one video. Defining the player and source(url) before body view let avPlayer = AVPlayer(url: URL(string: "https://domain.com/.../.../video.mp4")!)) and then in the body view the video is displayed VideoPlayer(player: avPlayer) This allows options such as stop/start etc. When I try something similar with a video title passed into this view I can't define the player with this title variable. var vTitle: String var avPlayer = AVPlayer(url: URL(string: "https://domain.com/.../.../" + vTitle + ".mp4"")!)) var body: some View { I het an error that vTitle can't be used in the url above the body view. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks

I'm developing an iOS radio app that plays various HLS streams. The challenge is that some stations broadcast HLS streams containing both audio and video (example: https://svs.itworkscdn.net/smcwatarlive/smcwatar/chunks.m3u8), but I want to: Extract and play only the audio track Support AirPlay for audio-only streaming Minimize data usage by not downloading video content Technical Details: iOS 17+ Swift 5.9 Using AVFoundation for playback Current implementation uses AVPlayer with AVPlayerItem Current Code Structure: class StreamPlayer: ObservableObject { @Published var isPlaying = false private var player: AVPlayer? private var playerItem: AVPlayerItem? func playStream(url: URL) { let asset = AVURLAsset(url: url) playerItem = AVPlayerItem(asset: asset) player = AVPlayer(playerItem: playerItem) player?.play() } Stream Analysis: When analyzing the video stream using FFmpeg: CopyInput #0, hls, from 'https://svs.itworkscdn.net/smcwatarlive/smcwatar/chunks.m3u8': Stream #0:0: Video: h264, yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 25 fps Stream #0:1: Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp Attempted Solutions: Using MobileFFmpeg: let command = [ "-i", streamUrl, "-vn", "-acodec", "aac", "-ac", "2", "-ar", "44100", "-b:a", "128k", "-f", "mpegts", "udp://127.0.0.1:12345" ].joined(separator: " ") ffmpegProcess = MobileFFmpeg.execute(command) Issue: While FFmpeg successfully extracts audio, playback through AVPlayer doesn't work reliably. Tried using HLS output: let command = [ "-i", streamUrl, "-vn", "-acodec", "aac", "-ac", "2", "-ar", "44100", "-b:a", "128k", "-f", "hls", "-hls_time", "2", "-hls_list_size", "3", outputUrl.path ] Issue: Creates temporary files but faces synchronization issues with live streams. Requirements: Real-time audio extraction from HLS stream Maintain live streaming capabilities Full AirPlay support Minimal data usage (avoid downloading video content) Handle network interruptions gracefully Questions: What's the most efficient way to extract only audio from an HLS stream in real-time? Is there a way to tell AVPlayer to ignore video tracks completely? Are there better alternatives to FFmpeg for this specific use case? What's the recommended approach for handling AirPlay with modified streams? Any guidance or alternative approaches would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!