Facing issues while overriding the bif file into the AVPlayer in the Xamarin tvOS app.

Question

I have a Xamarin tvOS app streaming the HLS streams using the AVPlayer in Apple TV.

I'm able to parse the BIF file and retrieve the thumbnail images from the file and have also implemented the way to retrieve the images from the file based on player target time. I tried incorporating those thumbnail images into the AVPlayer to display while seek forward and seek rewind but I'm unable to override the AVPlayerStandard playback controls.
In Apple TV I'm using the standard playback controls provided by the player itself and player itself handles the thumbnail preview if the thumbnail information is available in the manifest file (getting in m3u8 URL) and does not have external interface to enable the preview explicitly.
I tried adding the external image view on the AVPlayerViewController to display the thumbnails but I'm unable to do so as well.
Also, in the AVPlayer documentation it is mentioned that AVPlayerViewController should not be overridden.

Can anyone please help me to resolve this issue.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to our Microsoft Q&A platform!

The AVPlayerViewController provides a simple way of displaying a player with some standard controls. If you want to display the thumbnails, you have to Customize the tvOS Playback Experience.

You could try using AVPlayerLayer and creating an array whose item type is AVMutableMetadataItem and whose value is the image . Then set this array to playerItem.ExternalMetadata.

Pay attention to AVMutableMetadataItem , the value of AVMetadataItem is read-only.

Best Regards,
Wenyan Zhang

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