How to prevent VideoView/MediaPlayer from stopping other apps' audio?

Question

In one screen I have a looping background video (upon which normal UI elements are shown), implemented with VideoView like this:

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Answer 1

The accepted solution does not guarantee compatibility across all Android versions and is a dirty hack more than a true solution. I've tried all forms of hacks to get this working, yet none have worked to my satisfaction.

I have come up with a much better solution though - switch from a VideoView to a TextureView and load it with a MediaPlayer. There is no difference from the user's perspective, just no more audio stoppage.

Here's my use case for playing an MP4 looping:

private TextureView _introVideoTextureView;
private MediaPlayer _introMediaPlayer;

...

@Override
public void onCreate(...) {
    _introVideoTextureView.setSurfaceTextureListener(new TextureView.SurfaceTextureListener() {
        @Override
        public void onSurfaceTextureAvailable(SurfaceTexture surfaceTexture, int width, int height) {
           try {
               destoryIntroVideo();

               _introMediaPlayer = MediaPlayer.create(SignInActivity.this, R.raw.intro_video);
               _introMediaPlayer.setSurface(new Surface(surfaceTexture));
               _introMediaPlayer.setLooping(true);
               _introMediaPlayer.setVideoScalingMode(MediaPlayer.VIDEO_SCALING_MODE_SCALE_TO_FIT_WITH_CROPPING);
               _introMediaPlayer.setOnPreparedListener(new MediaPlayer.OnPreparedListener() {
                    @Override
                    public void onPrepared(MediaPlayer mediaPlayer) {
                        mediaPlayer.start();
                    }
                });

            } catch (Exception e) {
                System.err.println("Error playing intro video: " + e.getMessage());
            }
        }

        @Override
        public void onSurfaceTextureSizeChanged(SurfaceTexture surfaceTexture, int i, int i1) {}

        @Override
        public boolean onSurfaceTextureDestroyed(SurfaceTexture surfaceTexture) {
            return false;
        }

        @Override
        public void onSurfaceTextureUpdated(SurfaceTexture surfaceTexture) {}
    });
}

@Override
public void onDestroy() {
    super.onDestroy();

    destoryIntroVideo();
}

private void destoryIntroVideo() {
    if (_introMediaPlayer != null) {
        _introMediaPlayer.stop();
        _introMediaPlayer.release();
        _introMediaPlayer = null;
    }
}

Answer 2

This worked for me:

videoView.setAudioFocusRequest(AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_NONE);

(before .setVideUri() call)

Answer 3

Copy paste VideoView from Android sources and comment out these lines:

AudioManager am = (AudioManager) getContext().getSystemService(Context.AUDIO_SERVICE);
am.requestAudioFocus(null, AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_GAIN);

You could name the new class MutedVideoView, for example.

gist here: https://gist.github.com/vishna/7e9d3466bced8502fcdd