Video plays in Studio preview but not on iPhone (muted autoplay issue)

[Philip_Johansen]

Hi,

I’m building an AR experience in the new Studio. I have a plane (video1) under my Image Target with a video bound to it (Unlit material, video set via Color, with Video Controls).

• In Studio preview (desktop) the video plays fine.

• On iPhone (Safari, iOS 17), the video does not start. The plane shows black.

• I’ve already set Video Controls → Autoplay = ON, Loop = ON, Volume = 0 (muted).

• I’ve also tried scripting it with a component that listens for reality.imagefound and calls ecs.VideoControls.mutate(... paused = false, volume = 0). Still no playback on iPhone.

It seems like iOS autoplay restrictions are blocking the video unless there’s a user gesture, but I want the video to play muted automatically when the target is found.

My questions:

1. What is the recommended way (in the new ECS API) to guarantee muted video playback on iOS when an image target is found?

2. Do we need to explicitly request playback on a UI tap first, or should muted autoplay work as long as volume = 0?

3. Is there an official example of binding video to an Image Target in the new Studio that we can reference?

Thanks a lot for your help!

[GeorgeButler]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

Videos on the web can be tricky because browsers require a user interaction before allowing videos with audio to play. If you don’t need the audio, I recommend using a tool like Audio Remover to strip it out entirely. That way, 8th Wall Studio can play the video automatically without requiring user interaction.

Additionally, yes there is a Image Target + Video Sample Project in our Sample Project library.

Image Targets | 8th Wall | 8th Wall

The project Space you should look at is called “Magic Photos”.