react-native-vlc-media-player

New feature requests and bug fixes

At the moment I am a bit tied up with other work. As a matter of fact, I don't get much time to develop at all nowadays. But I am more than open to help anyone who wants's to contribute to this repo. And I will be sure to merge any fixes as soon as PR's come up. But if you need someone to fix issues that affect you till I get back to this(ETA Q3 2022), One option is to add a bounty to the following site https://www.bountysource.com/ someone will attend to it.

Supported RN Versions

0.59 > 0.62 and up PODs are updated to works with 0.61 and up.(Tested in 0.61.5 and 0.62 and 0.63)

Sample repo

VLC Media Player test

Supported formats

Support for network streams, RTSP, RTP, RTMP, HLS, MMS. Play all files, in all formats, including exotic ones, like the classic VLC media player. Play MKV, multiple audio tracks (including 5.1), and subtitles tracks (including SSA!)

Add it to your project

Run

npm i react-native-vlc-media-player --save

or

yarn add react-native-vlc-media-player

Run

react-native link react-native-vlc-media-player

android

Should work without any specific settings

gradle build might failed with More than one file was found with OS independent path 'lib/x86/libc++_shared.so' error. If that happens add the following block to your android/app/build.gradle

tasks.whenTaskAdded((tas -> {
    // when task is 'mergeLocalDebugNativeLibs' or 'mergeLocalReleaseNativeLibs'
    if (tas.name.contains("merge") && tas.name.contains("NativeLibs")) {
        tasks.named(tas.name) {it
            doFirst {
                java.nio.file.Path notNeededDirectory = it.externalLibNativeLibs
                        .getFiles()
                        .stream()
                        // for React Native 0.71, the file value now contains "jetified-react-android" instead of "jetified-react-native"
                        .filter(file -> file.toString().contains("jetified-react-native"))
                        .findAny()
                        .orElse(null)
                        .toPath();
                java.nio.file.Files.walk(notNeededDirectory).forEach(file -> {
                    if (file.toString().contains("libc++_shared.so")) {
                        java.nio.file.Files.delete(file);
                    }
                });
            }
        }
    }
}))

Explain: react-native and libvlc both import libc++_shared.so, but we cannot use packagingOptions.pickFirst to handle this case, because libvlc-all:3.6.0-eap5 will crash when using libc++_shared.so, so we have to use libc++_shared.so from libvlc, so I add a gradle script to delete libc++_shared.so from react-native to solve this.

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74258902/how-to-define-which-so-file-to-use-in-gradle-packaging-options

Explain why we have to use libvlc-all:3.6.0-eap5 instead of libvlc-all:3.2.6: libvlc-all:3.2.6 has a bug that subtitle won't display on Android 12 and 13, so we have to upgrade libvlc to support subtitle display on Android 12 and 13.

Reference: https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc-android/-/issues/2252

iOS

1. cd to ios
2. run pod init (if only Podfile has not been generated in ios folder)
3. add pod 'MobileVLCKit', '3.3.10' to pod file (No need if you are running RN 0.61 and up)
4. run pod install (you have to delete the app on the simulator/device and run react-native run-ios again)

Optional (only for ios)

Enable Bitcode in root project select Build Settings ---> find Bitcode and select Enable Bitcode

Expo

This package works with expo when using custom development builds

Just insert the react-native-vlc-media-player plugin to the "plugins" array from app.config.js or app.json. Then rebuild your app as described in the "Adding custom native code" guide.

{
    "plugins": [
        [
            "react-native-vlc-media-player",
            {
                "ios": {
                    "includeVLCKit": false // should be true if react-native version < 0.61
                },
                "android": {
                    "legacyJetifier": false // should be true if react-native version < 0.71
                }
            }
        ]
    ]
}

TODO

1. Android video Aspect ratio and other params do not work (Events are called but all events come through a single event onVideoStateChange but the JS side does not implement it.).

Got a few minutes to spare? Please help us to keep this repo up to date and simple to use.

