iOS video player SDK for Swift apps

Add a Kinescope player to your iOS app in Swift. It plays videos, live streams and FairPlay-protected content from your dashboard, downloads HLS for offline viewing and supports AirPlay and picture-in-picture.

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View on GitHub

Quick start

Install KinescopeSDK and play your first video. Commands and code are from the package README.

  1. Install the SDK

    Add KinescopeSDK with Swift Package Manager, then link your target with the KinescopeSDK product. CocoaPods works too: pod 'KinescopeSDK', '~> 0.2'.

    Package.swift
    dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/kinescope/ios-kinescope-player.git", exact: "0.2")
]

  2. Configure the SDK at startup

    Initialize the SDK once, for example in your app delegate.

    swift
    Kinescope.shared.setConfig(.init())

  3. Create a player and attach a view

    Create a player with the video ID and connect it to KinescopePlayerView. All controls are already in the view and can be hidden.

    swift
    let player = KinescopePlayer(videoId: "yourVideoId")

let playerView = KinescopePlayerView()
view.addSubview(playerView)

player.attach(view: playerView)

What is in the iOS SDK

FairPlay DRM out of the box

The player decodes FairPlay-protected video and talks to the key server itself. Any DRM video from your dashboard plays without extra setup.

Offline downloads

VideoDownloader saves HLS videos with AVAssetDownloadURLSession, with pause, resume, cancel and progress events. Separate downloaders handle files and attachments.

AirPlay, PiP and background audio

AirPlay and picture-in-picture work out of the box; with the background mode on, audio keeps playing when the app goes to the background.

Live streams

KinescopePlayerView shows a live indicator and an announcement with the planned start time.

Customizable player view

Configure the options menu, control panel, overlays, side menu and error overlay, or hide what you do not need. Strings can be localized.

Error handling and analytics

On errors the player retries 10 times with a 5-second delay before showing a refresh button. Playback events go to Kinescope analytics automatically.

AVPlayer on its own vs the Kinescope SDK

What you would build around Apple’s player yourself, and what the SDK already does.

AVPlayer on its ownKinescope iOS SDK
HLS and live playback✓built in✓with live indicator and announcement
Hosting, transcoding and CDN✗your own backend✓Kinescope platform
FairPlay DRM✓key session and key server are yours✓key server exchange built in
Customizable player UI✗AVPlayerViewController or your own controls✓KinescopePlayerView with options menu
Offline HLS downloads✓AVAssetDownloadURLSession; you manage the queue✓VideoDownloader with pause, resume and events
Error retries✗build it yourself✓10 retries, then a refresh button
Viewing analytics✗your own pipeline✓sent to Kinescope automatically
AVPlayer on its own
HLS and live playback
✓built in
Hosting, transcoding and CDN
✗your own backend
FairPlay DRM
✓key session and key server are yours
Customizable player UI
✗AVPlayerViewController or your own controls
Offline HLS downloads
✓AVAssetDownloadURLSession; you manage the queue
Error retries
✗build it yourself
Viewing analytics
✗your own pipeline
Kinescope iOS SDK
HLS and live playback
✓with live indicator and announcement
Hosting, transcoding and CDN
✓Kinescope platform
FairPlay DRM
✓key server exchange built in
Customizable player UI
✓KinescopePlayerView with options menu
Offline HLS downloads
✓VideoDownloader with pause, resume and events
Error retries
✓10 retries, then a refresh button
Viewing analytics
✓sent to Kinescope automatically

The platform behind the SDK

Upload and transcoding

Upload through the dashboard, the API or resumable TUS upload. Every video is encoded into adaptive renditions up to 4K. Video hosting

Own CDN

Kinescope delivers the streams your app plays from its own CDN, with points of presence in Latin America, the United States, Europe and the CIS. Video CDN

DRM on the Super plan

Widevine and FairPlay licenses are included on the Super plan. Your backend can approve each play. DRM video hosting

Live streams

Send RTMP or sRTMP from OBS, vMix or a hardware encoder and keep an automatic recording. The SDK players show the stream live. Live streaming

Analytics

Views, watch depth and drop-off points for every video. Pass your user ID from the app to see data per viewer. Video analytics

Pay as you go

Start on the free plan with 100 minutes of video and 200 GB of traffic a month. Paid usage: storage and delivery from €0.03/GB, processing €0.01/min. Pricing

Documentation

Every guide for this SDK in its repository, on GitHub.

Player view

Downloads

DRM

Playback

App integration

Project

FAQ

Can’t find the answer you need? Check out our All developer tools.

With Swift Package Manager, add the ios-kinescope-player repository and link the KinescopeSDK product. With CocoaPods, add pod 'KinescopeSDK', '~> 0.2' to your Podfile.

Yes. FairPlay decoding, including the key server exchange, is built into KinescopePlayer, so DRM videos from your dashboard play without changes. For offline DRM, the ios-fairplay-offline example shows persistent FairPlay keys in SwiftUI.

Yes. After configuration you can play any video or live stream from your Kinescope dashboard.

MIT. The SDK is free; you pay only for Kinescope hosting and delivery.
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