Hello, I will use AVFoundation's AVAssetWriter and AVPlayer for H.264 and H.265 encoding and decoding in my app. It will be used commercially, so I would like to know if I need to pay any licensing fees for H.264 and H.265 encoding and decoding.

There are significant crash reports coming from iOS 18 users regarding AVKit framework that starts from this line [AVPlayerController _observeValueForKeyPath:oldValue:newValue:] which seems to be coming from iOS internal SDK. There are 2 kinds of crash we found: UI modification on background thread From the stack trace it seems like when AVPictureInPictureController is being deallocated and its view is being removed from superview somehow the code is being executed in background thread because there is this line there _AssertAutoLayoutOnAllowedThreadsOnly highlighted before the crash. But I’ve checked our code that plays around AVPictureInPictureController, in the locations where we would deallocate the object it will always be called on main thread which are insideviewDidLoad and deinit inside UIViewController class. From the log, it seems like the crash happened when user try to open another content when PIP player is active resulting in the current PIP instance will be replaced with a new one. My suspect is the observation logic inside AVPlayerController could be the hint to this issue, probably something broken over there since this issue happened across our app versions on iOS 18 users only. Unfortunately, I was unable to reproduce this issue yet but one of my colleagues reproduced it once but haven’t been able to do it again since. The reports keep raising each day up to 1.3k events in the last 30 days now. Over release object This one has lower reports than the first one but I decided to include it since it might have relevant information regarding the first crash since the starting stack trace is similar. The crash timing seems to be similar to the first one, where we deallocate existing AVPictureInPictureController and later replace it with a new one and also found only in iOS 18 users which also refers to [AVPlayerController _observeValueForKeyPath:oldValue:newValue:]. I also was unable to reproduce this issue so far. Oh, and both of the issues happened on both iPhone and iPad. We’d appreciate any advice on what we can do to avoid this in the future and probably any hint on why it could happened. I have reported this issue with bug number: FB15620734 I also attached one sample crash report for each of the crashes here. non ui thread access.crash over release.crash

When is playbackBufferEmpty triggered? Why is this property YES observed from the observer method when returning to the foreground from the background even if the buffer is not empty?

I’m using AVFoundation in my iPhone application to encode a video in MP4 format with H.264, which can then be shared or exported. Do I need to pay a license for using the H.264 format to MPEG LA? Or are these fees already covered by Apple? I’ve read articles suggesting that Apple covers these fees when encoding is done through its native APIs (or via its dedicated encoding hardware components), but I haven’t found any explicit confirmation of this point in the various documentation or contracts... Did I miss something?

I am recording video on iOS using ReplayKit and found that after copying data in the processSampleBuffer:withType: callback using memcpy, the data changes. This occurs particularly frequently when the screen content changes rapidly, making it look like the frames are overlapping. I found that the values starting from byte 672 in the video data on my device often change. Here is the test demo: - (void)processSampleBuffer:(CMSampleBufferRef)sampleBuffer withType:(RPSampleBufferType)sampleBufferType { switch (sampleBufferType) { case RPSampleBufferTypeVideo: { CVPixelBufferRef pixelBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(sampleBuffer); CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(pixelBuffer, kCVPixelBufferLock_ReadOnly); int ret = 0; uint8_t *oYData = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 0); size_t oYSize = CVPixelBufferGetHeightOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 0) * CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRowOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 0); uint8_t *oUVData = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 1); size_t oUVSize = CVPixelBufferGetHeightOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 1) * CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRowOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 1); if (oYSize <= 672) { return; } uint8_t tempValue = oYData[672]; uint8_t *tYData = malloc(oYSize); memcpy(tYData, oYData, oYSize); if (tYData[672] != oYData[672]) { NSLog(@"$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:%d o:%d temp:%d", tYData[672], oYData[672], tempValue); } free(tYData); CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(pixelBuffer, kCVPixelBufferLock_ReadOnly); break; } default: { break; } } } Output: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:110 o:124 temp:110 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:111 o:133 temp:111 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:124 o:138 temp:124 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:133 o:144 temp:133 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:138 o:151 temp:138 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:144 o:156 temp:144 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:151 o:135 temp:151 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:156 o:78 temp:156 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:135 o:76 temp:135 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:78 o:77 temp:78 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:76 o:80 temp:76 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:77 o:80 temp:77 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:80 o:79 temp:80 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$------ t:79 o:80 temp:79