Our idea was to keep the repo simple, and people can use it with newer RN versions without any additional config.

1. Get a fork of this repo and clone VLC Media Player test
2. Run it for ios and android locally using your fork, and do the changes. (remove this package using npm remove react-native-vlc-media-player and install the forked version from git hub npm i https://git-address-to-your-forked-repo)
3. Verify your changes and make sure everything works on both platforms. (If you need a hand with testing I might be able to help as well)
4. Send PR.
5. Be happy, Cause you're a Rockstar 🌟 ❤️

Use

import { VLCPlayer, VlCPlayerView } from 'react-native-vlc-media-player';
import Orientation from 'react-native-orientation';

    <VLCPlayer
        style={[styles.video]}
        videoAspectRatio="16:9"
        source={{ uri: "https://www.radiantmediaplayer.com/media/big-buck-bunny-360p.mp4"}}
    />

or you can use

    <VlCPlayerView
          autoplay={false}
          url="https://www.radiantmediaplayer.com/media/big-buck-bunny-360p.mp4"
          Orientation={Orientation}
          ggUrl=""
          showGG={true}
          showTitle={true}
          title="Big Buck Bunny"
          showBack={true}
          onLeftPress={()=>{}}
       />

VLCPlayer Props

Callback props

Callback props take a function that gets fired on various player events:

VideoInfo example:

 {
    duration: 30906,
    videoSize: {height: 240, width: 32},
    audioTracks: [
            {id: -1, name: "Disable"},
            {id: 1, name: "Track 1"},
            {id: 3, name: "Japanese Audio (2ch LC-AAC) - [Japanese]"}
    ],
    textTracks: [
        {id: -1, name: "Disable"},
        {id: 4, name: "Track 1 - [English]"},
        {id: 5, name: "Track 2 - [Japanese]"}
    ],
}

More formats

Container formats: 3GP, ASF, AVI, DVR-MS, FLV, Matroska (MKV), MIDI, QuickTime File Format, MP4, Ogg, OGM, WAV, MPEG-2 (ES, PS, TS, PVA, MP3), AIFF, Raw audio, Raw DV, MXF, VOB, RM, Blu-ray, DVD-Video, VCD, SVCD, CD Audio, DVB, HEIF, AVIF Audio coding formats: AAC, AC3, ALAC, AMR, DTS, DV Audio, XM, FLAC, It, MACE, MOD, Monkey's Audio, MP3, Opus, PLS, QCP, QDM2/QDMC, RealAudio, Speex, Screamtracker 3/S3M, TTA, Vorbis, WavPack, WMA (WMA 1/2, WMA 3 partially). Capture devices: Video4Linux (on Linux), DirectShow (on Windows), Desktop (screencast), Digital TV (DVB-C, DVB-S, DVB-T, DVB-S2, DVB-T2, ATSC, Clear QAM) Network protocols: FTP, HTTP, MMS, RSS/Atom, RTMP, RTP (unicast or multicast), RTSP, UDP, Sat-IP, Smooth Streaming Network streaming formats: Apple HLS, Flash RTMP, MPEG-DASH, MPEG Transport Stream, RTP/RTSP ISMA/3GPP PSS, Windows Media MMS Subtitles: Advanced SubStation Alpha, Closed Captions, DVB, DVD-Video, MPEG-4 Timed Text, MPL2, OGM, SubStation Alpha, SubRip, SVCD, Teletext, Text file, VobSub, WebVTT, TTML Video coding formats: Cinepak, Dirac, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, H.265/MPEG HEVC, AV1, HuffYUV, Indeo 3, MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, RealVideo 3&4, Sorenson, Theora, VC-1,[h] VP5, VP6, VP8, VP9, DNxHD, ProRes and some WMV.

credits

ammarahm-ed Nghi-NV xuyuanzhou

sponsors

Huge thanks to "smartlife - one of the best custom home automation companies in new zealand" for helping me to keep this repo maintained

Author - Roshan Milinda -> roshan.digital