Hi,It seems like it's pretty easy to consume HTTP Live Streaming content in an iOS app. Unfortunately, I need to consume media from an RTSP server. It seems to me that this is a very similar thing, and that all of the underpinnings for doing it ought to be present in iOS, but I'm having a devil of a time figuring out how to make it work without doing a lot of programming.For starters, I know that there are web-based services that can consume an RTSP stream and rebroadcast it as an HTTP Live Stream that can be easily consumed by the media players in iOS. This won't work for me because my application needs to function in an environment where there is no internet access (it's on a private Wifi network where the only other thing on the network is the device that is serving the RTSP stream).Having read everything I can get my hands on and exploring third-party and open-source solutions, I've compiled the following list of ideas:1. Using an iOS build of the open-source ffmpeg library, which supports RTSP, I've come up with a test app that can receive the RTSP packets, decode them, create UIImages out of the frames, and display those frames on-screen. This provides a crude player, but performance is poor, most likely because ffmpeg can't take advantage of any hardware acceleration. It also doesn't provide me with any way to integrate the video stream into AVFoundation, so I'm on my own as far as saving the stream to a file, transcoding it, etc.2. I know that the AVURLAsset class doesn't directly support the RTSP scheme. Since I have access to the undecoded RTSP packets via ffmpeg, I've thought it should be possible to implement RTSP support myself via a custom NSURLProtocol, essentially fooling AVFoundation into reading those packets as if they originated in a file. I'm not sure if this would work, since the raw packets coming from the RTSP server might lack the headers that would otherwise be present in data being read from a file. I'm not even sure if AVFoundation would recognize my custom protocol.3. If a protocol doesn't work, I've considered that I might be able to implement my own local HTTP Live Streaming server that converts the RTSP packets into an HTTP stream that the media players can read. This sounds like a terribly convoluted solution to the problem, at best, and very difficult at worst.4. Going back to solution (1), if I could speed up the decoding by using some iOS CoreVideo function instead of ffmpeg, this solution might be okay. However, I can't find any documentation for CoreVideo on iOS (Apple only documents it for OS X).5. I'm certainly willing to license a third-party solution if it works well and provides good performance. Unfortunately, everything I've found so far is pretty crummy and mostly just leverages ffmpeg and/or VLC. What is most disappointing to me is that nobody seems to be able or willing to provide a solution that neatly integrates with AVFoundation. I really want to make my RTSP stream available as an AVAsset so I can use it with AVFoundation players and other classes -- I don't want to build an app that relies on custom third-party code for everything.Any ideas, tips, advice would be greatly appreciated.Thanks,Frank

Hi everyone, After updating my Apple TV HD (model A1625) to tvOS 26, I’ve noticed a significant spike in CPU usage—up to 3× higher than before the update. Go from around 40% to 120% Model: Apple TV HD (A1625) tvOS Version: 26 (stable release) and beta version of 26.1, App downgrade stream due to lack of cpu power If anyone else is experiencing this, please share your findings or workarounds. Would love to hear from Apple engineers or other developers if this is a known regression or if there’s a recommended fix. Thanks!

The same H265 encrypted Fairplay content can be played in all Apple devices except A1625. The clear H265 content is played in A1625. The question is: will this model (A1625) support H265 Fairplay encrypted content? A ticket was created here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255658006?sortBy=best

We have a Low-Latency HLS stream, and on iOS 26, even though the bandwidth is sufficient, it still selects a low-bandwidth resolution (e.g., RESOLUTION=640x360) for playback instead of using a higher-bandwidth resolution (e.g., RESOLUTION=1920x1080) when using AVPlayerViewController with AVPlayer. This works fine on iOS version 18 and previous versions. What could be the solution to this issue?

Hi there, We're working on offline playback of DRM tracks. The persistent keys (also known as track licenses) for offline playback are stored locally on the device and are served from cache when a user initiates playback of a downloaded track. Our persistent keys have a limited validity time and need to be refreshed when they expire. To prevent a situation where a persistent key expires while the user is offline, we've decided to eagerly refresh these keys one week before their expiration date. To make that happen we need to be able to obtain the expiration date of the given track license. We've been attempting to use the makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey API to facilitate this process. The documentation states that this API returns a secret token representing the persistent key, which we can then exchange with our license server for the expiration date: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcontentkeysession/makesecuretokenforexpirationdate(ofpersistablecontentkey:completionhandler:)?language=objc However, every time we call makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey, we receive an error with code -46250. We haven't been able to find any public references or documentation for this specific error code, which is preventing us from troubleshooting the issue. We are conducting our tests on a physical device, as the simulator does not support FairPlay playback. We don't use dual expiry approach. Is our understanding of how to obtain the expiration timestamp correct? Are we using the makeSecureTokenForExpirationDateOfPersistableContentKey API as it was intended? What does the -46250 error code mean, and what steps should we take to fix our FairPlay implementation to make this work? Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Hey there, We're seeing a high rate of 403 - Invalid Authentication on this endpoint v1/me/library/artists since a few days. Does anyone have the same issue ?

