Set up the player with the Wowza Flowplayer Apple SDK

This page describes setting up and configuring the player within your iOS or tvOS application. When you incorporate the player using the SDK framework and its API, you can use its powerful features to enhance the playback experience for your users.

Add the player

iOS projects

Applies to: iOS

At the core of the iOS component of the Apple SDK is the FlowplayerView class, an implementation of the FlowplayerViewAPI protocol that provides a view component for the media player. When using this class, you can render the player within your user interface, and handle user interactions and visual customizations.

The FlowplayerView class extends the UIView object and manages content for a rectangular screen area. Since the FlowplayerView class inherits from the UIView object, it can be added to a UIView or UIViewController, as demonstrated in the examples in this section.

Add FlowplayerView using Storyboard

You can use this sample code to set up, load, and utilize the FlowplayerView using Storyboard.

import UIKit
import FlowplayerSDK

class MyViewController: UIViewController {

  @IBOutlet weak var flowplayerView: FlowplayerView!

  override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    flowplayerView.load(...)
  }
}

Add FlowplayerView programmatically

This example illustrates how to set up, load, and use the FlowplayerView using a programmatic approach.

import UIKit
import FlowplayerSDK

class MyViewController: UIViewController {

  private let flowplayerView = FlowplayerView()

  override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
     // Set up the view
     view.addSubview(flowplayerView)
     flowplayerView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
     NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
         flowplayer.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.centerXAnchor),
         flowplayer.centerYAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.centerYAnchor),
         flowplayer.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 250),
         flowplayer.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.leadingAnchor),
         flowplayer.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.trailingAnchor)
      ])

    // Use the view
    flowplayerView.load(...)
  }
}

tvOS projects

Applies to: tvOS

At the core of the tvOS component of the Apple SDK is the FlowplayerManager object, which manages media playback, media assets, playback state, player state, and advertisements. You can think of this object as the manager of your AVPlayer instance. It wraps around the player and provides the methods and properties to manage your player instance.

With the following example, you can incorporate the player into your tvOS application using the FlowplayerManager class.

import UIKit
import FlowplayerSDK

class MyViewController: UIViewController {

  private var manager: FlowplayerManager
  private let player = AVPlayer()
  private let playerController = AVPlayerViewController()

  override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    manager = FlowplayerManager(avPlayer: player)

    present(playerController, animated: false) {
      self.manager.load(...)
    }
  }
}

Load your media files

Applies to: iOS and tvOS

To work with the player in your iOS or tvOS application, you must define how the player loads media files. You can leverage the FlowplayerAPI class and the MediaExternal, MediaOVP, or MediaDAI structures to load different media types.

Add external media

You can play media directly from a specific media URL by configuring the player to use a local or remote resource. To load external media, initialize the player with an MediaExternal instance as shown in the following example:

let externalMedia = MediaExternal(url: URL(string: "https://link.to.a.media.file")!)
let player.load(external: externalMedia)

These properties are available when working with a MediaExternal structure.

Add Wowza Video media

You can configure your player to load video content from the Wowza Video platform. To load this media, initialize the player using a MediaOVP instance as shown in the following example. This example includes sample values that you must replace with your own media ID and player configurations:

let platformMedia = MediaOVP(mediaId: "[your-media-id]", playerId: "[player-configuration-id]")
let player.load(ovp: platformMedia)

These properties are available when working with a MediaOVP structure.

Add DAI media

The MediaDAI structure allows you to work with Google's Interactive Media Ads Dynamic Ad Insertion (IMA DAI) SDK to inject server-side ads into your player. We support both of Google's Full service and Pod serving DAI solutions. You can use these Google IMA sample streams when testing HLS streams with your workflows.

To successfully load DAI media, leverage the MediaDAI structure and types in the following table when initializing the player.

For more details and configuration information, see Server-side insertion for iOS or Server-side insertion for tvOS.