Getting Access to Media Player Cache

Getting access to media player cache

The comment on the original post points you in the right direction, but I thought it may be helpful to expound a bit...

What I've done is build a lightweight proxy server using the Apache HTTP libraries. There should be plenty of examples out there to get the basics of this part. Provide the MediaPlayer an appropriate localhost URL so that it opens a socket to your proxy. When the MediaPlayer makes a request, use the proxy to send an equivalent request to the actual media host. You will receive byte[] data in the proxy's packetReceived method, which I use to build an HttpGet and send it on its way with AndroidHttpClient.

You will get back an HttpResponse and you can use the HttpEntity inside to access the streaming byte data. I'm using a ReadableByteChannel, like so:

HttpEntityWrapper entity = (HttpEntityWrapper)response.getEntity();
ReadableByteChannel src = Channels.newChannel(entity.getContent());

Do whatever you'd like with the data as you read it back (like cache it in a file on the SD card). To pass the correct stuff on to the MediaPlayer, get the SocketChannel from the client Socket, first write the response headers directly to that channel, and then proceed to write the entity's byte data. I'm using an NIO ByteBuffer in a while loop (client is a Socket and buffer is a ByteBuffer).

int read, written;
SocketChannel dst = client.getChannel();
while (dst.isConnected() &&
    dst.isOpen() &&
    src.isOpen() &&
    (read = src.read(buffer)) >= 0) {
    try {
        buffer.flip();
        // This is one point where you can access the stream data.
        // Just remember to reset the buffer position before trying
        // to write to the destination.
        if (buffer.hasRemaining()) {
            written = dst.write(buffer);
            // If the player isn't reading, wait a bit.
            if (written == 0) Thread.sleep(15);
            buffer.compact();
        }
    }
    catch (IOException ex) {
        // handle error
    }
}

You may need to alter the host header in the response before passing it along to the player so that it looks like your proxy is the sender, but I'm dealing with a proprietary implementation of the MediaPlayer so behaviour could be a bit different. Hope that helps.

Android Simple MediaPlayer problem

Probably cache dir is your private dir and media player can't access it. Try to play from SD card.

Progressive audio caching library for Android

Looking my projects:

1. https://github.com/master255/ImmortalPlayer One thread to read, send and save to cache data. Most simplest way and most fastest work. Complex logic - best way!
2. https://github.com/master255/VideoViewCache Simple Videoview with cache. Two threads for play and save data. Bad logic, but if you need then use this.

Downloading + caching + playing audio at the same time

But when playing speed reaches downloading speed, playback stops.

This is the key: you cannot play what you have not downloaded yet, no matter how you handle files, bytes etc. on the client side.

Most of applications that try to play "live" have buffer long enough to compensate for fluctuations of download speed. And if download speed is actually slower than playback speed (which is unusual for audio stream but possible) your goal may be not achievable at all - you may have to download whole song before playing it in order to ensure there will be no pauses in the playback.

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