Streaming Youtube Videos with YouTubePlayerView

Overview

We can use the YouTube Android Player API to play YouTube videos within an Android app.

Setup

In order to use this API, you will need to have Google Play installed on your emulator and the Youtube App installed because the YouTube API interacts with a service that is distributed with the YouTube app. Either use a physical device to test or make sure you have followed this emulator setup guide to install Google Play services and then added the Youtube App. Otherwise, you are likely to see An error has occurred while initializing the YouTube player.

To start, you will need to create an API key through https://console.developers.google.com/. Make sure to enable the YouTube Data API v3. Go to the Credentials section and generate an API key.

Installation

Next, add the YouTubeAndroidPlayerApi.jar file into Android Studio by following this GIF to add this to your libs dir. Once you've added the JAR, select Tools => Android => Sync project files with Gradle in Android Studio to complete installation.

To ensure that the Youtube player can also be successfully initialization on devices running API 30+, you'll also need to add the following to your AndroidManifest.xml

<queries>
        <intent>
            <action android:name="com.google.android.youtube.api.service.START" />
        </intent>
    </queries>

Usage

Instead of a VideoView, you should add YouTubePlayerView to your layout file where you'd like the video to be displayed:

<com.google.android.youtube.player.YouTubePlayerView
    android:id="@+id/player"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

If you intend for your Activity, you will need to extend YouTubeBaseActivity. One current drawback is that this library does not inherit from AppCompatActivity so some of your styles may not match those that are defined in styles.xml.

public class QuickPlayActivity extends YouTubeBaseActivity {

You then should initialize the YouTube Player by calling initialize() with your API key on the YouTubePlayerView:

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_quick_play);

        YouTubePlayerView youTubePlayerView = 
            (YouTubePlayerView) findViewById(R.id.player);

        youTubePlayerView.initialize("YOUR API KEY",
                new YouTubePlayer.OnInitializedListener() {
                    @Override
                    public void onInitializationSuccess(YouTubePlayer.Provider provider,
                            YouTubePlayer youTubePlayer, boolean b) {

                        // do any work here to cue video, play video, etc.    
                        youTubePlayer.cueVideo("5xVh-7ywKpE");
                    }
                    @Override
                    public void onInitializationFailure(YouTubePlayer.Provider provider,
                            YouTubeInitializationResult youTubeInitializationResult) {

                    }
        });
}

If you wish to only load the video but not play, use cueVideo() instead of loadVideo(). Playing videos involves passing along the YouTube video key (do not include the full URL):

youTubePlayer.loadVideo("5xVh-7ywKpE");

You can review the working sample code here.

Forcing Landscape Mode

If you wish to force the video to landscape mode, you can also add the screenOrientation flag inside your Activity in the AndroidManifest.xml file:

<activity
  android:name=".QuickPlayActivity"
  android:screenOrientation="landscape">
</activity>

Using the YouTubePlayerFragment Approach

Alternatively instead of the approach outlined above, rather than extending YouTubeBaseActivity, we can use the YouTubePlayerFragment instead. First, put the player into your activity using this fragment:

<fragment
    android:id="@+id/youtubeFragment"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:name="com.google.android.youtube.player.YouTubePlayerFragment">
</fragment>

Next, we lookup the fragment by ID and then initialize the video player:

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

        YouTubePlayerFragment youtubeFragment = (YouTubePlayerFragment)
            getFragmentManager().findFragmentById(R.id.youtubeFragment);
        youtubeFragment.initialize("YOUR API KEY",
                new YouTubePlayer.OnInitializedListener() {
                    @Override
                    public void onInitializationSuccess(YouTubePlayer.Provider provider,
                            YouTubePlayer youTubePlayer, boolean b) {
                        // do any work here to cue video, play video, etc.    
                        youTubePlayer.cueVideo("5xVh-7ywKpE");
                    }
                    @Override
                    public void onInitializationFailure(YouTubePlayer.Provider provider,
                            YouTubeInitializationResult youTubeInitializationResult) {

                    }
        });

        // ...
    }

Note that in this case, the activity containing the fragment does not need to extend any special base class. Otherwise the steps are identical regardless of using the fragment or activity approach.

Troubleshooting

Common issues with the YouTubePlayerView are listed below:

• Setup Youtube App - In regards to setup, if you are using an emulator, make sure you have followed this emulator setup guide to install Google Play services and then also added the Youtube app. Otherwise, you are likely to see An error has occurred while initializing the YouTube player.

• Verify Video is Valid - When anything is going wrong, first thing to check that the value passed into the cueVideo or loadVideo methods is a valid Youtube video. Be sure not to pass a null value into those methods. Investigate to make sure that if you take the value given i.e 5xVh-7ywKpE and then visit this on youtube that the video is valid.

• NullPointerException During Init - Make sure that your activity extends YouTubeBaseActivity or you are using the YouTubePlayerFragment. If the activity does not extend that base class then the activity will throw this exception.

• Error DeadObjectException: If you receive the java.lang.IllegalStateException: android.os.DeadObjectException exception, you need to open up the "Play Store" and update the Youtube app on the Android device.

• Error Leaked ServiceConnection: If you are using an emulator, upgrade to Lollipop (API 21) and open up the "Play Store" to check for updates to the Youtube app.

References

• https://www.sitepoint.com/using-the-youtube-api-to-embed-video-in-an-android-app/