Serialization

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VideoEditor SDK for iOS supports serialization and deserialization, allowing your users to save and revise their work at any time.

For the sake of this example, we create a video from a URL and present the video editor in a modal. Note, that we have to make the current class the delegate of the VideoEditViewController in order to handle export and cancellation there.

Save serialization#

In order to obtain a Data object of all edits that have been applied to the exported video, simply call serializedSettings on the videoEditViewController. You can optionally convert these settings to a JSON string or JSON dictionary. For details on the JSON structure you can download our schema.

Save video segments#

✨Introduced in VideoEditor SDK v11.3.0

The above serialization just stores the edit model and not the edited asset which could be either a single video or a video composition of multiple video segments. In order to be able to fully restore and continue a previous video editing session including the complete video composition state the original video size and the individual video segments need to be saved. Open Video From Multiple Videos shows how to initialize the editor with these video segments. The video size can be provided as an optional parameter when initializing a Video.

For further processing you can save the data to the local file system (compare Save Video to File System) or upload it to a remote server (compare Save Video To Remote Server) to make the editor state available on other devices as well.

The next section explains how to restore the editor state by deserializing these settings.


import UIKit
import VideoEditorSDK

class VideoSerializationSwift: Example, VideoEditViewControllerDelegate {
  override func invokeExample() {
    // Create a `Video` from a URL to a video in the app bundle.
    let video = Video(url: Bundle.main.url(forResource: "Skater", withExtension: "mp4")!)

    // Create and present the video editor. Make this class the delegate of it to handle export and cancelation.
    let videoEditViewController = VideoEditViewController(videoAsset: video)
    videoEditViewController.delegate = self
    videoEditViewController.modalPresentationStyle = .fullScreen
    presentingViewController?.present(videoEditViewController, animated: true, completion: nil)
  }

  // MARK: - VideoEditViewControllerDelegate

  func videoEditViewControllerShouldStart(_ videoEditViewController: VideoEditViewController, task: VideoEditorTask) -> Bool {
    // Implementing this method is optional. You can perform additional validation and interrupt the process by returning `false`.
    true
  }

  func videoEditViewControllerDidFinish(_ videoEditViewController: VideoEditViewController, result: VideoEditorResult) {
    // The user exported a new video successfully and the newly generated video is located at `result.output.url`.

    // To get a `Data` object of all edits which have been applied to a video, you can use the following method.
    let serializedSettings = videoEditViewController.serializedSettings

    // Optionally, you can convert the serialized settings to a JSON string if needed.
    let jsonString = String(data: serializedSettings!, encoding: .utf8)
    print(jsonString!)

    // Or to a `Dictionary`.
    let jsonDict = try? JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: serializedSettings!, options: [])
    print(jsonDict! as Any)

    // You can use either `serializedSettings`, `jsonString`, or `jsonDict` for further processing, such as
    // uploading it to a remote URL or saving it to the filesystem. See `SaveVideoToRemoteURLSwift` or
    // `SaveVideoToFilesystemSwift` to get an idea about the approach to take for this.

    // For loading serialized settings into the editor, please take a look at `VideoDeserializationSwift`.

    // The above serialization just stores the edit model and not the edited asset which could be either a
    // single video or a video composition of multiple video segments. In order to be able to fully restore and
    // continue a previous video editing session including the complete video composition state the original
    // video size and the individual video segments need to be saved. `OpenVideoFromMultipleVideoClipsSwift`
    // shows how to initialize the editor with these video segments. The video size can be provided as an optional
    // parameter when initializing a `Video`.
    print("Video size:", result.task.video.size)
    print("Video segments:")
    for segment in result.task.video.segments {
      print("URL:", segment.url, "startTime:", segment.startTime ?? "nil", "endTime:", segment.endTime ?? "nil")
    }

    // Dismiss the editor.
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
  }

  func videoEditViewControllerDidFail(_ videoEditViewController: VideoEditViewController, error: VideoEditorError) {
    // There was an error generating the video.
    print(error.localizedDescription)
    // Dismissing the editor.
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
  }

  func videoEditViewControllerDidCancel(_ videoEditViewController: VideoEditViewController) {
    // The user tapped on the cancel button within the editor. Dismissing the editor.
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
  }
}