How to stream YouTube content using MPMoviePlayerController rather than web view

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1

I need help with streaming YouTube videos through MPMoviePlayerController. Regular .m4v files work fine when I pass their URLs to the player initialization method. However, when I try YouTube URLs, the player window appears but automatically closes after roughly 20 seconds. In the iOS simulator, I get an error message saying the server configuration is incorrect.

NSURL *streamURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.youtube.com/v/dQw4w9WgXcQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"];
MPMoviePlayerController *videoPlayer;
videoPlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] initWithContentURL:streamURL];

[videoPlayer play];

I have experimented with different URL formats and added various parameters like &format=1 but nothing seems to work. Does anyone know the correct way to format YouTube URLs for MPMoviePlayerController or if there are specific parameters needed?

2

YouTube blocks MPMoviePlayerController on purpose - they serve webpage content instead of raw video files. That URL you’re using just points to YouTube’s web interface, not the actual video stream. You’d need to extract the real video URL from their API response, but that breaks their terms of service. I hit this exact problem years ago building a video app. Use YouTube’s official iOS SDK or throw their iframe player in a WKWebView instead. MPMoviePlayerController only works with direct video files like .mp4 or .m4v from regular web servers, not YouTube’s protected streaming setup.

3

yea, youtube sorta changed that up. best way is using the youtube iframe api or try youtube-dl for the streams. mpmovieplayer really can’t play youtube links cause they go to web pages and not direct video files.

4

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