react-native-video

What is react-native-video?

The react-native-video package is a versatile video playback library for React Native applications. It allows developers to embed and control video playback within their mobile apps, supporting a wide range of video formats and providing various customization options.

What are react-native-video's main functionalities?

Basic Video Playback

This feature allows you to play a video from a given URI. The video is embedded within a React Native component and can be styled using standard React Native styles.

import Video from 'react-native-video';

const BasicVideoPlayer = () => (
  <Video
    source={{ uri: 'https://www.example.com/video.mp4' }}
    style={{ width: 300, height: 200 }}
  />
);

Custom Controls

This feature enables the default video controls, such as play, pause, and seek, providing a more interactive video playback experience.

import Video from 'react-native-video';

const CustomControlsVideoPlayer = () => (
  <Video
    source={{ uri: 'https://www.example.com/video.mp4' }}
    style={{ width: 300, height: 200 }}
    controls={true}
  />
);

Event Handling

This feature allows you to handle various video playback events, such as when the video ends or if an error occurs during playback.

import Video from 'react-native-video';

const EventHandlingVideoPlayer = () => (
  <Video
    source={{ uri: 'https://www.example.com/video.mp4' }}
    style={{ width: 300, height: 200 }}
    onEnd={() => console.log('Video has ended')}
    onError={(error) => console.log('Error:', error)}
  />
);

Looping Video

This feature enables the video to loop continuously, restarting automatically when it reaches the end.

import Video from 'react-native-video';

const LoopingVideoPlayer = () => (
  <Video
    source={{ uri: 'https://www.example.com/video.mp4' }}
    style={{ width: 300, height: 200 }}
    repeat={true}
  />
);

Other packages similar to react-native-video

react-native-video-controls

The react-native-video-controls package provides a customizable set of video controls for the react-native-video component. It extends the functionality of react-native-video by adding a set of default controls that can be easily customized.

react-native-youtube

The react-native-youtube package allows you to embed YouTube videos in your React Native application. It provides a simple interface for playing YouTube videos and supports various YouTube player features, such as autoplay, fullscreen, and video quality settings.

react-native-vlc-media-player

The react-native-vlc-media-player package is a React Native wrapper for the VLC media player. It supports a wide range of video formats and provides advanced playback features, such as network streaming, subtitles, and hardware acceleration.

README

react-native-video

A <Video> component for react-native, as seen in react-native-login!

Requires react-native >= 0.19.0

Add it to your project

Run npm i -S react-native-video

iOS

Run react-native link to link the react-native-video library.

If you would like to allow other apps to play music over your video component, add:

AppDelegate.m

#import <AVFoundation/AVFoundation.h>  // import

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
  ...
  [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient error:nil];  // allow
  ...
}

Android

Run react-native link to link the react-native-video library.

Or if you have trouble, make the following additions to the given files manually:

android/settings.gradle

include ':react-native-video'
project(':react-native-video').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, '../node_modules/react-native-video/android')

android/app/build.gradle

dependencies {
   ...
   compile project(':react-native-video')
}

MainActivity.java

On top, where imports are:

import com.brentvatne.react.ReactVideoPackage;

Under .addPackage(new MainReactPackage()):

.addPackage(new ReactVideoPackage())

Note: In react-native >= 0.29.0 you have to edit MainApplication.java

MainApplication.java (react-native >= 0.29.0)

On top, where imports are:

import com.brentvatne.react.ReactVideoPackage;

Under .addPackage(new MainReactPackage()):

.addPackage(new ReactVideoPackage())

Windows

Make the following additions to the given files manually:

windows/myapp.sln

Add the ReactNativeVideo project to your solution.

1. Open the solution in Visual Studio 2015
2. Right-click Solution icon in Solution Explorer > Add > Existing Project...
3. Select node_modules\react-native-video\windows\ReactNativeVideo\ReactNativeVideo.csproj

windows/myapp/myapp.csproj

Add a reference to ReactNativeVideo to your main application project. From Visual Studio 2015:

1. Right-click main application project > Add > Reference...
2. Check ReactNativeVideo from Solution Projects.

MainPage.cs

Add the ReactVideoPackage class to your list of exported packages.

using ReactNative;
using ReactNative.Modules.Core;
using ReactNative.Shell;
using ReactNativeVideo; // <-- Add this
using System.Collections.Generic;
...

        public override List<IReactPackage> Packages
        {
            get
            {
                return new List<IReactPackage>
                {
                    new MainReactPackage(),
                    new ReactVideoPackage(), // <-- Add this
                };
            }
        }

...