Hi, After updating to iOS 26, our app is facing playback failures with AVPlayer. The same code and streams work fine on iOS 18 and earlier. Error - Domain[CoreMediaErrorDomain]:Code[-15628]:Desc[The operation couldn’t be completed.]:Underlying Error Domain[(null)]:Code[0]:Desc[(null)] Environment: iOS version: ios 26 React Native: 0.69 Video library: react-native-video (AVPlayer under the hood) Stream type: HLS (m3u8) with segment (.ts) files Observed behaviour: Playback works initially on iOS 26. On iOS 26, the stream fails at runtime after a few seconds/minutes (not on first load). Network logs show 307 redirects on some segment requests. After this, AVPlayer throws the above error. Playback fails intermittently on slow/unstable networks.

Hi, After updating to iOS 26, our app is experiencing playback failures with AVPlayer. The same code and streams work fine on iOS 18 and earlier. Error: Domain [CoreMediaErrorDomain] Code [-15628] Description [The operation couldn’t be completed.] Underlying Error Domain [(null)] Code [0] Description [(null)] Environment: iOS version: iOS 26 Stream type: HLS (m3u8) with segment (.ts) files Observed behaviour: We don’t have concrete steps to reproduce the issue, but so far, we have observed that this error tends to occur under low network conditions.

In iOS 26 When we download any DRM content first time it is downloading again when we edit audios and Video Quality and start downloading it is freezing complete app. Neither it is crashing not giving any error.

I'm having a crash on an app that plays videos when the users activates close captions. I was able to replicate the issue on an empty project. The crash happens when the AVPlayerLayer is used to instantiate an AVPictureInPictureController These are the example project where I tested the crash: struct ContentView: View { var body: some View { VStack { VideoPlaylistView() } .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity) .background(Color.black.ignoresSafeArea()) } } class VideoPlaylistViewModel: ObservableObject { // Test with other videos var player: AVPlayer? = AVPlayer(url: URL(string:"https://d2ufudlfb4rsg4.cloudfront.net/newsnation/WIpkLz23h/adaptive/WIpkLz23h_master.m3u8")!) } struct VideoPlaylistView: View { @StateObject var viewModel = VideoPlaylistViewModel() var body: some View { ScrollView { VideoCellView(player: viewModel.player) .onAppear { viewModel.player?.play() } } .scrollTargetBehavior(.paging) .ignoresSafeArea() } } struct VideoCellView: View { let player: AVPlayer? @State var isCCEnabled: Bool = false var body: some View { ZStack { PlayerView(player: player) .accessibilityIdentifier("Player View") } .containerRelativeFrame([.horizontal, .vertical]) .overlay(alignment: .bottom) { Button { player?.currentItem?.asset.loadMediaSelectionGroup(for: .legible) { group,error in if let group { let option = !isCCEnabled ? group.options.first : nil player?.currentItem?.select(option, in: group) isCCEnabled.toggle() } } } label: { Text("Close Captions") .font(.subheadline) .foregroundStyle(isCCEnabled ? .red : .primary) .buttonStyle(.bordered) .padding(8) .background(Color.blue.opacity(0.75)) } .padding(.bottom, 48) .accessibilityIdentifier("Button Close Captions") } } } import Foundation import UIKit import SwiftUI import AVFoundation import AVKit struct PlayerView: UIViewRepresentable { let player: AVPlayer? func updateUIView(_ uiView: UIView, context: UIViewRepresentableContext<PlayerView>) { } func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UIView { let view = PlayerUIView() view.playerLayer.player = player view.layer.addSublayer(view.playerLayer) view.layer.backgroundColor = UIColor.red.cgColor view.pipController = AVPictureInPictureController(playerLayer: view.playerLayer) view.pipController?.requiresLinearPlayback = true view.pipController?.canStartPictureInPictureAutomaticallyFromInline = true view.pipController?.delegate = view return view } } class PlayerUIView: UIView, AVPictureInPictureControllerDelegate { let playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer() var pipController: AVPictureInPictureController? override init(frame: CGRect) { super.init(frame: frame) } required init?(coder: NSCoder) { fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented") } override func layoutSubviews() { super.layoutSubviews() playerLayer.frame = bounds playerLayer.backgroundColor = UIColor.green.cgColor } func pictureInPictureController(_ pictureInPictureController: AVPictureInPictureController, failedToStartPictureInPictureWithError error: any Error) { print("Error starting Picture in Picture: \(error.localizedDescription)") } } class AppDelegate: NSObject, UIApplicationDelegate { func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey : Any]? = nil) -> Bool { let audioSession = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance() do { try audioSession.setCategory(.playback, mode: .moviePlayback) try audioSession.setActive(true) } catch { print("ERR: \(error.localizedDescription)") } return true } } UITest to make the app crash: final class VideoPlaylistSampleUITests: XCTestCase { func testCrashiOS26ToggleCloseCaptions() throws { let app = XCUIApplication() app.launch() let videoPlayer = app.otherElements["Player View"] XCTAssertTrue(videoPlayer.waitForExistence(timeout: 30)) let closeCaptionButton = app.buttons["Button Close Captions"] for _ in 0..<2000 { closeCaptionButton.tap() } } }

