# Adding a Video to a Scene

-------------------------------

Play video in your scene by adding a video node.

### Overview

A video node renders a video at a given size and location in your scene with no exposed player controls. You might use a video node to animate visual behaviors that would be expensive to define using a collection of textures.

Be aware that a video node offers only a subset of the features available to the `SKSpriteNode` class. The following are a video node's relevant limitations:

- A video node is always scaled proportionally.

- A video node cannot be colorized. However, it can be added as a child of a `SKEffectNode` to add Core Image filters for color treatments and other effects.

- A video node always uses an alpha blend mode.

- A video node cannot use custom shaders or lighting.

When a video node is created, its `size` property is initialized to the base size of the video content, but you can change it. The video content is automatically stretched to the new size. As with a sprite node, the `anchorPoint` property defines where the content is displayed relative to the node position.

The following code initializes the video node using a video file stored in the app bundle and then adds the node to the scene. It calls the node’s `play()` method to start the video playback.

```swift
let sample = SKVideoNode(fileNamed: "sample.mov")
sample.position = CGPoint(x: frame.midX,
                          y: frame.midY)
addChild(sample)
sample.play()
```

You control playback using the node’s `play()` and `pause()` methods.

If you need more precise control over the video playback behavior, you can use AVFoundation to create an `AVPlayer` object for your video content and then use this object to initialize the SKVideoNode node. Then, instead of using the node’s playback methods, you use the `AVPlayer` object to control playback. The video content is automatically displayed in the video node.

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