Android video not maintaining orientation when uploaded to website

Question

I have created my own activity in my Android app to record videos and it seems to work just fine: the videos are being saved to the specified folder in the phone, whenever I view them in the gallery they have the correct orientation, and they are even uploaded to the amazon s3 server with no issues.

The only problem happens when I go to view the videos from the server, they aren't correctly rotated based on the position that I recorded them.

I am setting the video's orientation hint whenever I record them which allows for the correct playback on my device, but has no effect on the uploaded video.

Here's the code I use to record the video

private boolean prepareVideoRecorder() {
    // It is very important to unlock the camera before doing setCamera
    // or it will results in a black preview
    if (camera == null) 
    {
        camera = getCameraInstance();
    }

    if (recorder == null){
        recorder = new MediaRecorder();
    }
    //Have to stop preview before starting to record
    camera.stopPreview();
    // Step 1: Unlock and set camera to MediaRecorder
    camera.unlock();
    recorder.setCamera(camera);

    // Step 2: Set sources
    recorder.setAudioSource(MediaRecorder.AudioSource.CAMCORDER);
    recorder.setVideoSource(MediaRecorder.VideoSource.CAMERA);

    // Step 3: Set a CamcorderProfile (requires API Level 8 or higher)
    recorder.setProfile(CamcorderProfile.get(CamcorderProfile.QUALITY_HIGH));

    // Step 4: Set output file
    recorder.setOutputFile(getOutputMediaFile(MEDIA_TYPE_VIDEO).getAbsolutePath());

    // No limit. Don't forget to check the space on disk.
    recorder.setMaxDuration(50000);
    recorder.setVideoFrameRate(30);
    recorder.setVideoEncodingBitRate(3000000);
    recorder.setAudioEncodingBitRate(8000);

    // Step 5: Set the preview output
    recorder.setPreviewDisplay(cameraPreview.getHolder().getSurface());

    //Setting the camera's orientation
    int degree = 0;
    // do not rotate image, just put rotation info in
    switch (mOrientation) {
        case ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE_INVERTED:
            degree = 180;
            break;
        case ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT_NORMAL:
            degree = 90;
            break;
        case ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE_NORMAL:
            degree = 0;
            break;
        case ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT_INVERTED:
            degree = 270;
            break;
    }

    recorder.setOrientationHint(degree);

    // Step 6: Prepare configured MediaRecorder
    try {
        recorder.prepare();
    } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
        // This is thrown if the previous calls are not called with the
        // proper order
        e.printStackTrace();
        releaseMediaRecorder();
        return false;
    } catch (IOException e) {
        releaseMediaRecorder();
        e.printStackTrace();
        return false;
    }        
    //Everything went successfully
    return true;
}

Then start recording:

private void startRecording(){
    //TODO: Draw stuff to let user know when they are recording
    // initialize video camera
    if (prepareVideoRecorder()) {
        //Assuring the app doesn't go to sleep while recording
        timerView.setKeepScreenOn(true);

        //"Adding" timer whenever we start to record
        timerView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);

        // Camera is available and unlocked, MediaRecorder is prepared,
        // now you can start recording
        recorder.start();

        // inform the user that recording has started
        shutter.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.custom_button_red);
        isRecording = true;

        //TODO:Testing timer stuff
        startTimer();
    } else {
        // prepare didn't work, release the camera
        releaseMediaRecorder();
        // inform user
    }
}

And for uploading:

@Override
    protected HttpEntity doInBackground(Object... params){
        DefaultHttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
        String stepID = (String)params[0];
        filepath = (String)params[1];
        String auth_token = (String)params[2];
        String projectID = (String)params[3];

        String filename = Uri.parse(filepath).getLastPathSegment().toString();
        String videoType = filename.substring(filename.lastIndexOf("."), filename.length());

        String url = VIDEO_URL+"?auth_token=" + auth_token;

        HttpPost post = new HttpPost(url);
        HttpContext localContext = new BasicHttpContext();
        MultipartEntity imageMPentity = new MultipartEntity(HttpMultipartMode.BROWSER_COMPATIBLE);

        try{

            imageMPentity.addPart("project_id", new StringBody(""+projectID));
            imageMPentity.addPart("step_id", new StringBody(stepID));
            imageMPentity.addPart("content_type", new StringBody("video/"+videoType));
            imageMPentity.addPart("filename", new StringBody(filename));
            imageMPentity.addPart("video_path", new FileBody(new File(filepath)));       
            post.setEntity(imageMPentity);                

        } catch(Exception e){
            Log.e(StepDisplay.class.getName(), e.getLocalizedMessage(), e);
        }
        HttpResponse response = null;

        try {
            response = client.execute(post, localContext);
        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        HttpEntity result = null;

        if(response != null){
             result = response.getEntity();
        }
        return result;
    }

A way I have though of doing this is to just manually rotate the videos in the application, but I have heard it is very costly and would slow down the app too much. I was wondering if there was a simple way to send the orientation metadata to the website and handle the rotation serverside.

I am using a ruby on rails website with the carrierwave gem to upload the videos. I was wondering if there was a simple method or some type of information I could pass to the upload in order to have it recognize that the video is rotated. As I can extract this info from the videos and simple send it bundled in the MultipartEntity whenever I send it from the phone.

Android video not maintaining orientation when uploaded to website

Answers (1)

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