Playing a video in VideoView in Android

Question

I can t figure out why I m not able to play the video in my VideoView  All I m getting for a message is      Cannot Play Video   Sorry  this video cannot be played     I created an SD card for my emulator as well  Do I need to place my SD card in a particular folder in my SDK  Please comment    Here s the layout     lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt LinearLayout     android id    id LinearLayout01     android layout height  fill parent          android paddingLeft  2px     android paddingRight  2px     xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android     android paddingTop  2px     android paddingBottom  2px     android layout width  fill parent     android orientation  vertical  gt          lt VideoView           android layout height  fill parent           android layout width  fill parent            android id    id VideoView    gt    lt  LinearLayout gt    Here s the code   package com examples videoviewdemo   import android app Activity  import android os Bundle  import android widget MediaController  import android widget VideoView   public class VideoViewDemo extends Activity           Called when the activity is first created          Override     public void onCreate Bundle savedInstanceState            super onCreate savedInstanceState           setContentView R layout main            VideoView videoView    VideoView findViewById R id VideoView             MediaController mediaController   new MediaController this              mediaController setAnchorView videoView             videoView setMediaController mediaController            videoView setVideoPath   sdcard blonde secretary 3gp             videoView start                Waiting for the reply

User · Answer

VideoView videoView   VideoView  findViewById R id videoViewId    Uri uri   Uri parse Environment getExternalStorageDirectory   getAbsolutePath     yourvideo      videoView setVideoURI uri   videoView start      Instead of using setVideoPath use setVideoUri  you can get path of your video stored in external storage by using  Environment getExternalStorageDirectory   getAbsolutePath     yourvideo  and parse it into Uri  If your video is stored in sdcard MyVideo video mp4 replace   yourvideo  in code by   MyVideo video mp4     This works fine for me

User · Answer

My guess is that your video is incompatible with Android  Try it with a different video  This one definitely works used to work with Android  but does not on newer devices  for some reason   If that video works  and yours does not  then your video is not compatible with Android   As others have indicated  please test this on a device  Video playback on the emulator requires too much power   UPDATE 2020-02-18  https   law duke edu cspd contest videos Framed-Contest Documentaries-and-You mp4 is an MP4 of the same content  but I have no idea if it is the same actual MP4 as I previously linked to

User · Answer

Make videoView a member variable of your activity class instead of keeping it as local to the onCreate function   VideoView videoView    Override public void onCreate Bundle savedInstanceState        super onCreate savedInstanceState       setContentView R layout main       videoView    VideoView findViewById R id VideoView               videoView setVideoPath   sdcard blonde secretary 3gp        videoView start

User · Answer

Example Project  I finally got a proof-of-concept project to work  so I will share it here   Set up the layout  The layout is set up like this  where the light grey area is the VideoView     activity main xml   lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt RelativeLayout     xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android      xmlns tools  http   schemas android com tools      android id    id activity main      android layout width  match parent      android layout height  match parent      android paddingBottom   dimen activity vertical margin      android paddingLeft   dimen activity horizontal margin      android paddingRight   dimen activity horizontal margin      android paddingTop   dimen activity vertical margin      tools context  com example videotest MainActivity  gt        lt VideoView         android id    id videoview          android layout width  300dp          android layout height  200dp   gt        lt Button         android text  Play          android layout width  wrap content          android layout height  wrap content          android layout below   id videoview          android onClick  onButtonClick          android id    id button   gt    lt  RelativeLayout gt    Prepare video clip  According to the documentation  Android should support mp4 H 264 playback  decoding  for all API levels  However  there seem to be a lot of factors that affect whether an actual video will play or not  The most in depth answer I could find that told how to encode the videos is here  It uses the powerful ffmpeg command line tool to do the conversion to something that should be playable on all  hopefully   Android devices  Read the answer I linked to for more explanation  I used a slightly modified version because I was getting errors with the original version   ffmpeg -y -i input file avi -s 432x320 -b v 384k -vcodec libx264 -flags  loop mv4 -cmp 256 -partitions  parti4x4 parti8x8 partp4x4 partp8x8 -subq 6 -trellis 0 -refs 5 -bf 0 -coder 0 -me range 16 -g 250 -keyint min 25 -sc threshold 40 -i qfactor 0 71 -qmin 10 -qmax 51 -qdiff 4 -c a aac -ac 1 -ar 16000 -r 13 -ab 32000 -aspect 3 2 -strict -2 output file mp4   I would definitely read up a lot more on each of those parameters to see which need adjusting as far as video and audio quality go   Next  rename output file mp4 to test mp4 and put it in your Android project s  res raw folder  Create the folder if it doesn t exist already   Code  There is not much to the code  The video plays when the  Play  button is clicked  Thanks to this answer for help   MainActivity java  public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity         Override     protected void onCreate Bundle savedInstanceState            super onCreate savedInstanceState           setContentView R layout activity main              public void onButtonClick View v            VideoView videoview    VideoView  findViewById R id videoview           Uri uri   Uri parse  android resource     getPackageName       R raw test           videoview setVideoURI uri           videoview start              Finished  That s all  You should be able play your video clip on the simulator or a real device now

