What's differences between Surfaceview and TextureView?

Question

I've been studying Android especially View system. I have a question differences between them but there is no documents or references in my mother language. So I want to know from you guys.

Answer 1

TextureView

A TextureView can be used to display a content stream. Such a content stream can for instance be a video or an OpenGL scene.

Example :
https://github.com/dalinaum/TextureViewDemo

Document:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/TextureView.html

SurfaceView

Provides a dedicated drawing surface embedded inside of a view hierarchy.

Examples :
http://www.mindfiresolutions.com/Using-Surface-View-for-Android-1659.php
http://blog.wisecells.com/2012/06/04/surface-view-android/

Document:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/SurfaceView.html

Answer 2

SurfaceView and TextureView both are inherited from android.view.View class. However there are some structural difference between them.

When you want more control of the single drawing board, go for SurfaceView

• You cannot overlay two SurfaceView.

TextureView has the following advantages over SurfaceView:

• You can Animate, Transform and Scale a TextureView.

Answer 3

In addition to other answers, this could be beneficial for novice android developers or anyone who will see this.

In my case, using this snippet in OnCreate method helped me to find out which device can use SurfaceView

    if (
            GLES20.glGetString(GLES20.GL_RENDERER) == null ||
                    GLES20.glGetString(GLES20.GL_VENDOR) == null ||
                    GLES20.glGetString(GLES20.GL_VERSION) == null ||
                    GLES20.glGetString(GLES20.GL_EXTENSIONS) == null ||
                    GLES10.glGetString(GLES10.GL_RENDERER) == null ||
                    GLES10.glGetString(GLES10.GL_VENDOR) == null ||
                    GLES10.glGetString(GLES10.GL_VERSION) == null ||
                    GLES10.glGetString(GLES10.GL_EXTENSIONS) == null) {
        // try to use SurfaceView
    } else {
        // try to use TextureView
    }

Hope it helps people who develop video player apps :)