video_view 1.2.3

A lightweight media player with subtitle rendering and audio track switching support, leveraging system or app-level components for seamless playback.

video_view is a lightweight media player with subtitle rendering¹ and audio track switching support, leveraging system or app-level components for seamless playback. For API documentation, please visit here.

Key benefits:

• Complete platform coverage: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Web, Linux.
• Internal subtitle rendering, audio track switching, max bitrate/resolution limits.
• Fine-grained status notification with reentrancy prevention.
• Small, widget-first API: drop-in VideoView(source: ...) to start.

NOTE: video_view requires Flutter 3.32 or higher.

---

Demo

You may try the online demo, or run the demo app locally by cloning this repository:

git clone https://github.com/xxoo/flutter_video_view.git
cd flutter_video_view/example

For basic usage, just run:

flutter run

For advanced usage, please run:

flutter run lib/main_advanced.dart

---

Installation

1. Add dependency in your project by running:

flutter pub add video_view

2. Reference video_view in your Dart code:

import 'package:video_view/video_view.dart';

3. If your project has web support, you may also need to initialize the web entry point by running the following command after installing or updating this package:

dart run video_view:webinit

---

Sample code

Without controller:

import 'package:flutter/widgets.dart';
import 'package:video_view/video_view.dart';

void main() => runApp(VideoView(
	source: 'https://flutter.github.io/assets-for-api-docs/assets/videos/bee.mp4',
	autoPlay: true,
	looping: true,
));

Custom controller:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:video_view/video_view.dart';

void main() => runApp(MaterialApp(builder: (_, _) => const MyApp()));

class MyApp extends StatefulWidget {
  const MyApp({super.key});

  @override
  createState() => _MyAppState();
}

class _MyAppState extends State<MyApp> {
  final _player = VideoController();

  @override
  initState() {
    super.initState();
    _player.open(
      'https://flutter.github.io/assets-for-api-docs/assets/videos/bee.mp4',
    );
    _player.playbackState.addListener(() => setState(() {}));
  }

  @override
  dispose() {
    _player.dispose();
    super.dispose();
  }

  @override
  build(_) => Stack(
    alignment: Alignment.center,
    children: [
      VideoView(controller: _player),
      IconButton(
        iconSize: 64,
        icon: const Icon(Icons.play_arrow),
        isSelected:
            _player.playbackState.value == VideoControllerPlaybackState.playing,
        selectedIcon: const Icon(Icons.pause),
        onPressed: () =>
            _player.playbackState.value == VideoControllerPlaybackState.playing
            ? _player.pause()
            : _player.play(),
      ),
    ],
  );
}

---

Platform support

Platform	Version	Backend
Android	6+	ExoPlayer
iOS	15+	AVPlayer
macOS	12+	AVPlayer
Windows	10+	MediaPlayer2
Linux	N/A	mpv3
Web	Chrome 84+ / Safari 15+ / Firefox 90+	<video>, ShakaPlayer4

---

Supported media formats

For user who only cares about Android and iOS, the following formats are supported without condition:

Type	Formats
Video Codec	H.264, H.265
Audio Codec	AAC, MP3
Container Format	MP4, TS
Subtitle Format	WebVTT, CEA-608/708
Transfer Protocol	HTTP, HLS, LL-HLS

A more complete list with conditions:

Type	Formats
Video Codec	H.264, H.265(HEVC)5, AV16
Audio Codec	AAC, MP3
Container Format	MP4, TS, WebM6
Subtitle Format	WebVTT7, CEA-608/708
Transfer Protocol	HTTP, HLS, LL-HLS, DASH8, MSS8

---

How to specify format manually

Most backends don't support manually specifying media format, with Android and Web being the exceptions. Therefore, no formal API planned for this feature. However, supported platforms can still automatically detect stream format from URL. You may simply append a file extension to the query string or hash fragment to specify the format. Please note that only 3 extensions are recognized: .m3u8, .mpd, and .ism/manifest. If multiple extensions are found, the last one takes precedence. For example:

// No need to specify format, the url already contains `.m3u8`
final example0 = 'https://example.com/video.m3u8';

// Missing extension in path, add `.m3u8` in hash fragment
final example1 = 'https://example.com/video#.m3u8';

// Or in query string
final example1 = 'https://example.com/video?.m3u8';

// Override HLS to DASH
final example2 = 'https://example.com/video.m3u8#.mpd';