NSData 2 Video URL?

Question

need to convert a video file to NSData and then back to playable URL. The NSData portion is as follows:

let videoNSD = NSData(contentsOfURL: videoPreview!)
// videoNSD is uploaded to cloud and then retrieved.. 

func playNSDataVideoPreview(videoNSD: NSData)
{
    // how to play in AVPlayer?
    let playerController = AVPlayerViewController()

    let paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.DocumentDirectory, .UserDomainMask, true)
    let documentsDirectory = paths[0]

    let filePath = documentsDirectory + "/" + "nsdfile-1234.mp4"
    let nsdURL = NSURL(fileURLWithPath: filePath)

    videoNSD.writeToURL(nsdURL, atomically: true)

    mediaPlayer = AVPlayer(URL: nsdURL)
    playerController.player = mediaPlayer

    mediaPlayer.play()
}

What is the best practice for playing in AVPlayer?

Thanks...

Answer 1

First of all, I'd suggest to Upload/Download as file ( from File handle ) and not Data ( NSData ) , because videos might be bigger than RAM ( imagine a movie ).

To download File with Alamofire , you can use sample code from https://github.com/Alamofire/Alamofire#downloading

Alamofire.download(.GET, "http://httpbin.org/stream/100") { temporaryURL, response in
    let fileManager = NSFileManager.defaultManager()
    let directoryURL = fileManager.URLsForDirectory(.DocumentDirectory, inDomains: .UserDomainMask)[0]
    let pathComponent = response.suggestedFilename

    return directoryURL.URLByAppendingPathComponent(pathComponent!)
}

after downloading and having a file, you can directly use AVPlayer(URL URL: NSURL)

If you have just NSData of video and want to play it, first save it as file and then create AVPlayer with your saved URL ( file location )

YOURVIDEODATA.writeToURL(URL_WHERE_TO_SAVE,atomically: true)

and then again use AVPlayer(URL: URL_WHERE_TO_SAVE)