Overview: Brightcove Native SDK for iOS

Documentation structure

At Brightcove, we strive to keep the documentation structured, clean and intuitive. As such, we leverage github READMEs for details on all our plugins and integrations. For your convenience, we've listed and linked to these plugins below.

Supported versions

The Native SDK for iOS offers support for the following versions of iOS:

Active support

Brightcove provides active support for the latest iOS SDK on the latest public release of the following iOS versions:

iOS 18
iOS 17
iOS 16
iOS 15.7
iOS 14.8
iOS 13.7

Passive support

Brightcove provides passive support for the following iOS versions:

iOS 12.5.3

Understanding support levels

Support is defined in terms of the [major version].[minor version].[patch version] of an OS (for example: iOS 12.5.3). In order to take advantage of the latest technology improvements from Apple, we offer two levels of support:

Active: Brightcove will test and fix bugs on these OS versions.
Passive: Brightcove will test on these OS versions, but bug fixes will be handled on a case by case basis.

Generally, Brightcove provides active support for the versions of the OS that are used by 80% of the user base, and passive support for other versions used by at least 5% of the user base.

Getting started

Before beginning development with the Native SDK for iOS there are a few concepts you should learn about:

Media
The current version of the Native SDK supports playing content from your Video Cloud account through the Playback API, or as remote assets with internet accessible URLs.
Analytics
With the Native SDK, Video Cloud customers automatically get robust analytics data reported in Video Cloud.
Core SDK and Dependencies
The Brightcove Native SDK for iOS and its plugins can be added to your project using the CocoaPods dependency manager. The podspecs for all of the Brightcove Native SDK components are hosted in the BrightcoveSpecs repository.

CocoaPods version 1.0 or newer is required.
Native SDK Reference
Learn about the Native SDK, including installation, quick start and architecture. You'll learn how critical components interact to handle the complexities of controlling the native video player.

You'll also find the latest beta version of the SDK, if one exists.
Native SDK Overview
Learn how the Brightcove Native SDK components interact with the native iOS components.
Video Training
View a series of training videos that walk you through the steps of building a Swift app in Xcode that plays a video from your Video Cloud library.
Mailing list
Join the Brightcove Native SDKs mailing list to stay informed of release announcements for the Native SDKs.

The posts in the channel are for historical purposes. Signing up will add you to the email list for SDK releases.

Download the SDK

The Brightcove Native SDK for iOS contains two installation packages:

A dynamic framework which supports the following:
- iOS 12 and higher
- tvOS 12.0 and higher

Get the latest version of the Brightcove Native SDK for iOS:

	Package (Github Repo)	Podspec	Reference Documentation	Notes	Samples
SDK	Native SDK for iOS 7.0.0	BrightcoveSpecs	SDK Reference	Release Notes	Sample Applications

or select this button:

To view the product updates for all of the Native SDKs and the associated plugins, see the Release Notes for the Brightcove Native SDKs document.

Integrations

The following table contains links to get plugins integrated with your SDK implementation. The plugins can be downloaded from their respective Github repos, and each repo contains a detailed README with instructions on how to setup the plugin.

The sample applications demonstrate the basic functionality of each plugin integrated with the SDK. These sample apps are a good way to learn about each plugin, and serve as a reference point when debugging.

Previous integration versions

Category	Brightcove Plugin (Github Repo)	Podspec	Reference Documentation	Sample Apps	Supported Partner/Vendor Plugin
Advertising	IMA plugin 7.0.0 ^[1]^[2]	Brightcove-Player-SDK-IMA	IMA Reference	Google IMA Samples	Google IMA SDK 3.19.1
	FreeWheel plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-SDK-FW	FreeWheel Reference	FreeWheel Samples	FreeWheel Ad Manager 6.52.0
	Pulse plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-Pulse	Pulse Reference	Pulse Samples	Pulse SDK 2.6.21.6.0
	SSAI plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-SDK-SSAI	SSAI Reference	SSAI Samples	VAST 4.1 AdVerification
	DAI plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-SDK-DAI	DAI Reference	DAI Samples	VAST 4.1 AdVerification
Analytics	Omniture plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-SDK-Omniture	Omniture Reference	Omniture Samples	Adobe Video Heartbeat 2.3.0 Adobe Marketing Cloud 4.21.2
Chromecast	GoogleCast plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-GoogleCast	GoogleCast Reference	GoogleCast Sample	Google Cast SDK 4.8.0

The following notes refer to the integrations in the table above.

