HLS

HLS playback is supported by our player engine with some key differences.

PlayerEngine.apple

  • based on AVPlayer and other AVFoundation framework classes
  • support for FairPlay Streaming and AirPlay
  • no advanced tuning settings

AirPlay

AirPlay is a proprietary wireless technology developed by Apple Inc. that allows users to stream audio, video, and other media content from their Apple devices to compatible devices such as speakers, TVs, and computers.

With AirPlay, you can effortlessly mirror the screen of your iPhone, iPad, or Mac onto a larger display, enabling you to share photos, videos and presentations.

Route picker (AVRoutePickerView) is the default supported way to integrate:

let routePickerView = AVRoutePickerView()

Picture in Picture

Picture in Picture is the ability to keep watching your video while interacting with other apps.

Due to Apple restrictions, the feature is currently available only for HLS streams played with PlayerEngine.apple.

Although not exactly similar to the real Picture in Picture, you can enable one of these modes for the ViewController containing our Player View.

For more details on “Multitasking on iOS” : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202070

You can use Picture in Picture with iPad Pro, iPad Air and later, and iPad mini 2 and later.

Make sure to enable the Audio, AirPlay, and Picture in Picture background mode among your app capabilities.

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265)

Our player supports HLS streams with HEVC encoded media.

HLS playback with PlayerEngine.apple is limited to devices set with a processor newer or equal to A9 (iPhone 7 and above). Software decoding using AVFoundation is possible on all iOS/iPadOS devices. Our tests found that HEVC media is not playable on iPhone 6 devices.

For list of iOS/iPadOS devices supporting HEVC playback please view (this list may not be complete, Capturing this media): https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022

For list of iOS/iPadOS devices supporting HEVC software decoding please visit (Working with this media): https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022#working

Apple distinguishes decodable from playable content. Source:

https://devstreaming-cdn.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2017/503i6plfvfi7o3222/503/503_introducing_heif_and_hevc.pdf

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/503/