Flutter VLC Player: Stream Videos in Your Flutter Apps Effortlessly

Modern Flutter apps often require video features, and the simple process of playing videos can be a challenging task. One needs a powerful plugin that provides various options and an easy-to-use API.

Enter Flutter VLC player! This powerful Flutter plugin offers a VLC-powered alternative to the standard video player.

This article will guide you on how to incorporate this plugin into your Flutter app development and start streaming videos effortlessly.

What is Flutter VLC Player?

Flutter VLC player is a plugin that provides a fully functional VLC player ready to drop into your Flutter apps. This potent tool integrates with VLC to offer more granular control and incredibly versatile video playback options. It supports multiple players on one screen and handles various video protocols from an external source or internal device storage.

Flutter VLC player is not just a tool to play videos; it's much more. This plugin provides the foundational block to create applications with video features while providing flexibility and control over video playback. It supports iOS and Android platforms, ensuring your app is as versatile as the Flutter VLC player.

The real beauty of the Flutter VLC player lies in its simplicity. You don't need to worry about handling fallbacks for unsupported video formats or managing playback across different OS versions. The Flutter VLC player takes care of these so that you can focus on creating an engaging app experience for your users.

Setting Up the Flutter VLC Player

Getting started with the Flutter VLC player involves a few steps. However, these are straightforward to follow. Here is a step-by-step guide to getting you up and running:

First, you must ensure a Flutter environment on your development machine. If not, follow the Flutter setup guide to install Flutter. Once that's complete, we add the Flutter VLC player to our project.

• You start by opening your existing project and adding the flutter_vlc_player: ^version into your pubspec.yaml file. Run Flutter Pub get to fetch the package.
• Integration into your Flutter project is seamless, with the installation on iOS and Android being very straightforward.

For iOS:

• Navigate to the existing iOS folder (specifically the ios/Runner/Info.plist), and under the App Transport Security settings, set Allow Arbitrary Loads to YES. This step is vital to allow video streaming in iOS simulators or devices.
• Add the necessary permissions in the info.plist to access media. These include the NSCameraUsageDescription, NSPhotoLibraryAddUsageDescription, and NSMicrophoneUsageDescription.

For Android:

• Open android/app/AndroidManifest.xml, and within the application tag, insert the Internet permission and storage permissions (Manifest.permission.READ _EXTERNAL_STORAGE and Manifest.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE).
• It's also crucial to secure network configurations and add android:usesCleartextTraffic="true" to allow cleartext HTTP traffic.

An Example of Flutter VLC Player

Flutter VLC player is easy to use and incredibly customizable, allowing for more granular control of the player's functionality. Let's go through a practical example and dive into the world of coding with Flutter VLC.

Firstly, remember to import package: flutter_vlc_player/flutter_vlc_player.dart.

Start by defining a new VlcPlayer controller in the initState method of your widget:

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final VlcPlayerController controller =
  VlcPlayerController.network(
  final String urlToStreamVideo,
  hwAcc: HwAcc.AUTO,
  autoPlay: false,
  autoInitialize: true,
);

When building the actual video player in the widget build(BuildContext context) method, use the controller defined above:

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@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
  return Scaffold(
    body: VlcPlayer(
      controller: controller,
      aspectRatio: 16 / 9,
      placeholder: Center(child: CircularProgressIndicator()),
    ),
  );
}

To customize the player further, you can use final int playerHeight to specify the player's height and final String urlToStreamVideo to stream videos from an internet source directly.

Don't forget to dispose of the controller when you're done with it in the dispose() method:

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@override
void dispose() {
  controller.dispose();
  super.dispose();
}

The code snippet above shows how easy it is to create a video player in your Flutter app and stream videos seamlessly. With Flutter VLC player's vast options, you have granularity and flexibility to enhance the video experience in your app.

Enable VLC Cast Functionality With Flutter VLC Player

The Flutter VLC player delivers outstanding performance in casting videos, thanks to the VLC Cast Functionality. Consider it a cherry on top of your video streaming experience.

Enabling the VLC Cast functionality is straightforward. The first step is to define a new VlcPlayerController with the desired configuration, similar to what we did in the previous section. Once that's done, you can use startRendererScanning() and castToRenderer() to find and cast external displays.

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controller.startRendererScanning();
...
controller.castToRenderer(RendererServices rendererService);

These methods discover Chromecast devices or any other VLC-compatible external displays available and cast the video to the selected device. It is an excellent functionality that enhances video streaming, providing a richer video experience to users.

Remember to stop scanning when you're done:

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controller.stopRendererScanning();

Conclusion

The stages of mobile app development require diverse features, and video streaming is undoubtedly one of them. By harnessing the power of the Flutter VLC player, developers can integrate a versatile, fully functional video player into their Flutter apps. It's not just about playing a video; the VLC player-powered alternative offers many functionalities like multiple players on one screen, extensive format support, Android and iOS compatibility, and much more.

Now that you know the process, it's time to incorporate this potent tool into your development workflow. So, start coding and significantly boost your Flutter app video capabilities. The extent and ease of control of video functionality that the Flutter VLC player provides are ready to aid you in developing the most engaging and interactive Flutter apps.

In creating compelling Flutter apps, always remember: the world is at the fingertips of developers who dare to innovate. Happy coding!