Get started with Media Player

This document introduces the basic concepts you should be familiar with before you work with Media Player.

Sound and video classes

The following classes play sound and video in the Android framework:

MediaPlayer: This class is the primary API for playing sound and video.
AudioManager: This class manages audio sources and audio output on a device.

Manifest declarations

Before you start development on your application using MediaPlayer, make sure your manifest has the appropriate declarations to allow use of related features.

Internet Permission: If you are using MediaPlayer to stream network-based content, your application must request network access.
```
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
```
Wake Lock Permission: If your player application needs to keep the screen from dimming or the processor from sleeping, or uses the MediaPlayer.setScreenOnWhilePlaying(boolean) or MediaPlayer.setWakeMode(android.content.Context, int) methods, you must request this permission.
```
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WAKE_LOCK" />
```

Use the MediaPlayer class

The MediaPlayer class is n essential component of the media framework. An object of this class can fetch, decode, and play both audio and video with minimal setup. MediaPlayer supports several media sources, including:

Local resources
Internal URIs, such as one you might obtain from a Content Resolver
External URLs (streaming)

For a list of media formats that Android supports, see the Supported Media Formats page.

Examples of working with audio sources

Here is an example of how to play audio that's available as a local raw resource (saved in your application's res/raw/ directory):

Kotlin

var mediaPlayer = MediaPlayer.create(context, R.raw.sound_file_1)
mediaPlayer.start() // no need to call prepare(); create() does that for you

Java

MediaPlayer mediaPlayer = MediaPlayer.create(context, R.raw.sound_file_1);
mediaPlayer.start(); // no need to call prepare(); create() does that for you

In this case, a "raw" resource is a file that the system does not try to parse in any particular way. However, the content of this resource shouldn't be raw audio. It should be a properly encoded and formatted media file in one of the supported formats.

And here is how you might play from a URI available locally in the system (that you obtained through a Content Resolver, for instance):

Kotlin

val myUri: Uri = .... // initialize Uri here
val mediaPlayer = MediaPlayer().apply {
    setAudioAttributes(
        AudioAttributes.Builder()
            .setContentType(AudioAttributes.CONTENT_TYPE_MUSIC)
            .setUsage(AudioAttributes.USAGE_MEDIA)
            .build()
    )
    setDataSource(applicationContext, myUri)
    prepare()
    start()
}

Java

Uri myUri = ....; // initialize Uri here
MediaPlayer mediaPlayer = new MediaPlayer();
mediaPlayer.setAudioAttributes(
    new AudioAttributes.Builder()
        .setContentType(AudioAttributes.CONTENT_TYPE_MUSIC)
        .setUsage(AudioAttributes.USAGE_MEDIA)
        .build()
);
mediaPlayer.setDataSource(getApplicationContext(), myUri);
mediaPlayer.prepare();
mediaPlayer.start();

Playing from a remote URL using HTTP streaming looks like this:

Kotlin

val url = "http://........" // your URL here
val mediaPlayer = MediaPlayer().apply {
    setAudioAttributes(
        AudioAttributes.Builder()
            .setContentType(AudioAttributes.CONTENT_TYPE_MUSIC)
            .setUsage(AudioAttributes.USAGE_MEDIA)
            .build()
    )
    setDataSource(url)
    prepare() // might take long! (for buffering, etc)
    start()
}

Java

String url = "http://........"; // your URL here
MediaPlayer mediaPlayer = new MediaPlayer();
mediaPlayer.setAudioAttributes(
    new AudioAttributes.Builder()
        .setContentType(AudioAttributes.CONTENT_TYPE_MUSIC)
        .setUsage(AudioAttributes.USAGE_MEDIA)
        .build()
);
mediaPlayer.setDataSource(url);
mediaPlayer.prepare(); // might take long! (for buffering, etc)
mediaPlayer.start();

Use Asynchronous preparation to improve performance

Keep performance in mind when you use MediaPlayer. For example, the call to prepare() can take a long time to execute, because it might involve fetching and decoding media data. So, like any method that may take a long time to execute, never call it from your application's UI thread. Doing so causes the UI to stop responding until the method returns, which is a bad user experience and can cause an ANR (Application Not Responding) error.

To avoid hanging your UI thread, spawn another thread to prepare the MediaPlayer and notify the main thread when done. The framework supplies a convenient way to accomplish the prepareAsync() method for doing this task. This method starts preparing the media in the background and returns immediately. When the media is donpreparing, the onPrepared() method of the MediaPlayer.OnPreparedListener, configured through setOnPreparedListener() is called.

Learn more

Jetpack Media3 is the recommended solution for media playback in your app. Read more about it.

These pages cover topics relating to recording, storing, and playing back audio and video: