AndroidX Media

AndroidX Media is a collection of libraries for implementing media use cases on Android, including local playback (via ExoPlayer) and media sessions.

Current status

AndroidX Media is currently in beta and we welcome your feedback via the issue tracker. Please consult the release notes for more details about the beta release.

ExoPlayer's new home will be in AndroidX Media, but for now we are publishing it both in AndroidX Media and via the existing ExoPlayer project. While AndroidX Media is in beta we recommend that production apps using ExoPlayer continue to depend on the existing ExoPlayer project. We are still handling ExoPlayer issues on the ExoPlayer issue tracker.

You'll find some Media3 documentation on developer.android.com, including a migration guide for existing ExoPlayer and MediaSession users.

AndroidX Media releases provide API stability guarantees, ensuring that the API surface remains backwards compatible for the most commonly used APIs. APIs intended for more advanced use cases are marked as unstable. To use an unstable method or class without lint warnings, you’ll need to add the OptIn annotation before using it. For more information see the UnstableApi documentation.

For a high level overview of the initial version of AndroidX Media please see the Android Dev Summit talk What's next for AndroidX Media and ExoPlayer.

Using the libraries

You can get the libraries from the Google Maven repository. It's also possible to clone this GitHub repository and depend on the modules locally.

From the Google Maven repository

1. Add module dependencies

The easiest way to get started using AndroidX Media is to add gradle dependencies on the libraries you need in the build.gradle file of your app module.

For example, to depend on ExoPlayer with DASH playback support and UI components you can add dependencies on the modules like this:

implementation 'androidx.media3:media3-exoplayer:1.X.X'
implementation 'androidx.media3:media3-exoplayer-dash:1.X.X'
implementation 'androidx.media3:media3-ui:1.X.X'

where 1.X.X is your preferred version. All modules must be the same version.

Please see the AndroidX Media3 developer.android.com page for more information, including a full list of library modules.

This repository includes some modules that depend on external libraries that need to be built manually, and are not available from the Maven repository. Please see the individual READMEs under the libraries directory for more details.

2. Turn on Java 8 support

If not enabled already, you also need to turn on Java 8 support in all build.gradle files depending on AndroidX Media, by adding the following to the android section:

compileOptions {
  targetCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
}

3. Enable multidex

If your Gradle minSdkVersion is 20 or lower, you should enable multidex in order to prevent build errors.

Locally

Cloning the repository and depending on the modules locally is required when using some libraries. It's also a suitable approach if you want to make local changes, or if you want to use the main branch.

First, clone the repository into a local directory:

git clone https://github.com/androidx/media.git
cd media

Next, add the following to your project's settings.gradle file, replacing path/to/media with the path to your local copy:

gradle.ext.androidxMediaModulePrefix = 'media-'
apply from: file("path/to/media/core_settings.gradle")

You should now see the AndroidX Media modules appear as part of your project. You can depend on them as you would on any other local module, for example:

implementation project(':media-lib-exoplayer')
implementation project(':media-lib-exoplayer-dash')
implementation project(':media-lib-ui')

Developing AndroidX Media

Project branches

Development work happens on the main branch. Pull requests should normally be made to this branch.

The release branch holds the most recent stable release.

Using Android Studio

To develop AndroidX Media using Android Studio, simply open the project in the root directory of this repository.