Hi everyone, I noticed that Apple recently added a few new beta sample codes related to video encoding: Encoding video for low-latency conferencing Encoding video for live streaming While experimenting with H.264 encoding, I came across some questions regarding certain configurations: When I enable kVTVideoEncoderSpecification_EnableLowLatencyRateControl, is it still possible to use kVTCompressionPropertyKey_VariableBitRate? In my tests, I get an error. It also seems that kVTVideoEncoderSpecification_EnableLowLatencyRateControl cannot be used together with kVTCompressionPropertyKey_ConstantBitRate when encoding H264. Is that expected? When using kVTCompressionPropertyKey_ConstantBitRate with kVTCompressionPropertyKey_MaxKeyFrameInterval set to 2, the encoder outputs only keyframes, and the frame size keeps increasing, which doesn’t seem like the intended behavior. Regarding the following code from the sample: let byteLimit = (Double(bitrate) / 8) * 1.5 as CFNumber let secLimit = Double(1.0) as CFNumber let limitsArray = [ byteLimit, secLimit ] as CFArray // Each 1 second limit byte as bitrate err = VTSessionSetProperty(session, key: kVTCompressionPropertyKey_DataRateLimits, value: limitsArray) This DataRateLimits setting doesn’t seem to have any effect in my tests. Whether I set it or not, the values remain unchanged. Since the documentation on developer.apple.com/documentation doesn’t clearly explain these cases, I’d like to ask if anyone has insights or recommendations about the proper usage of these settings. Thanks in advance!

Hello, My company has an in-store app with FPS SDK 4.x (1024) keys. We've handed those keys over to a trusted third-party and we do not have them. We've been in-store for several years. The person that created the keys in our organization mistakenly stored them encrypted to our third-party's PGP keys, so we cannot decrypt them, and the third party also has no mechanism to provide us with the keys even though it is in their runtime environment. They only have secure mechanisms for us to upload keys onto their servers. We are trying to migrate to a different third-party DRM provider, and would like to obtain new keys. Unfortunately, the developer portal won't let me create new keys, saying that we have exceeded the number of keys allowed, which I assume is one. Additionally, the new DRM provider can only support SDK 4.x keys, and it appears that we can only request SDK 5.x keys on the Apple Developer portal, as the SDK 4.0 option is grayed out. Regardless, it seems that we are not able to request any keys. We've submitted a request to the support e-mail address and received an automated e-mail that the response should take a few days, but may take longer on occasion. It's now been a month. The e-mail says that the reply address is not monitored. Is there any way we can accelerate this? Thank you, Carlos

I am developing an app that plays HLS audio. When using AVPlayerItem with AVURLAsset, can AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate correctly handle HLS segments? My goal is to use AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate to add authentication HTTP headers when accessing HLS .m3u8 and .ts files. I can successfully download the files, but playback fails with errors. Specifically, I am observing the following cases: A. AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate is canceled, and CoreMediaErrorDomain -12881 occurs In NSURLConnectionDataDelegate’s didReceiveResponse method, set contentInformationRequest In didReceiveData, call dataRequest respondWithData resourceLoader didCancelLoadingRequest is called CoreMediaErrorDomain -12881 occurs B. CoreMediaErrorDomain -12881 occurs In NSURLConnectionDataDelegate’s didReceiveResponse method, set contentInformationRequest In connection didReceiveData, buffer all received data until the end In connectionDidFinishLoading, pass the buffered data to respondWithData Call loadingRequest finishLoading CoreMediaErrorDomain -12881 occurs In both cases, dataRequest.requestsAllDataToEndOfResource is YES. For this use case, I am not using AVURLAssetHTTPHeaderFieldsKey because I need to apply the most up-to-date authentication data at the moment each file is accessed. I would appreciate any advice or suggestions you might have. Thank you in advance!

