Recently, I’ve needed to figure out a way how to play a movie on the iPhone in a non-fullscreen mode. So I have a video file and I need to play it on just a part of the screen, just as if it was any other view. I’ve searched the Internet but couldn’t find anything that would do all I needed. Most of the answers to this question simply stated it’s not possible with the current SDK. I’ve found a method using private APIs which is not an option because we need to have this approved on the AppStore. Another idea suggested rolling our own software decoder to play the video. That was also not an option because it would be too CPU-intensive, require too much work and be too hard on the battery.

I was about to give up when I found the answer in a place where I expected it the least – an official Apple example.

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