Swift hide view AVPlayerViewController

Question

I am wondering how do I hide the view of the AVPlayer.

guard let url = URL(string: "http://stream.radiomedia.com.au:8006/stream.m3u") else {
  return
}
// Create a new AVPlayer and associate it with the player view
let player = AVPlayer(url: url)

// Create a new AVPlayerViewController and pass it a reference to the player.
let controller = AVPlayerViewController()
controller.player = player

// Modally present the player and call the player's play() method when complete.
present(controller, animated: true) {
  player.play()
}

What I want to hide is the black screen it shows as this is just audio. No visual.

So I want to hide the viewer not necessarily the controlls.

Answer 1

You can use AVPlayer without AVPlayerViewController if you don't need the UI.

Answer 2

You don't need AVPlayerViewController to play an audio. You can create a view controller of your own and use AVPlayer with AVPlayerLayer .

let player: AVPlayer = AVPlayer()
let playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: self.player)
YOUR_VIEW.layer.addSublayer(self.playerLayer) 

// Play the audio
let audioURL = URL(string: url)
let playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: audioURL)
player.replaceCurrentItem(with: playerItem)
player.play() 

You can hide YOUR_VIEW view if you'd like or display it if you are to play a video. It'd be better if player has a strong reference so I'd recommend storing it in a class variable. Also call player.play() on AVPlayer.Status.readyToPlay event of AVPlayer . You can learn more onApple's documentation

Answer 3

You can update the background color of the player

let controller = AVPlayerViewController()
controller.contentOverlayView.backgroundColor = UIColor.white 

Answer 4

In case you don't want the UI like that of AVPlayerViewController , you can simply use AVPlayerLayer and add it as a view's sublayer .

guard let url = URL(string: "http://stream.radiomedia.com.au:8006/stream.m3u") else {
    return
}

let player = AVPlayer(url: url)

let playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: player)
playerLayer.frame = view.bounds
playerLayer.videoGravity = .resizeAspect
playerLayer.contentsGravity = .resizeAspect
view.layer.insertSublayer(playerLayer, at: 0)

player.play()

AVPlayerLayer will play the video same as AVPlayerViewController .

Also, you can add the playerLayer to any view's layer. Be it main view or any custom view.

For more you can refer the link - https://medium.com/free-code-camp/how-to-set-up-video-streaming-in-your-app-with-avplayer-7dc21bb82f3