How to avoid 15 second delay/caching in Android Media Player when playing stream

Question

I am implementing a media player that plays a stream from a remote machine. Via my app I can control the remote machine (e.g. seek to second). Works like charm, but: The Android Media Player buffers some insane 10-15 seconds(!!), which means each click ('seek') takes 10-15 seconds to take effect even though it is less than a second until the new data arrives.

My Question: Is there any way to control (limit) that caching? Or am I simply doing something wrong? Am I the only one having this issue?

My code is very simple:

player = new MediaPlayer()
player.setDataSource(url);
player.setOnPreparedListener(new OnPreparedListener() {

    public void onPrepared(MediaPlayer mp) {
        mp.start();
    }
});
player.prepareAsync();

I am using a local self built mini HTTP server to connect my byte stream to Androids media player. It seems like Android DRM is delaying / caching in this case. Still not quite clear why (and why not if I connect to my IIS that hosts a file). Also no idea how to workaround this.

Answer 1

Ok, meanwhile I got closer to the solution. Turned out the source of my problem is Android DRM! (No, I am not playing a protected file. Its standard mp3).

DRM seems to have been introduced in Android 3.1 (I was testing on a Galaxy Tab 10.1). It works fine on the Emulator (maybe DRM is not implemented there?)

Any idea how I can disable or accelerate this? There seems to be a 10 seconds timer somewhere deep in the Android DRM impl that waits for - whatever, no idea. My error log:

10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/MediaExtractor(226): **********MediaExtractor::Create
10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(226): add uniqueid
10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): Entering BnDrmManagerService::onTransact with code 1
10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): BnDrmManagerService::onTransact :ADD_UNIQUEID
10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): Entering BnDrmManagerService::onTransact with code 3
10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): BnDrmManagerService::onTransact :ADD_CLIENT
10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(226): Entering BpDrmManagerService::openDecryptSession
10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): Entering BnDrmManagerService::onTransact with code 27
10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): BnDrmManagerService::onTransact :OPEN_DECRYPT_SESSION_FROM_URI
10-06 17:38:19.020: ERROR/DrmManagerService(Native)(225): Entering DrmManagerService::openDecryptSession with uri

10 seconds wait

10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/DrmManager(Native)(225): DrmManager::openDecryptSession: no capable plug-in found
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): NULL decryptHandle is returned
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(226): no decryptHandle is generated in service side
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(226): remove uniqueid
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): Entering BnDrmManagerService::onTransact with code 2
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): BnDrmManagerService::onTransact :REMOVE_UNIQUEID
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): Entering BnDrmManagerService::onTransact with code 4
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): BnDrmManagerService::onTransact :REMOVE_CLIENT
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(226): setDrmServiceListener
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): Entering BnDrmManagerService::onTransact with code 5
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/IDrmManagerService(Native)(225): BnDrmManagerService::onTransact :SET_DRM_SERVICE_LISTENER
10-06 17:38:29.040: ERROR/DrmManagerService(Native)(225): Entering setDrmServiceListener