I'm trying to start a media player that streams from a website. Right now, when "start" is pressed the entire activity just freezes for anywhere from 5 to 20 seconds while the stream connects. I'm trying to get the "player.start();" call to run in a thread to free up the activity while the stream connects but it's not working. Anyone have any ideas?
private void startplayer() {
try {
stream_player = new MediaPlayer();
stream_player.setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);
stream_player = MediaPlayer.create(this, Uri.parse("http://stream-address"));
Thread thread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
stream_player.start();
}
});
thread.start();
SetNotification(1, "live");
liveON = true;
} catch (Exception e) {
Log.e(getClass().getName(), "Error starting to stream audio.", e);
Toast.makeText(this, "Stream seems to be offline", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
}
Move the whole method to a separate thread. The part that takes the most time is the MediaPlayer.create()
part, since this a synchronous call, which returns when the media player is ready to play.
An alternative is not to use create
, but use the other format used in here which sets a listener before the prepare method, and when the listener is called, the start
method is called.