Not able to achieve Gapless audio looping so far on Android

Question

I have tried almost every method but I\'ve failed to achieve gapless audio playback between looping a single track with a duration of 10-15 seconds.

Steps I\'ve trie

Answer 1

For some reason, I found that my "OnCompletion" Event was always firing a fraction of second late when attempting to loop an 8-second OGG file. For anyone experiencing this type of delay, try the following.

It is possible to forcibly queue a "nextMediaPlayer" as recommend in previous solutions, by simply posting a delayed Runnable to a Handler for your MediaPlayers and avoiding looping in onCompletion Event altogether.

This performs flawlessly for me with my 160kbps 8-second OGG, min API 16.

Somewhere in your Activity/Service, create a HandlerThread & Handler...

private HandlerThread SongLooperThread = new HandlerThread("SongLooperThread");
private Handler SongLooperHandler;

public void startSongLooperThread(){
    SongLooperThread.start();
    Looper looper = SongLooperThread.getLooper();
    SongLooperHandler = new Handler(looper){
        @Override
        public void handleMessage(Message msg){
            //do whatever...
        }
    }
}

public void stopSongLooperThread(){
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN_MR2){
        SongLooperThread.quit();
    } else {
        SongLooperThread.quitSafely();
    }
}`

...start the Thread, declare and set up your MediaPlayers...

@Override
public void onCreate() {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    super.onCreate();

    startSongLooperThread();

    activeSongResID = R.raw.some_loop;
    activeMP = MediaPlayer.create(getApplicationContext(), activeSongResID);
    activeSongMilliseconds = activeMP.getDuration();

    queuedMP = MediaPlayer.create(getApplicationContext(),activeSongResID);
}

@Override
public void onDestroy() {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    super.onDestroy();
    stopSongLooperThread();

    activeMP.release();
    queuedMP.release();
    activeMP = null;
    queuedMP = null;
}

...create a Method for swapping your MediaPlayers...

private void swapActivePlayers(){
    Log.v("SongLooperService","MediaPlayer swap started....");
    queuedMP.start();

    //Immediately get the Duration of the current track, then queue the next swap.
    activeSongMilliseconds = queuedMP.getDuration();
    SongLooperHandler.postDelayed(timedQueue,activeSongMilliseconds);
    Log.v("SongLooperService","Next call queued...");

    activeMP.release();

    //Swap your active and queued MPs...
    Log.v("SongLooperService","MediaPlayers swapping....");
    MediaPlayer temp = activeMP;
    activeMP = queuedMP;
    queuedMP = temp;

    //Prepare your now invalid queuedMP...
    queuedMP = MediaPlayer.create(getApplicationContext(),activeSongResID);
    Log.v("SongLooperService","MediaPlayer swapped.");
}

...create Runnables to post to your thread...

private Runnable startMP = new Runnable(){
    public void run(){
        activeMP.start();
        SongLooperHandler.postDelayed(timedQueue,activeSongMilliseconds);
    }
};

private Runnable timedQueue = new Runnable(){
    public void run(){
        swapActivePlayers();
    }
};

In your Service's onStartCommand() or somewhere in your Activity, start the MediaPlayer...

...
SongLooperHandler.post(startMP);
...