How do you convert an AVAsset into CMSampleBuffer frames?

Question

My app imports video that the user selects through the system file picker, which comes as an AVAsset :

@IBAction func handleImportVideoButton(_ sender: Any) {
    let documentPicker = UIDocumentPickerViewController(forOpeningContentTypes: [.movie], asCopy: true)
    documentPicker.delegate = self
    present(documentPicker, animated: true)
}

// UIDocumentPickerDelegate callback.
func documentPicker(_ controller: UIDocumentPickerViewController, didPickDocumentsAt urls: [URL]) {
    guard let url = urls.first else {
        return
    }
    model.recordedVideoSource = AVAsset(url: url)
}

How do I then convert this AVAsset into CMSampleBuffer frames? The end goal is to then convert the CMSampleBuffer frames into CGImage s so I can think perform machine learning analysis on each image frame.

Answer 1

This is untested but it should give you the gist of how to go about this:

let asset = AVAsset()
let reader = AVAssetReader(asset: asset)
guard let track = asset.tracks(withMediaType: .video).last else {
    return
}
let trackOutput = AVAssetReaderTrackOutput(track: track, outputSettings: nil)
reader.add(trackOutput)
reader.startReading()

// Get first sample buffer
var sample = trackOutput.copyNextSampleBuffer()
while sample != nil {
    // iterate over all buffers
    // sample = trackOutput.copyNextSampleBuffer()
}