Usage

// Within your render function, assuming you have a file called
// "background.mp4" in your project. You can include multiple videos
// on a single screen if you like.

<Video source={{uri: "background"}}   // Can be a URL or a local file.
       ref={(ref) => {
         this.player = ref
       }}                             // Store reference
       rate={1.0}                     // 0 is paused, 1 is normal.
       volume={1.0}                   // 0 is muted, 1 is normal.
       muted={false}                  // Mutes the audio entirely.
       paused={false}                 // Pauses playback entirely.
       resizeMode="cover"             // Fill the whole screen at aspect ratio.
       repeat={true}                  // Repeat forever.
       playInBackground={false}       // Audio continues to play when app entering background.
       playWhenInactive={false}       // [iOS] Video continues to play when control or notification center are shown.
       progressUpdateInterval={250.0} // [iOS] Interval to fire onProgress (default to ~250ms)
       onLoadStart={this.loadStart}   // Callback when video starts to load
       onLoad={this.setDuration}      // Callback when video loads
       onProgress={this.setTime}      // Callback every ~250ms with currentTime
       onEnd={this.onEnd}             // Callback when playback finishes
       onError={this.videoError}      // Callback when video cannot be loaded
       onBuffer={this.onBuffer} // Callback when remote video is buffering
       style={styles.backgroundVideo} />

// Later to trigger fullscreen
this.player.presentFullscreenPlayer()

// To set video position in seconds (seek)
this.player.seek(0)

// Later on in your styles..
var styles = StyleSheet.create({
  backgroundVideo: {
    position: 'absolute',
    top: 0,
    left: 0,
    bottom: 0,
    right: 0,
  },
});

Android Expansion File Usage

// Within your render function, assuming you have a file called
// "background.mp4" in your expansion file. Just add your main and (if applicable) patch version
<Video source={{uri: "background", mainVer: 1, patchVer: 0}} // Looks for .mp4 file (background.mp4) in the given expansion version.
       rate={1.0}                   // 0 is paused, 1 is normal.
       volume={1.0}                 // 0 is muted, 1 is normal.
       muted={false}                // Mutes the audio entirely.
       paused={false}               // Pauses playback entirely.
       resizeMode="cover"           // Fill the whole screen at aspect ratio.
       repeat={true}                // Repeat forever.
       onLoadStart={this.loadStart} // Callback when video starts to load
       onLoad={this.setDuration}    // Callback when video loads
       onProgress={this.setTime}    // Callback every ~250ms with currentTime
       onEnd={this.onEnd}           // Callback when playback finishes
       onError={this.videoError}    // Callback when video cannot be loaded
       style={styles.backgroundVideo} />

// Later on in your styles..
var styles = Stylesheet.create({
  backgroundVideo: {
    position: 'absolute',
    top: 0,
    left: 0,
    bottom: 0,
    right: 0,
  },
});

Load files with the RN Asset System

The asset system introduced in RN 0.14 allows loading image resources shared across iOS and Android without touching native code. As of RN 0.31 the same is true of mp4 video assets for Android. As of RN 0.33 iOS is also supported. Requires react-native-video@0.9.0.

<Video
  repeat
  resizeMode='cover'
  source={require('../assets/video/turntable.mp4')}
  style={styles.backgroundVideo}
/>

Play in background on iOS

To enable audio to play in background on iOS the audio session needs to be set to AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback. See Apple documentation for additional details. (NOTE: there is now a ticket to expose this as a prop )

Static Methods

seek(seconds)

Seeks the video to the specified time (in seconds). Access using a ref to the component

presentFullscreenPlayer()

Toggles a fullscreen player. Access using a ref to the component.

Examples

• See an Example integration in react-native-login note that this example uses an older version of this library, before we used export default -- if you use require you will need to do require('react-native-video').default as per instructions above.

• Try the included VideoPlayer example yourself:

  git clone [e-mail]:react-native-community/react-native-video.git
  cd react-native-video/example
  npm install
  open ios/VideoPlayer.xcodeproj
  
  

  Then Cmd+R to start the React Packager, build and run the project in the simulator.

• Lumpen Radio contains another example integration using local files and full screen background video.

TODOS

• Add support for captions
• Add support for playing multiple videos in a sequence (will interfere with current repeat implementation)
• Callback to get buffering progress for remote videos
• Bring API closer to HTML5 <Video> reference

---

MIT Licensed