CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javajavafxvlcaudio-playervlcj
Will
Will

Reputation: 3585

How do I get a VLC Media Player in Java without a Displayable Component?

I'm working with the VLCJ Bindings and have finally been able to get several roadblocks. Now I am here. I have no need (at this time), nor desire for, a visible Media Player component (the EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent). All I need (for now) is to play Audio Files. I have the following method in place to handle that for me:

public static void Play(File AudioFile){
    if (!LibVLCLoader.Loaded) LibVLCLoader.loadLibVLC();
    EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent EMPC = new EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent();
    if (EMPC.getMediaPlayer().prepareMedia(AudioFile.getAbsolutePath())){
        EMPC.getMediaPlayer().addMediaPlayerEventListener(new MediaPlayerEventAdapter(){
            @Override public void subItemFinished(MediaPlayer p, int i){
                EMPC.release(true);
            }
        });
        Platform.runLater(() -> EMPC.getMediaPlayer().play());
    }
}

But I keep getting this exception:

Exception in thread "JavaFX Application Thread" java.lang.IllegalStateException: The video surface component must be displayable

Which I understand. It makes sense. But I don't NEED it visible. I just need the sound. How can I make that happen?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2636

Answers (2)

caprica
caprica

Reputation: 4146

EmbeddedMediaPlayer is only for the case where you want to literally embed a video surface inside your application.

If you just need audio, there's an AudioMediaPlayerComponent for expressly this purpose.

To create such a component, simply:

AudioMediaPlayerComponent audioMediaPlayerComponent = 
    new AudioMediaPlayerComponent();

You can subclass it, for example to customise behaviour and easily implement event handlers.

Using the so-called "component" media players gives you a slightly nicer/easier API than using the non-"component" media players that are created via the MediaPlayerFactory.

This works just fine if your media is an audio file.

If your media is actually video, but you only want to play the audio track, then even if you use the AudioMediaPlayerComponent by default VLC will open a video window. In this case you still need to actually disable the video output - the simplest way to do this is to tell VLC to use vcodec=dummy.

I really don't agree with tricks like creating a window and moving it off-screen, or sizing it down to 1x1, it's just not necessary.

In the code posted in the original question there is an unrelated problem. The EMPC and EMP variable will go out-of-scope when the Play() method terminates, making the media player eligible for garbage collection. What will happen is that some random time later your application will likely crash because the native hooks that vlcj uses will call back into a Java object that no longer exists. You need to keep your media player references alive via hard references.

Upvotes: 2

Will
Will

Reputation: 3585

Okay so it turns out you can create your own MediaPlayer object outside of the EmbeddedMediaPlayerComponent like so:

public static void Play(File AudioFile){
    if (!LibVLCLoader.Loaded) LibVLCLoader.loadLibVLC();
    MediaPlayerFactory MPF = new MediaPlayerFactory(
        "--video-title=vlcj video output",
        "--no-snapshot-preview",
        "--quiet",
        "--quiet-synchro",
        "--sub-filter=logo:marq",
        "--intf=dummy"
    );
    EmbeddedMediaPlayer EMP = MPF.newEmbeddedMediaPlayer();
    if (EMP.prepareMedia(AudioFile.getAbsolutePath())){
        EMP.addMediaPlayerEventListener(new MediaPlayerEventAdapter(){
            @Override public void subItemFinished(MediaPlayer p, int i){
                EMP.release();
                MPF.release();
            }
        });
        Platform.runLater(() -> EMP.play());
    } else{
        EMP.release();
        MPF.release();
    }
}

Upvotes: 0

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