Disable Android's VideoView requestAudioFocus when playing a video?

Question

I'm building an app that records and plays back video. I would like to do so without affecting background music playback, i.e. if I begin playing a video, I do not want to pause other apps' audio. However, on Lollipop, Android's VideoView class automatically requests audio focus when the private method VideoView.openVideo() is called:

AudioManager am = (AudioManager) super.getSystemService(name);
am.requestAudioFocus(null, AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_GAIN);

Any suggestions on how to get around this?

Answer 1

Starting with Android SDK 26 you may want to use VideoView and

if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.Version_CODES.O){
     //set this BEFORE start playback
     videoView.setAudioFocusRequest(AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_NONE)
}

For older version, there's a workaround described here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/31569930/993439

Basically, copy source code of VideoView and uncomment following lines

AudioManager am = (AudioManager) getContext().getSystemService(Context.AUDIO_SERVICE);
am.requestAudioFocus(null, AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_GAIN);