Recording a Video without stopping sound/music from device

Question

I am working with Swift's AVFoundation to capture a video in iOS. But when I play a song using Apple Music/Spotify then click the record button of my app, it pauses/stops the music then records the video. How do I prevent that from happening?

Here's my code:

@IBAction func record_video(sender: AnyObject) {
        var initialOutputURL = NSURL(fileURLWithPath: "")

        do
        {
            initialOutputURL = try NSFileManager.defaultManager().URLForDirectory(.DocumentDirectory, inDomain: .UserDomainMask, appropriateForURL: nil, create: true).URLByAppendingPathComponent("output").URLByAppendingPathExtension("mov")
        }catch
        {
            print(error)
        }
        if !isRecording
        {

            isRecording = true
            if let outputs = captureSession.outputs as? [AVCaptureOutput] {
                for output in outputs {
                    captureSession.removeOutput(output)
                }
            }

            do
            {
                try audioSession.setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient)
            }
            catch
            {
                print("Can't Set Audio Session Category: \(error)")
            }
            AVAudioSessionCategoryOptions.MixWithOthers

            do
            {
                try audioSession.setMode(AVAudioSessionModeVideoRecording)
            }
            catch
            {
                print("Can't Set Audio Session Mode: \(error)")
            }
            // Start Session
            do
            {
                try audioSession.setActive(true)
            }
            catch
            {
                print("Can't Start Audio Session: \(error)")
            }


            UIView.animateWithDuration(0.5, delay: 0.0, options: [.Repeat, .Autoreverse, .AllowUserInteraction], animations: { () -> Void in
                self.record.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeScale(0.75, 0.75)
                }, completion: nil)

            let audioInputDevice = AVCaptureDevice.defaultDeviceWithMediaType(AVMediaTypeAudio)
            do
            {
                let audioInput = try AVCaptureDeviceInput(device: audioInputDevice)

                // Add Audio Input
                if captureSession.canAddInput(audioInput)
                {
                    //captureSession.addInput(audioInput)
                }
                else
                {
                    NSLog("Can't Add Audio Input")
                }

            let videoInput: AVCaptureDeviceInput
            do
            {
                videoInput = try AVCaptureDeviceInput(device: captureDevice)

                // Add Video Input
                if captureSession.canAddInput(videoInput)
                {
                    captureSession.addInput(videoInput)
                }
                else
                {
                    NSLog("ERROR: Can't add video input")
                }
            }
            catch let error
            {
                NSLog("ERROR: Getting input device: \(error)")
            }
            videoFileOutput = AVCaptureMovieFileOutput()
            captureSession.addOutput(videoFileOutput)
            captureSession.sessionPreset = AVCaptureSessionPresetHigh
            captureSession.automaticallyConfiguresApplicationAudioSession = false

            videoFileOutput?.startRecordingToOutputFileURL(initialOutputURL, recordingDelegate: self)


            }
            catch let error
            {
                NSLog("Error Getting Input Device: \(error)")
            }

        }
        else
        {
            isRecording = false

            UIView.animateWithDuration(0.5, delay: 0, options: [], animations: { () -> Void in
                self.record.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeScale(1.0, 1.0)
                }, completion: nil)
            record.layer.removeAllAnimations()
            videoFileOutput?.stopRecording()
        }



    }

Notice that I commented out captureSession.addInput(audioInput) . If I remove that code, the app is able to record the video, it doesn't pause/stop the music but the video output has no sound. Is there a workaround for this?

Answer 1

I managed to solve the issue on my own. The line: AVAudioSessionCategoryOptions.MixWithOthers doesn't do anything. I moved it to the options: try audioSession.setCategory(AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord, withOptions: [AVAudioSessionCategoryOptions.MixWithOthers])

It worked!

Answer 2

You can refer to the answer of this Question

I have implemented same feature using SCRecorder Library, but can be achieve with AVCaptureSession as well.

Answer 3

here is what worked for me in swift, it is essentially the same thing as jayson's answer but for swift.

add this code in your

    func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?){


        add your laucher code
       let audioSession = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance()
    do {
        // Set the audio session category, mode, and options.
        try audioSession.setCategory(.playAndRecord,  options: [.mixWithOthers,.defaultToSpeaker,.allowBluetooth])
        try audioSession.setActive(true)
    } catch {
        print("Failed to set audio session category.")
    }
  }

then in the file where your set up your capturesession

   captureSession.automaticallyConfiguresApplicationAudioSession = false

essentially mixwithother works as it says in the doc "option that indicates whether audio from this session mixes with audio from active sessions in other audio apps" ( https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avaudiosession/categoryoptions ) and default to speakers allows the music to come out louder when working with the mix with others options.