^[1] The current version of the IMA plugin supports Google's IMA iOS SDK v3, which supports iOS versions 9.0+. For details, see Google's documentation.

The Brightcove Native SDKs support VMAP XML templates that contain the VAST protocol, including VAST 3.0, and limited support for VAST 4.0. For more details about VAST version compatibility, see Google's Support and Compatibility document for the IMA SDK for iOS.

The Native SDK for iOS supports the IAB Open Measurement SDK v3.1.22.

^[2] If you are using Swift, you must manually add Google's IMA libraries, instead of using CocoaPods. This is because Google's IMA library does not support dynamic frameworks, and Swift does not support building static libraries. For details, see the Manual section of the IMA Plugin for Brightcove Native SDK for iOS documentation. Even though Brightcove's IMA plugin uses a dynamic framework, the Google IMA library is only provided as a static framework.

Combining plugins

With the Native SDK for iOS, the BCOVSessionProviders from each plugin are created and chained together. This chain is then used to create the BCOVPlaybackController . For details, see the Combining Plugins section of the SDK Reference.

Advertising with the IMA plugin

The placement of VAST ads is typically specified by a VMAP document. VAST describes an ad while VMAP describes the placement of ads in a video. For code details, see the BasicIMAPlayer iOS sample.

When working with IMA ads, it is best practice to check that your ads work outside of the SDK before implementing them. The following links will be helpful for this:

Samples

For samples and code snippets, see the following:

The following table contains links to code samples that are in addition to the samples associated with the integrations in the previous section.

Sample Application	Description
360° Video	Play a 360° video, as long as the projection property is set. When the Video 360 button in the control bar is tapped, the video is displayed in VR Goggles mode with side-by-side images. For details, see the Using 360° Videos with the Native SDKs document.
Basic Sample	Play videos from a Video Cloud playlist.
Chromecast	Display videos through Google Chromecast from your iOS devices.
Custom caption styles	You can change caption styles by implementing your own captions rendering. This sample renders captions in a view which does not cover the video.
DRM with FairPlay	Protect your content with FPS (FairPlay Streaming).
DVR Live^[1]	Run an HLS live stream.
Native Controls	Use the iOS native player controls.
Offline Playback	Download and play HLS videos, including those protected with FairPlay encryption. For an overview, see the Offline Playback with the Native SDKs document. For developer details, see the iOS App Developers Guide for Offline Playback.
Player UI Customization	Experiment with several different layouts for custom controls. The Brightcove PlayerUI controls provide AirPlay functionality out-of-the-box. If you want to implement AirPlay with your own controls, see the Custom Controls for AirPlay code snippet.
Sidecar Subtitles	Display captions for videos which include them in a separate file.

Solution guides

The following table contains links to developer docs which will help you get started with your own app using the Brightcove Native SDK, and guide you through some of the features and functionality available.

Guide	Description
Brightcove Analytics	Video Cloud customers will learn how to set properties in Brightcove Analytics from your mobile app using the Brightcove SDK for iOS.
Brightcove Native SDK for iOS Setup	Learn the basics of working with the Brightcove Native SDK for iOS by walking you through the development of a simple video playback app using content from your own backend system. Video Cloud customers will additionally retrieve and play a video from the Brightcove Catalog service.
IAB Open Measurement	Learn how to use the Open Measurement SDK with the IMA plugin for support of third-party tools for ad measurement and verifcation.
Source Selection	Learn about the default rendition selection process when playing a video.
WebVTT Captions	Learn how to configure WebVTT captions for HLS videos when using the Native SDK for iOS.

Platform notes

The following notes are related to the iOS platform.

Mirroring your screen with Airplay

AirPlay functionality works out-of-the-box with the Native SDK for iOS, allowing users to stream video to high-definition displays with Apple TV.

You can use the Brightcove controls, or use your own custom controls for AirPlay. For details, see the Custom controls for AirPlay code snippet.