I am not sure what the issue is but when i try to play MP4 videos hosted on akamai server, the MPMoviePlayerViewController fails to play it. I added notifications for monitoring playback state and it quickly switches from playing to stopped. If i print the error then i get the following:
MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishReasonUserInfoKey = 1;
error = "Error Domain=MediaPlayerErrorDomain Code=-11850 \"Operation Stopped\" UserInfo=0x1e5a6750 {NSLocalizedDescription=Operation Stopped}";
Above message is not very helpful in understanding what the actual issue might be. It is important to note that i am able to play the same URL in Safari and my app is able to play youtube videos without any issues.
The issue was pretty trivial - I was passing in an incorrect streaming URL :(. Thanks.