Android Things video playback on Raspberry Pi

Question

Has anyone been able to successfully play a video using Android Things on a Raspberry Pi? If so was there anything special you had to do to get it to work? If not does any one know why it isn't working?

I made a simple video player that plays a local video from disk. The app runs fine on a phone but I get an error dialog on the Pi saying "Can't play this video".

One Thing I have already ran into but I think I solved was there are no content providers in Android Things, so instead of using a uri for the video source I gave it a file directly like so.

EDIT: Code edit

VideoView videoPanel;
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videoPanel.SetVideoURI(Android.Net.Uri.FromFile(new Java.IO.File("/sdcard/Movies/videoFile.mp4")));

Oh sorry the video.src is a string and it is `/sdcard/Movies/videofile.mp4` — Omar Rodriguez, Feb 03 '17 at 18:07
Do you hold the `READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE` permission? Did you reboot your Thing after installing your app (as runtime permissions are not granted until after a reboot, due to current limitations in the preview)? — CommonsWare, Feb 03 '17 at 18:29
Yes I just double checked in debug mode and the permission is granted, and I rebooted as a sanity check. — Omar Rodriguez, Feb 03 '17 at 19:59

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 12 '17 at 17:46

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I was using 0.5.1-devpreview with raspberry pi 3, and tried to use exoplayer to play mp4. Audio works but not video (just black screen). Same result for youtube iframe sdk (black screen with only audio playing).

answered Oct 12 '17 at 17:46

yawl

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The bug is tracked here: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/67738615 – yawl Oct 31 '17 at 21:11

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 13 '17 at 22:28

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I was able to get it to work for my project using setVideoPath instead of SetVideoURI. So your code would be

File file = new Java.IO.File("/sdcard/Movies/videoFile.mp4");
videoPanel.setVideoPath(file.getAbsolutePath());

answered Mar 13 '17 at 22:28

Chris Stillwell

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What Android Things version did you get this to work on? I saw there was an update recently but haven't updated it yet. – Omar Rodriguez Mar 14 '17 at 14:51
The latest developer preview, version 0.2 – Chris Stillwell Mar 14 '17 at 15:29
The video playback is kind of jumpy since they haven't added any support for OpenGL yet, but it does play at least. – Chris Stillwell Mar 14 '17 at 15:32
FileNotFound(Permission Denied) permission readExternalPermission is set – Fang Apr 05 '17 at 10:15
@Jason did you set the `READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE` permission in your manifest? – Chris Stillwell Apr 05 '17 at 14:27
of course set, and reboot it, but i do not know the AT whether or not support the 1920*1080. – Fang Apr 06 '17 at 02:33

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 04 '18 at 08:40

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Try adding this

android:hardwareAccelerated="true"

to your activity in the manifest.

edited Jan 04 '18 at 08:40

Aleks Andreev

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answered Jan 04 '18 at 08:13

Samuel Grogan

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Android Things video playback on Raspberry Pi

3 Answers3