The documentation for the Apple Music API indicates that the genreNames field for a given artist (see https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicapi/artists/attributes-data.dictionary) is an array of strings. However, it only appears as though you return ONE SINGLE GENRE per Artist, regardless of how many genres might be attached to that artist's albums. Am I missing something? Is there an artist where multiple genres may be returned, or is this a bug in the documentation?

Hello, our application is unable to HDMI output FairPlay protected content to TV via official Lightning HDMI AV Adapter, by checking the console log on mediaplayerd it is found that a CoreMediaErrorDomain Code=-19156 is raised, but we are unable to know what this error code means. default 11:18:15.121584+0800 mediaplaybackd keyboss ckb_customURLReadCallback: 0x7fa62f800 60/0 customURLReqID 4 isComplete 1 err -19156 error <private> (0) dokeyCallbacksExist 0 default 11:18:15.121670+0800 mediaplaybackd keyboss ckb_processErrorForRequest: 0x7fa62f800 60/0 handler 4 err 0 default 11:18:15.121752+0800 mediaplaybackd <<<< FigCustomURLHandling >>>> curll_cancelRequestOnQueue: 0x7fa031360: requestID: 4 default 11:18:15.121932+0800 mediaplaybackd keyboss ckb_transitionRequestToTerminalState: 0x7fa62f800 60/0 reqFin err Error Domain=CoreMediaErrorDomain Code=-19156 (-19156) dokeyCallbacksExist 0 default 11:18:15.122025+0800 mediaplaybackd keyboss ckb_transitionRequestToTerminalState: 0x7fa62f800 60/0 retry default 11:18:15.123195+0800 mediaplaybackd <<<< FigCPECryptorPKD >>>> PostKeyRequestErrorOccurred: 0x7fab7be80 029592C2-093D-400D-B57F-7AB06CC292D1 key request error: Error Domain=CoreMediaErrorDomain Code=-19160 (-19160)

While validating a Dolby Vision Profile 5 playlist in CMAF format (with segments in MP4), the Media Stream Validator reported the following error in the MUXT-FIX-ISSUES list: However, the playlist correctly specifies Dolby Vision Profile 5 in both the EXT-X-STREAM-INF and EXT-X-I-STREAM-INF tags. Playlist: #EXTM3U #EXT-X-VERSION:8 #EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS #EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=AUDIO,GROUP-ID="audio-ec3",LANGUAGE="und",NAME="Undetermined",AUTOSELECT=YES,CHANNELS="6",URI="var14711339/aud1257/playlist.m3u8?device_profile=hls&seg_size=6&cmaf=1" #EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=14680000,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=14676380,VIDEO-RANGE=PQ,CODECS="ec-3,dvh1.05.06",RESOLUTION=3840x2160,AUDIO="audio-ec3" var14711339/vid/playlist.m3u8?device_profile=hls&seg_size=6&cmaf=1 #EXT-X-I-FRAME-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=1419881,URI="trk14711339/playlist.m3u8?device_profile=hls&cmaf=1",VIDEO-RANGE=PQ,CODECS="dvh1.05.06",RESOLUTION=3840x2160 Could you please review this and clarify: Why is the Media Stream Validator reporting this error, even though the playlist correctly includes Dolby Vision Profile 5 parameters in CMAF format? Why is this error not reported when using a playlist with TS segments instead of CMAF (MP4)?

