Run media file in CardView layout

Question

Is there a way to have a media file (audio/video) running in a cardview layout? I want to have a video preview of the file inside a

Answer 1

In order to get that kind of functionality you have to solve a few problems:

1. You cannot use VideoView in a list because it is extending SurfaceView, and if playback is on and user starts scrolling, the visual effect will look like video is trying to catch the scroll. So you need a special VideoView that is based on something else, for example TextureView.

2. Managing video player state: in order to start/stop playback we need to call a few methods of MediaPlayer.class:

   setDataSource()
   prepare()
   start()
   stop()
   reset()
   release()
   

   These methods are direct calls to hardware and it may take some time before hardware will respond. So we cannot call it in UI thread. It will block it for more than 16 milliseconds, so user will see a lagging scrolled list. We have to call it from a background thread.

3. You need to track in run time which view on the screen is active and this view should be playing.

---

I've created an opensource project called VideoPlayerManager.

It is thoroughly documented and some basic flows are handled in the demo application. It is not ready for production but if you need some reference of how to get this kind of functionality, you can find it there.

P.S. Regarding CardView: it is a regular view. You can put a video player into it and get video playback in CardView.