Enabling Camera Flash While Recording Video

Question

I need a way to control the camera flash on an Android device while it is recording video. I\'m making a strobe light app, and taking videos with a flashing strobe light would r

Answer 1

I encountered a similar issue. The user should be able to change the flash mode during recording to meet their needs depending on the light situation. After some investigative research i came to the following solution:

I assume, that you've already set up a proper SurfaceView and a SurfaceHolder with its necessary callbacks. The first thing i did was providing this code (not declared variables are globals):

public void surfaceCreated(SurfaceHolder holder) {
    try {
        camera = Camera.open();

        parameters = camera.getParameters();
        parameters.setFlashMode(Parameters.FLASH_MODE_OFF);

        camera.setParameters(parameters);
        camera.setPreviewDisplay(holder);
        camera.startPreview();

        recorder = new MediaRecorder();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }       
}

My next step was initializing and preparing the recorder:

private void initialize() {
    camera.unlock();

    recorder.setCamera(camera);
    recorder.setAudioSource(MediaRecorder.AudioSource.CAMCORDER);
    recorder.setVideoSource(MediaRecorder.VideoSource.CAMERA);
    recorder.setOutputFormat(MediaRecorder.OutputFormat.MPEG_4);
    recorder.setAudioEncoder(MediaRecorder.AudioEncoder.AAC);
    recorder.setVideoEncoder(MediaRecorder.VideoEncoder.H264);
    recorder.setVideoFrameRate(20);
    recorder.setOutputFile(filePath);

    try {
        recorder.prepare();
    } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        finish();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        finish();
    }
}

It's important to note, that camera.unlock() has to be called BEFORE the whole initialization process of the media recorder. That said also be aware of the proper order of each set property, otherwise you'll get an IllegalStateException when calling prepare() or start(). When it comes to recording, i do this. This will usually be triggered by a view element:

public void record(View view) {
    if (recording) {
        recorder.stop();

        //TODO: do stuff....

        recording = false;
    } else {
        recording = true;

        initialize();
        recorder.start();
    }
}

So now, i finally can record properly. But what's with that flash? Last but not least, here comes the magic behind the scenes:

public void flash(View view) {
    if(!recording) {
        camera.lock();
    }

    parameters.setFlashMode(parameters.getFlashMode().equals(Parameters.FLASH_MODE_TORCH) ? Parameters.FLASH_MODE_OFF : Parameters.FLASH_MODE_TORCH);
    camera.setParameters(parameters);

    if(!recording) {
        camera.unlock();
    }
}

Everytime i call that method via an onClick action i can change the flash mode, even during recording. Just take care of properly locking the camera. Once the lock is aquired by the media recorder during recording, you don't have to lock/unlock the camera again. It doesn't even work. This was tested on a Samsung Galaxy S3 with Android-Version 4.1.2. Hope this approach helps.