How to play video with AVPlayerViewController (AVKit) in Swift

Try this, definitely works for Swift 2.0

 let player = AVPlayer(URL: url)
    let playerController = AVPlayerViewController()

    playerController.player = player
    self.addChildViewController(playerController)
    self.view.addSubview(playerController.view)
    playerController.view.frame = self.view.frame

    player.play()  

Swift 3.0 Full source code:

import UIKit
    import AVKit
    import AVFoundation

    class ViewController: UIViewController,AVPlayerViewControllerDelegate
    {
        var playerController = AVPlayerViewController()


        @IBAction func Play(_ sender: Any)
        {
            let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: "video", ofType: "mp4")

            let url = NSURL(fileURLWithPath: path!)

            let player = AVPlayer(url:url as URL)

            playerController = AVPlayerViewController()


            NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(ViewController.didfinishplaying(note:)),name:NSNotification.Name.AVPlayerItemDidPlayToEndTime, object: player.currentItem)

            playerController.player = player

            playerController.allowsPictureInPicturePlayback = true

            playerController.delegate = self

            playerController.player?.play()

            self.present(playerController,animated:true,completion:nil)
        }

        func didfinishplaying(note : NSNotification)
        {
            playerController.dismiss(animated: true,completion: nil)
            let alertview = UIAlertController(title:"finished",message:"video finished",preferredStyle: .alert)
            alertview.addAction(UIAlertAction(title:"Ok",style: .default, handler: nil))
            self.present(alertview,animated:true,completion: nil)
        }


        func playerViewController(_ playerViewController: AVPlayerViewController, restoreUserInterfaceForPictureInPictureStopWithCompletionHandler completionHandler: @escaping (Bool) -> Void) {
                let currentviewController =  navigationController?.visibleViewController

                if currentviewController != playerViewController
                {
                    currentviewController?.present(playerViewController,animated: true,completion:nil)
                }


            }
    }

Try This

var player:AVPlayer!
var avPlayerLayer:AVPlayerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: player)
avPlayerLayer.frame = CGRectMake(your frame)
self.view.layer .addSublayer(avPlayerLayer)
var steamingURL:NSURL = NSURL(string:playerURL)
player = AVPlayer(URL: steamingURL)
player.play()

Swift 3.x - 5.x

Necessary: import AVKit, import AVFoundation

AVFoundation framework is needed even if you use AVPlayer

If you want to use AVPlayerViewController:

let videoURL = URL(string: "https://clips.vorwaerts-gmbh.de/big_buck_bunny.mp4")
let player = AVPlayer(url: videoURL!)
let playerViewController = AVPlayerViewController()
playerViewController.player = player
self.present(playerViewController, animated: true) {
    playerViewController.player!.play()
}

or just AVPlayer:

let videoURL = URL(string: "https://clips.vorwaerts-gmbh.de/big_buck_bunny.mp4")
let player = AVPlayer(url: videoURL!)
let playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: player)
playerLayer.frame = self.view.bounds
self.view.layer.addSublayer(playerLayer)
player.play()

It's better to put this code into the method: override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) or somewhere after.

---

Objective-C

AVPlayerViewController:

NSURL *videoURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://clips.vorwaerts-gmbh.de/big_buck_bunny.mp4"];
AVPlayer *player = [AVPlayer playerWithURL:videoURL];
AVPlayerViewController *playerViewController = [AVPlayerViewController new];
playerViewController.player = player;
[self presentViewController:playerViewController animated:YES completion:^{
  [playerViewController.player play];
}];

or just AVPlayer:

NSURL *videoURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://clips.vorwaerts-gmbh.de/big_buck_bunny.mp4"];
AVPlayer *player = [AVPlayer playerWithURL:videoURL];
AVPlayerLayer *playerLayer = [AVPlayerLayer playerLayerWithPlayer:player];
playerLayer.frame = self.view.bounds;
[self.view.layer addSublayer:playerLayer];
[player play];