The recommendation does not work for me. I have embedded the AVPlayerViewController in a UIViewController, also the beginAppearanceTransition is called, but no video controls are shown. They are shown when the video is tabbed, but not initially. I don't want to add the workaround suggested by nbeanm but I have not found any other solution yet. Here is my code: func addPlayer(mediaURL: URL) { let playerController = AVPlayerViewController() playerController.showsTimecodes = true playerController.player = AVPlayer(url: mediaURL) playerController.beginAppearanceTransition(true, animated: false) self.addChild(playerController) view.addSubview(playerController.view) // Setup the layout. I have created my own layout helper for setting up layout constraints. // It should be obvious, that the player uses all the space of it's parent view. // My layout helper can be found here: https://github.com/openbakery/PinLayout/ playerController.view.layout.pin(.top, .bottom, .leading, .trailing) playerController.didMove(toParent: self) self.actualPreviewController = playerController playerController.endAppearanceTransition() }

That was what I'm looking for, thanks.