Hi everyone! Here's what I observed so far: On device it's reproducible on iOS/iPadOS18.5, but works on iPadOS17.7. On iPhone16 iOS 18.5 simulator that I was extensively using for development it was reproducible until I reset content and settings. On iPhone 16 iOS18.4 simulator, which was also used a lot during development it still works always, so I tend to think it's 18.5 issue. Setting config.websiteDataStore = .nonPersistent() doesn't help. Cleaning WKWebsiteDataStore doesn't help. It works fine using direct URL from the embedded code (see the code below). Can someone provide some insight on how this could be fixed? Here's the code: import SwiftUI import WebKit @main struct IGVideoApp: App { var body: some Scene { WindowGroup { WebView() } } } private struct WebView: UIViewRepresentable { func makeUIView(context: Context) -> WKWebView { let config = WKWebViewConfiguration() config.allowsInlineMediaPlayback = true return .init(frame: .zero, configuration: config) } func updateUIView(_ uiView: WKWebView, context: Context) { let urlString = "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKHFOGct3z7/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" /// It works when loading from the data-instgrm-permalink URL directly // uiView.load(.init(url: .init(string: "\(urlString)")!)) /// It doesn't work whith embedding /// Note: the code part for embedding (<blockquote>...</blockquote>) is taken from my /// Instagram post (https://www.instagram.com/p/DKHFOGct3z7/) /// and stripped down. The urlString was also extracted for demonstration of direct loading. let string = """ <!doctype html> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <html> <head /> <body style="background-color:black; margin:0px"> <blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-version="14" data-instgrm-permalink="\(urlString)"> </blockquote> <script async src="https://www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script> </body> </html> """ uiView.loadHTMLString(string, baseURL: .init(string: "https://www.instagram.com")) } }

Hi everyone, We’re currently developing a music-based app using MusicKit, and we recently noticed that iOS 26 beta introduces a new “Automix” feature in the Apple Music app. This enables seamless DJ-style transitions between songs—beyond the standard crossfade functionality. We’re trying to understand: Will this Automix feature be accessible to third-party apps that use MusicKit? If not available in the initial iOS 26 release, is there a plan to expose it through public APIs in a future update? Is there any technical documentation, WWDC session, or roadmap info regarding Automix support via MusicKit? This functionality would be a significant enhancement for our app, especially for intelligent audio transitions and curated playlists. Thanks.

We encounter issue with avplayer in case of EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY misalignment between audio and video produced after insertion of gaps. The initial objective is to introduce an EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY in audio playlist after some missing segments (EXT-X-GAP) which durations are aligned to video segments durations, to handle irregular audio durations. Please find below an example of corresponding video and audio playlists: video: #EXTM3U #EXT-X-VERSION:7 #EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:872524632 #EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:2 #USP-X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:MPEGTS=7096045027,LOCAL=2025-05-09T12:38:32.369100Z #EXT-X-MAP:URI="hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200.m4s" #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME:2025-05-09T12:38:32.369111Z #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200-872524632.m4s #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200-872524633.m4s #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200-872524634.m4s #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200-872524635.m4s #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200-872524636.m4s ## Media sequence discontinuity #EXT-X-GAP #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200-872524637.m4s ## Media sequence discontinuity #EXT-X-GAP #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200-872524638.m4s #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME:2025-05-09T12:38:46.383111Z #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200-872524639.m4s #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-video=979200-872524640.m4s audio: EXTM3U #EXT-X-VERSION:7 #EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:872524632 #EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:2 #USP-X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:MPEGTS=7096045867,LOCAL=2025-05-09T12:38:32.378400Z #EXT-X-MAP:URI="hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800.m4s" #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME:2025-05-09T12:38:32.378444Z #EXTINF:2.0053, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800-872524632.m4s #EXTINF:2.0053, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800-872524633.m4s #EXTINF:2.0053, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800-872524634.m4s #EXTINF:1.984, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800-872524635.m4s #EXTINF:2.0053, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800-872524636.m4s ## Media sequence discontinuity #EXT-X-GAP #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800-872524637.m4s ## Media sequence discontinuity #EXT-X-GAP #EXTINF:2.002, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800-872524638.m4s #EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME:2025-05-09T12:38:46.778444Z #EXTINF:1.6213, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800-872524639.m4s #EXTINF:2.0053, no desc hls/StreamingBasic-audio_99500_eng=98800-872524640.m4s In this case playback is broken with avplayer. Is it conformed to Http Live Streaming? Is it an avplayer bug? What are the guidelines to handle such gaps?

AVPictureInPictureControllerContentSource *contentSource = [[AVPictureInPictureControllerContentSource alloc] initWithSampleBufferDisplayLayer:self.renderView.sampleBufferDisplayLayer playbackDelegate:self]; AVPictureInPictureController *pictureInPictureController = [[AVPictureInPictureController alloc] initWithContentSource:contentSource]; pictureInPictureController.delegate = self; (void)pictureInPictureController:(AVPictureInPictureController *)pictureInPictureController failedToStartPictureInPictureWithError:(NSError *)error { //error NSError * domain: @"PGPegasusErrorDomain" - code: -1003 0x00000002819fe3a0 } when first start the PiP play, I got the error "//error NSError * domain: @"PGPegasusErrorDomain" - code: -1003 0x00000002819fe3a0", why? and second start is Ok.