VLCKit

This page provides a brief overview on the LibVLC binding for Objective-C.

Introduction

VLCKit is an Objective-C wrapper for libvlc's external interface, on Mac OS X and iOS.

It includes basic classes for playlists, streaming and transcoding. However, this is only a limited set. Doing simple media players (comparable to QuickTime Player or MPlayer OS X) is as hard as doing a QuickTime-based one; thus, it is really easy. However, you'll lack most of the cool things such as running multiple interfaces within one instance (remember that hotkeys is an interface, too). Still, you get da überfeature: playing multiple streams within one instance of VLC side by side.

Build the framework

• Clone git://git.videolan.org/vlc-bindings/VLCKit.git
• open .VLCKit.xcodeproj
• make sure the VLCKit target is selected
• build the project

This should automatically build VLC itself.

Basic usage in your application

The code should speak by itself

  // Set up a videoView by hand. You can also do that in the nib file
   videoView = [[VLCVideoView alloc] initWithFrame:[[window contentView] bounds]];
   [[window contentView] addSubview:videoView];
   [videoView setAutoresizingMask: NSViewHeightSizable|NSViewWidthSizable];
  
   // Init the player object
   player = [[VLCMediaPlayer alloc] initWithVideoView:videoView];
 
   [player setMedia:[VLCMedia mediaWithPath:@"/to/my/movie"]];
   [player play];

Sample code

We offer sample code both for iOS and OS X.

Examples_OSX includes 3 different projects.

• BasicPlayerWithPlaylist: this sum's it up pretty well. drag and drop files, hit play / pause, see them play in the same window in the order you want them to.

• FlashVideoDownloader: this exemplifies the basics on how to deploy VLC's URL parsing mechanisms to gain access to the actually played media and how to store it.

• iPodConverter: VLCKit includes streaming and transcoding features including a few pre-defined profiles. In this sample, you see how to use them. Drop a file in the designated area. Hit convert. See the file being converted including a progress bar.

Examples_iOS includes 2 different projects developed using Xcode 5 and with iOS 7 in mind. With minor modifications, they will also work on iOS 5 and 6.

• SimplePlayback: it's as simple as it sounds. Launch the app to watch a file being streamed live over http from one of our servers to your iOS Simulator or device.

• DropIn-Player: this is a more advanced sample project implementing a basic view controller, which could be embedded in your own app. It allows any kind of media playback, subtitles handling, multiple audio track handling, aspect ratio customizations, playback position manipulation and display, volume. All of that, implemented in a self-contained class and a single xib file.

Which applications use VLCKit?

• iMagneto
• Lunettes by the VideoLAN team
• VLC for iOS by the VideoLAN team
• Blackbox by Rotapp
• Dreambox-Live by Rotapp (discontinued)

Feel free to add your application above in alphabetical order.

Related

• Compiling VLC on MacOS X

External Links

• Introduction to The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language
• Interface Builder