Develop Reference

Play a video on Android using a videoview container

Im trying to understand how to add video to my application using the VideoView container but so far I've never been able to view a video and all i receive is an error 'Can't play this video'.
I have a simple method that load's the video:-
private void setupVideo() {
VideoView videoView = (VideoView)findViewById(R.id.videoView);
videoView.setVideoPath("video/Test_Movie.m4v");
videoView.start();
}
I have tried converting the video to many H264, H263 , 3gp formats but I can find anything that works.I even have downloaded a video that said worked in a book i have but still doesn't work.
any help appreciated!
thx.

Video not playing from sd card in motorola 2.3.3

i am developing an application in that i need to play video from sd card. i am using the following code and its working fine in all devices except motorola 2.3.3 device.
some times its playing 10-15 seconds video then black screen came , but some times it shows only black screen and it shows time duration in the bottom of the video view.
so, please guide me.. thankyou
VideoView vv = (VideoView) this.findViewById(R.id.video_view);
String filepath = "mnt/sdcard/my_video.mp4";
MediaController mc = new MediaController(this);
mc.setAnchorView(vv);
vv.setMediaController(mc);
vv.requestFocus();
vv.start();

if(play the same video using default player in gallery){
//you are doing something wrong in ur code
}else{
//this device has no capabilities to play the provided video with the default codes.
//try to look for any installed app that can play the video for this devices
}

Android SDK - Media Player Video from URL

I've tried to find a simple tutorial which explains how to load a video from a URL into the android media player but unfortunately I couldn't find any!
I have tried several things to try get it working but still no luck.
What is the best way to have a MediaPlayerActivity just load a video from a URL?
Thanks
EDIT:
I have tried the following code as suggested:
VideoView videoView = (VideoView) findViewById(R.id.your_video_view);
MediaController mediaController = new MediaController(this);
mediaController.setAnchorView(videoView);
videoView.setMediaController(mediaController);
videoView.setVideoURI(Uri.parse("url-here"));
videoView.start();
It just crashes when I go to this activity.

You can use a VideoView. Here is an example:
VideoView videoView = (VideoView) findViewById(R.id.videoView);
//Use a media controller so that you can scroll the video contents
//and also to pause, start the video.
MediaController mediaController = new MediaController(this);
mediaController.setAnchorView(videoView);
videoView.setMediaController(mediaController);
videoView.setVideoURI(Uri.parse(videoUrl));
videoView.start();
EDIT
You should provide the URI (having a String url variable, where it has the url of the video) with this code Uri.parse(url). And also be sure if the url is appropriate. Also, have you provided the appropriate permissions to your app, as AkashG suggested, (since it uses the internet you will need to add <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" > in your app's Manifest.xml)? Finally you should define your activity MediaPlayerActivity in in your app's Manifest.xml
End of EDIT
You can also use MediaPlayer. The Android developers site has a good tutorial here.

you can load video from url as:
VideoView videoView = (VideoView) findViewById(R.id.view);
MediaController controller = new MediaController(this);
videoView.setVideoPath("url of the video");
videoView.setMediaController(controller);
videoView.start();
Add internet permission in manifest file.

I think you can find useful thinks Here.. about playing video from different sources.
If your using Emulator ,
First, do not use the emulator for testing video playback. Its ability to handle video playback is very limited. Use an actual Android device.
Second, always check LogCat (adb logcat, DDMS, or DDMS perspective in Eclipse) for warnings when you run into multimedia problems. OpenCORE -- the multimedia engine used by Android -- has a tendency to log error-level conditions as warnings.
For example, your video file may not be set up for progressive download, which is required for HTTP streaming. On Linux, you can patch up MP4 videos for progressive download by installing MP4Box and running MP4Box -hint .
Hope this explanation works for you..

Media player using YouTube?

I am developing a sample application using MediaPlayer.By using the raw resources folder,the video can be played.But I want to play through URL.How can I achieve this?
My code is:
VideoView videoView = (VideoView) findViewById(R.id.VideoView);
MediaController mediaController = new MediaController(this);
mediaController.setAnchorView(videoView);
// Set video link (mp4 format )
Uri video = Uri.parse("http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Wgp3mLa_E");
videoView.setMediaController(mediaController);
videoView.setVideoURI(video);
videoView.start();

You need to get the correct streaming(rtsp) url rather than the link to the player page you are using. You can get this programmatically using the google data api
Once you have done that you would simply replace
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Wgp3mLa_E"
with "rtsp://v8.cache1.c.youtube.com/CiILENy73wIaGQnxa4t5p6BVTxMYESARFEgGUgZ2aWRlb3MM/0/0/0/video.3gp"
in your existing code and it should work.
Note: The quality of video, when streaming to your own videoview, can be very poor compared to how it looks when played on the youtube site or player app.

You have to rtsp links from gdata api :gdata api with this: http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?&max-results=20&v=2&format=1&q="+ URLEncoder.encode(activity.criteria)
Element rsp = (Element)entry.getElementsByTagName("media:content").item(1);
String anotherurl=rsp.getAttribute("url");
In gdata api only we are getting this type of links : rtsp://v3.cache7.c.youtube.com/CiILENy73wIaGQlOCTh0GvUeYRMYDSANFEgGUgZ2aWRlb3MM/0/0/0/video.3gp
These are playing in VideoView.
My answer link :RTSP Links

In order to get better quality videos, I checked what these guys did. It helped me very very much!
I'm posting the link so you can checkout their project and use their code.

VideoView on Archos 5 (Android 1.6) doesn't work

I'm developing an app for the Archos 5 Internet Tablet. (With Android 1.6)
I want to start a video in a VideoView within my app. On my Android emulator the following code works fine but on my Archos 5 I always get an error:
Cannot play video
Sorry, this video cannot be played.
//get current window information, and set format, set it up differently, if you need some special effects
getWindow().setFormat(PixelFormat.TRANSLUCENT);
//the VideoView will hold the video
VideoView videoHolder = (VideoView) findViewById(R.id.VideoView01);
//MediaController is the ui control hovering above the video (just like in the default youtube player).
videoHolder.setMediaController(new MediaController(this));
//assing a video file to the video holder
videoHolder.setVideoURI(Uri.parse("android.resource://mypackage/" + R.raw.testmovie));
//get focus, before playing the video.
videoHolder.requestFocus();
if(autoplay){
videoHolder.start();
}
Is there a way to run a VideoView on a archos 5?
I also tried to play the movie with the archos player. With the following code I get the error: "Cannot find the media file!".
String ACTION_LAUNCH_AVOS = "android.intent.action.LAUNCH_AVOS";
String avosCommand = "ACTION:video_play,url=videoentries:Video/testmovie.wmv,etype=resume";
final Intent startAvos = new Intent(ACTION_LAUNCH_AVOS,Uri.parse(avosCommand));
startAvos.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK );
startActivity(startAvos);
I put the video in the Video folder of the Archos. The video runs when I open it with the file browser.
I always get the error "Cannot find the media file!", no matter what url I use.
Is there a certain folder where I have to put the video so that it can be found? And how do I get the url to that certain folder?
It would be great if you could help me!
Thanks and BR,
Thomas