The media services used for HLS streaming in an AVPlayer seem to crash if your segments are too large. Anything over 20Mbps seems to cause a crash. I have tried adjusting the segment length to 1 second also and it didn't help. I am remuxing Dolby Vision and HDR video and want to avoid transcoding and losing any metadata. However the segments are too large. Is there a workaround for this? Otherwise it seems AVFoundation is not suited to high bitrate HLS and I should be using MPV or similar.

We have a universal iOS/tvOS app that also supports iOS App on Mac. In our AVPlayer-based video player we support AirPlay with AVRouteDetector and AVRoutePickerView. We play HLS streams. When we try to AirPlay from an iOS device to an Apple TV or a Mac that has our app installed, it doesn't work. The receiver is marked as active in the route picker UI but the video doesn't show up on the receiver and playback stops. When our app isn't installed on the receiver device, everything works as expected. Has anyone encountered the same issue? Any solutions available for this?

We have had the same video player in our app for at least 5 years with few issues but the iOS 18 updated has now resulted in video playback for our users who have downloaded the video for offline viewing is now played at 2x speed.

Hey. I am trying to create a present view with a bunch of media (images/videos). Right now I am using a ZStack to render each media and change opacity based on the index selected using a scrollView. The issue seems to be that sometimes, videos don't seem to load in the main slide. There is a slide created as the video exists, the Player shows controls too but doesn't play anything. Present View Z-Stack ZStack { ForEach(presentation.slides.indices, id: .self) { index in if let media = mediaCacheManager.mediaCache[index] { if let player = media as? AVPlayer { PlayerView(player: player) .aspectRatio(16/10, contentMode: .fit ) .frame(width: UIScreen.main.bounds.width * 0.8) .background(Color.gray.opacity(0.2)) .clipShape(RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 40)) .overlay( RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 40) .stroke(Color.gray.opacity(0.5), lineWidth: 1) ) .onDisappear { player.pause() } .opacity(appModel.currentSlide == index ? 1 : 0) } else if let image = media as? Image { image .resizable() .scaledToFit() .frame(width: UIScreen.main.bounds.width * 0.8) .background(Color.gray.opacity(0.2)) .clipShape(RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 40)) .overlay( RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 40) .stroke(Color.gray.opacity(0.5), lineWidth: 1) ) .padding(.vertical, 10) .opacity(appModel.currentSlide == index ? 1 : 0) } } } } The PlayerView public class PlayerUIView: UIView { let playerVC = AVPlayerViewController() let gravity: AVLayerVideoGravity let manageAudio: Bool override init(frame: CGRect) { self.gravity = .resizeAspectFill self.manageAudio = true super.init(frame: frame) } deinit { if manageAudio { try? AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(false) } } init(player: AVPlayer?, gravity: AVLayerVideoGravity, manageAudio: Bool = true) { self.gravity = gravity self.manageAudio = manageAudio super.init(frame: .zero) guard let player = player else { return } self.playerSetup(player: player) } required init?(coder: NSCoder) { fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented") } public override func layoutSubviews() { super.layoutSubviews() playerVC.view.frame = bounds playerVC.view.backgroundColor = .clear playerVC.allowsVideoFrameAnalysis = false } private func playerSetup(player: AVPlayer) { playerVC.updatesNowPlayingInfoCenter = true playerVC.player = player playerVC.showsPlaybackControls = true playerVC.view.backgroundColor = .clear playerVC.exitsFullScreenWhenPlaybackEnds = true playerVC.videoGravity = gravity self.addSubview(playerVC.view) } }

