html5 video tag to play full screen with Android

Question

I'm creating a mobile site where I have a video I'd like to play when someone clicks on a link:

<div id="player"></div>
<a href="#" onclick="DoNav('<?php echo $url; ?>');" title="Click to play video"> <?php echo $result_videos[$i]["camera_name"]; ?> </a>

<script type="text/javascript">
function DoNav(theUrl)
{

  // only add the player if it doesn't yet exist
  if($('#myfileplayer').length == 0) {
    var mydiv = $("#player");
    var myvideo = $("<video id='myfileplayer' src='"+ theUrl + "' width='320' height='240' controls></video>");
    mydiv.append(myvideo);
  } else {
    $('#myfileplayer').attr("src",theUrl); 
  }

} 
</script>

With the iPhone, this works great, I click on video and it goes full screen. Android works as well but it requires you to click the video to play then click on the full screen. Is it possible to get to the full screen like iPhone just when you hit play?

Answer 1

This should work, with plain Javascript:

var myVideo = document.getElementById('myVideoTag');

myVideo.play();
if (typeof(myVideo.webkitEnterFullscreen) != "undefined") {
    // This is for Android Stock.
    myVideo.webkitEnterFullscreen();
} else if (typeof(myVideo.webkitRequestFullscreen)  != "undefined") {
    // This is for Chrome.
    myVideo.webkitRequestFullscreen();
} else if (typeof(myVideo.mozRequestFullScreen)  != "undefined") {
    myVideo.mozRequestFullScreen();
}

You have to trigger play() before the fullscreen instruction, otherwise in Android Browser it will just go fullscreen but it will not start playing. Tested with the latest version of Android Browser, Chrome, Safari.

Answer 2

I've given up on this. My conclusion is that the html5 video tag on Android devices blows chunks. It works in some devices but not on others. And there is no common criteria like 3.x or 4.x, it just seems to be random. I hope this gets better sometime soon especially since flash support is not longer existent.

Oddly sticking with a simple href seems to be the most consistent. You lose some controls but way better than the video tag...at least so far.

Answer 3

Have you checked out mediaelement.js?