User · Answer

To confirm you video is in the correct format  resolution  bitrate  codec  etc   check with the official documentation - extract below   Standard definition  Low quality  Video codec - H 264 Video resolution - 176 x 144 px Video frame rate - 12 fps Video bitrate - 56 Kbps Audio codec - AAC-LC Audio channels -  mono  Audio bitrate - 24 Kbps           Standard definition  High quality  Video codec - H 264 Video resolution - 480 x 360 px Video frame rate - 30 fps Video bitrate - 500 Kbps Audio codec - AAC-LC Audio channels - 2  stereo  Audio bitrate - 128 Kbps  High definition 720p  N A on all devices  Video codec - H 264 Video resolution - 1280 x 720 px Video frame rate - 30 fps Video bitrate - 2 Mbps Audio codec - AAC-LC Audio channels - 2  stereo  Audio bitrate - 192 Kbps

User · Answer

I have almost same issue with VideoView  I try to play a video  1080 1080  with a Nexus 5 and it works well  but the same video on Galaxy ace 2 give me the  Cannot Play Video message   But I notice that with a lower definition of the video  120x120   it works fine    So perhaps just a matter of  Size    and especially with blonde secretary 3gp video

User · Answer

The problem might be with the Movie format  If it s H264 encoded  make sure it s in baseline profile

User · Answer

VideoView can only Stream 3gp videos I recommend this code to stream your video or try a higher version of android  Try Video Online Streaming   public void onCreate Bundle savedInstanceState        setContentView R layout main       String videourl    http   something com blah mp4       Uri uri   Uri parse videourl       Intent intent   new Intent Intent ACTION VIEW  uri       intent setDataAndType uri   video mp4        startActivity intent       Or Click here to watch Android Video Streaming Tutorial

User · Answer

You can access your SD card via the DDMS

User · Answer

The code seems to be flawless  Simple and plain   So it should work on the phone  The emulator is having hard time playing videos  it happened to me too   Try increasing the required API level to the latest  it might help   Right click on opened project  chose Properties   Android   check the latest version on the right side     Igor

User · Answer

just copy this code to your main activity    if   ContextCompat checkSelfPermission MainActivity this  android Manifest permission READ EXTERNAL STORAGE     PackageManager PERMISSION GRANTED                if  ActivityCompat shouldShowRequestPermissionRationale MainActivity this  android Manifest permission READ EXTERNAL STORAGE                  else                   ActivityCompat requestPermissions MainActivity this new String   android Manifest permission READ EXTERNAL STORAGE  1                          else

User · Answer

Add android permission READ EXTERNAL STORAGE in manifest  worked for me

User · Answer

Well   if you are using a android Compatibility Video then the only cause of this alert is you must be using a video sized more then the 300MB  Android doesn t support large Video   300MB   We can get it by using NDK optimization

[android] Playing a video in VideoView in Android

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