Looking to output dv video to my JVC SR-VS30 video deck. I used to be able to do this, but with most firewire stuff being deprecated, I'm not sure how to go about this. I found this old developer sample code that seems to do exactly what I'd like. Surely this could be rolled or updated for current macOS? https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/samplecode/SimpleVideoOut/Introduction/Intro.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS10000809-Intro-DontLinkElementID_2

I tried configuring the preferredForwardBufferDuration on devices using 4G and Wi-Fi, and in these cases, AVPlayer works correctly according to the configured buffer duration. However, when the device is connected to a 5G network, the configuration value no longer works. For example, if I set preferredForwardBufferDuration to 30 seconds, AVPlayer preloads with a buffer of over 100 seconds. I’m not sure how to resolve this, as it’s causing issues with my system.

Hello, I.m deaf-blind programmer. I'm experiencing memory issues in my app. Essentially, I'm writing a video. In this output video, I get content from two sources. The first source is an already recorded video of 18 seconds (just for testing). It will be shown at the beginning of the output video. The second source is an array with photos and another array with audio buffers from AVSpeechSynthesizer.write(). The photos will be added along with the audio buffers to the output video, right after adding the 18-second video. So, in the end, the output video should be: 18-second video + array of photos as video images and, for audio, the buffers from AVSpeechSynthesizer.write(). However, my app crashes as soon as I start the first process. I'm using AVAssetWriter to write the video and AVAssetReader to read the video. Below, I'll show the code where I get the CMSampleBuffer. I'd like an example of how to add the 18-second video to the beginning of the output video. It doesn't need to be a big piece of code. Here it is: // Variables var audioReaderBuffers = [CMSAMPLEBUFFER]() var videoReaderBuffers = [(frame: CVPixelBuffer, time: CMTIME)]() // Get CMSampleBuffer of a video asset if let videoURL = videoURL { let videoAsset = AVAsset(url: videoURL) Task { let videoAssetTrack = try await videoAsset.loadTracks(withMediaType: .video).first! let audioTrack = try await videoAsset.loadTracks(withMediaType: .audio).first! let reader = try AVAssetReader(asset: videoAsset) let videoSettings = [ kCVPixelBufferPixelFormatTypeKey: kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA, kCVPixelBufferWidthKey: videoAssetTrack.naturalSize.width, kCVPixelBufferHeightKey: videoAssetTrack.naturalSize.height ] as [String: Any] let readerVideoOutput = AVAssetReaderTrackOutput(track: videoAssetTrack, outputSettings: videoSettings) let audioSettings = [ AVFormatIDKey: kAudioFormatLinearPCM, AVSampleRateKey: 44100, AVNumberOfChannelsKey: 2 ] as [String : Any] let readerAudioOutput = AVAssetReaderTrackOutput(track: audioTrack, outputSettings: audioSettings) reader.add(readerVideoOutput) reader.add(readerAudioOutput) reader.startReading() // Video CMSampleBuffer while let sampleBuffer = readerVideoOutput.copyNextSampleBuffer() { autoreleasepool { if let imgBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(sampleBuffer) { let pixBuf = imgBuffer as CVPixelBuffer let pTime = CMSampleBufferGetPresentationTimeStamp(sampleBuffer) videoReaderBuffers.append((frame: pixBuf, time: pTime)) } } } if let videoURL = videoURL { let videoAsset = AVAsset(url: videoURL) Task { let videoAssetTrack = try await videoAsset.loadTracks(withMediaType: .video).first! let audioTrack = try await videoAsset.loadTracks(withMediaType: .audio).first! let reader = try AVAssetReader(asset: videoAsset) let videoSettings = [ kCVPixelBufferPixelFormatTypeKey: kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA, kCVPixelBufferWidthKey: videoAssetTrack.naturalSize.width, kCVPixelBufferHeightKey: videoAssetTrack.naturalSize.height ] as [String: Any] let readerVideoOutput = AVAssetReaderTrackOutput(track: videoAssetTrack, outputSettings: videoSettings) let audioSettings = [ AVFormatIDKey: kAudioFormatLinearPCM, AVSampleRateKey: 44100, AVNumberOfChannelsKey: 2 ] as [String : Any] let readerAudioOutput = AVAssetReaderTrackOutput(track: audioTrack, outputSettings: audioSettings) reader.add(readerVideoOutput) reader.add(readerAudioOutput) reader.startReading() while let sampleBuffer = readerVideoOutput.copyNextSampleBuffer() { autoreleasepool { if let imgBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(sampleBuffer) { let pixBuf = imgBuffer as CVPixelBuffer let pTime = CMSampleBufferGetPresentationTimeStamp(sampleBuffer) }

