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:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<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">

      <VideoView 
         android:layout_height="fill_parent"
         android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
         android:id="@+id/VideoView" />

</LinearLayout>

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...

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<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">

    <VideoView
        android:id="@+id/videoview"
        android:layout_width="300dp"
        android:layout_height="200dp"/>

    <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"/>

</RelativeLayout>

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.

Answer 3

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();  
}

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

Add android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE in manifest, worked for me

Answer 6

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 :) `

Answer 7

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

Answer 8

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

Answer 9

You can access your SD card via the DDMS

Answer 10

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.

Answer 11

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

Answer 12

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 ....)

Answer 13

//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 {
        }