PKShortVideo

PKShortVideo is an Objective-C video library for iOS chat interfaces. It provides short video recording, AVFoundation-based playback, and a legacy GPUImage/OpenGL ES playback path.

Historical development notes are available in the original development article.

Features

• Short video playback in a chat interface.
• Recommended AVPlayer playback through PKPlayerView.
• Legacy GPUImage/OpenGL ES playback through PKChatMessagePlayerView.
• Custom-resolution video recording through PKShortVideoRecorder.
• A ready-to-present recording interface through PKRecordShortVideoViewController.
• Camera switching, recording, playback, re-recording, and AVAssetWriter-based MP4 output.

Requirements

• iOS 12.0 or later.
• Xcode 26 or later.
• Objective-C and ARC.

The current project and CocoaPods specification have been validated with Xcode 26.2.

Installation

CocoaPods

Add the following to your Podfile:

pod 'PKShortVideo', '~> 0.9.5'

Then run:

pod install

Import the public umbrella header:

#import "PKShortVideo.h"

PKShortVideo does not currently provide a Swift Package Manager manifest.

Permissions

Recording requires camera and microphone usage descriptions in the application Info.plist:

<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
<string>Record short videos.</string>
<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>Record audio for short videos.</string>

The application is responsible for requesting and checking camera and microphone authorization before starting a recording session.

Usage

Default recording interface

Use PKRecordShortVideoViewController when the built-in recording UI is sufficient:

PKRecordShortVideoViewController *viewController =
    [[PKRecordShortVideoViewController alloc]
        initWithOutputFilePath:path
                    outputSize:CGSizeMake(320, 240)
                   themeColor:[UIColor colorWithRed:0.0
                                               green:153.0 / 255.0
                                                blue:1.0
                                               alpha:1.0]];
viewController.delegate = self;
[self presentViewController:viewController animated:YES completion:nil];

Implement the completion callback:

#pragma mark - PKRecordShortVideoDelegate
- (void)didFinishRecordingToOutputFilePath:(NSString *)outputFilePath {
    [self.demoData addShortVideoMediaMessageWithVideoPath:outputFilePath
                                                 playType:PKPlayTypeAVPlayer];
    [self finishSendingMessageAnimated:YES];
}

Custom recording interface

Use PKShortVideoRecorder when the application needs to own the recording UI:

self.recorder = [[PKShortVideoRecorder alloc]
    initWithOutputFilePath:self.outputFilePath
                outputSize:self.outputSize];
self.recorder.delegate = self;

AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer *previewLayer = [self.recorder previewLayer];
previewLayer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravityResizeAspectFill;
previewLayer.frame = self.view.bounds;
[self.view.layer insertSublayer:previewLayer atIndex:0];

Control the capture session and recording lifecycle:

[self.recorder startRunning];
[self.recorder startRecording];

if (self.recorder.isRecording) {
    // Disable duplicate start and camera-switch actions while recording.
}

[self.recorder stopRecording];
[self.recorder stopRunning];

The recorder reports completion and failures through PKShortVideoRecorderDelegate:

- (void)recorder:(PKShortVideoRecorder *)recorder
didFinishRecordingToOutputFilePath:(NSString *)outputFilePath
            error:(NSError *)error {
    if (error != nil) {
        NSLog(@"Recording failed: %@", error);
        return;
    }

    NSLog(@"Recorded video: %@", outputFilePath);
}

Playback in a chat interface

The repository demo uses JSQMessagesViewController to demonstrate media-message integration. A custom media item can wrap PKPlayerView:

#import "PKPlayerView.h"

self.playerView = [[PKPlayerView alloc]
    initWithFrame:mediaFrame
         videoPath:self.videoPath
      previewImage:self.image];

- (void)play {
    [self.playerView play];
}

- (void)pause {
    [self.playerView stop];
}

For collection-view based chat UIs, start playback when a video cell becomes visible and stop it when the cell leaves the screen:

- (void)collectionView:(UICollectionView *)collectionView
 willDisplayCell:(UICollectionViewCell *)cell
forItemAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    id media = self.demoData.messages[indexPath.item].media;
    if ([media respondsToSelector:@selector(play)]) {
        [media play];
    }
}

- (void)collectionView:(UICollectionView *)collectionView
didEndDisplayingCell:(UICollectionViewCell *)cell
forItemAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
    id media = self.demoData.messages[indexPath.item].media;
    if ([media respondsToSelector:@selector(pause)]) {
        [media pause];
    }
}

Full-screen playback

Use PKFullScreenPlayerViewController for full-screen AVPlayer playback:

PKFullScreenPlayerViewController *viewController =
    [[PKFullScreenPlayerViewController alloc]
        initWithVideoPath:item.videoPath
             previewImage:item.image];
[self presentViewController:viewController animated:NO completion:nil];

Playback recommendations

PKPlayerView is the recommended playback implementation for new integrations. It uses AVPlayer and is the path validated by the current demo.

PKChatMessagePlayerView remains available for compatibility with the original GPUImage/OpenGL ES implementation. It is a legacy path retained for existing users; new integrations should prefer PKPlayerView.

Demo

The Xcode project contains two chat playback demos:

• PKMessageViewController: legacy GPUImage/OpenGL ES playback.
• PKMessageViewController2: AVPlayer playback through PKPlayerView.

Open PKShortVideo.xcodeproj in Xcode, select the PKShortVideo scheme, and run the demo on a physical iOS device for camera and microphone recording.

Maintenance status

The project is actively maintained again. The current CocoaPods release is 0.9.5, and the repository is being updated incrementally while preserving the original Objective-C public APIs and legacy playback path.

Changelog

0.9.5

• Updated the project for modern Xcode and iOS build settings.
• Improved camera capture, recording lifecycle, AVAssetWriter handling, and player lifecycle management.
• Updated the CocoaPods specification for the current deployment target.
• Added compatibility and warning cleanup for the Xcode 26 toolchain.

License

PKShortVideo is provided under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.

Contact

Email: pepsikirk@gmail.com