We are processing videos with Core Image filters in our apps, using an AVMutableVideoComposition (for playback/preview and export). For older devices, we want to limit the resolution at which the video frames are processed for performance and memory reasons. Ideally, we would tell AVFoundation to give us video frames with a defined maximum size into our composition. We thought setting the renderSize property of the composition to the desired size would do that. However, this only changes the size of output frames, not the size of the source frames that come into the composition's handler block. For example: let composition = AVMutableVideoComposition(asset: asset, applyingCIFiltersWithHandler: { request in let input = request.sourceImage // <- this still has the video's original size // ... }) composition.renderSize = CGSize(width: 1280, heigth: 720) // for example So if the user selects a 4K video, our filter chain gets 4K input frames. Sure, we can scale them down inside our pipeline, but this costs resources and especially a lot of memory. It would be way better if AVFoundation could decode the video frames in the desired size already before passing it into the composition handler. Is there a way to tell AVFoundation to load smaller video frames?

Hello, To create a test project, I want to understand how the video and audio settings would look for a destination video whose content comes from a source video. I obtained the output from the source video in the audio and video tracks as follows: let audioSettings = [ AVFormatIDKey: kAudioFormatLinearPCM, AVSampleRateKey: 44100, AVNumberOfChannelsKey: 2 ] as [String : Any] var audioOutput = AVAssetReaderTrackOutput(track: audioTrack!, outputSettings: audioSettings) // Video let videoSettings = [ kCVPixelBufferPixelFormatTypeKey: kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA, kCVPixelBufferWidthKey: videoTrack!.naturalSize.width, kCVPixelBufferHeightKey: videoTrack!.naturalSize.height ] as [String: Any] var videoOutput = AVAssetReaderTrackOutput(track: videoTrack!, outputSettings: videoSettings) With this, I'm obtaining the CMSampleBuffer using AVAssetReader.copyNextSampleBuffer . How can I add it to the destination video? Should I use a while loop, considering I already have the AVAssetWriter set up? Something like this: while let buffer = videoOutput.copyNextSampleBuffer() { if let imgBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(sampleBuffer) { let frame = imgBuffer as CVPixelBuffer let time = CMSampleBufferGetPresentationTimeStamp(sampleBuffer) adaptor.append(frame, withMediaTime: time) } } Lastly, regarding the destination video. How should the AVAssetWriterInput for audio and PixelBuffer of the destination video be set up? Provide an example, something like: let audioSettings = […] as [String: Any] Looking forward to your response.

I am talking about AVCaptureVideoDataOutput.recommendedVideoSettings. I found sometimes it return nil, there is my test result. hevc .mov with activeColorSpace sRGB 60FPS -> ok 120FPS -> ok hevc .mov with activeColorSpace displayP3_HLG 60FPS -> nil 120FPS -> nil h264 .mov 30FPS -> ok 60FPS -> nil 120FPS -> nil so, if you don't give a recommend setting, and you don't give a document, how does developer to use it?