Feature Request: Alternative Audio Player

[cnleo]

It would awesome to select an alternative audio player - to support more audio formats - (select one player that are exist on device; at the moment it has only a switch for "sonic player" or "Prestissimo").

App version: 1..5.2.0 (from F-Store)

Android version: 5.1.1

Devide model: Tablet

Expected behaviour: Select an other audio player app on your device you have installed.

Current behaviour: The option about "sonic player" or "Prestissimo" (both are limited support of audio files)

Steps to reproduce:
Menue -> Settings -> Sonic Mediaplayer (on/off)
Some files they are not supported with the default player:
http://feeds.metaebene.me/raumzeit/opus

[domingos86]

That particular podcast is also available in compatible formats: http://feeds.metaebene.me/raumzeit/m4a

We could add functionality to start other players, but then it would be almost impossible to control the playback of the episodes, so we wouldn't be able to determine how long an episode was played, or if it was played at all (so the user would have to manually mark them as played, remove from the queue and delete the files). The right way is certainly to have a player similar to sonic that works with more formats.

But then, IMHO, this seems like too much work to solve a problem that, given the alternative format, doesn't exist in the first place.

[domingos86]

Interestingly enough, it works on my phone (nexus 5 running android 6.0.1) using either sonic or the native player. Renaming the extension to .ogg didn't break it either (in fact, it seems like some players were able to pick up more metadata than originally), so you could try to do that trick and, if it starts playing on yours, we could consider renaming such files automatically when downloading (or after downloading, based on its mime-type). Anyways, if done, that would probably be one of those weird options in the settings that almost nobody knows what's for.

[mfietz]

To be honest, I don't know of any podcast that doesn't provide a media format we can play.
If your phone/OS does not support opus, ogg or one of this other fancy new formats, why not resort to mp3? Don't tell me you can hear the difference, because you can't...

[cnleo]

Why not go to the next step and support more file formats in 2016?

If you want play flac why not. If you want play mka why not?
And you can already play it with other player you installed on your device.
But it is not so easy, smoth and nice at the moment on antennaPod to play the allready downloaded audio files from rss feeds in an alternative player.
By the way, why not save the audo files in the default "download" folder instead of ".../data/de..../files"?

[mfietz]

Why not go to the next step and support more file formats in 2016?

A lot of codecs were added in Android 4.0 and 4.1 (4 years old), the codec for opus, for instance, was added in Android 5 (1,5 years old).
If you want to play fancy new audio formats (The reason I look down on them so much is that, in my experience, the decoders that are shipped with Android tend to suck, MP3 still gives you the best compatibility), just get a reasonable current Android version...

If you want play flac why not.

FLAC is supported since Android 3.1 [1], i.e. for over four and a half years now...

If you want play mka why not?

What's that? Matroska? The container format which can audio and video tracks in pretty much any codec?

But it is not so easy, smoth and nice at the moment on antennaPod to play the allready downloaded audio files from rss feeds in an alternative player.

AntennaPod is a podcast manager. Playing the file in external players pretty much takes out the managing part and degrades it to a downloader. Not too sure I want that.

By the way, why not save the audo files in the default "download" folder instead of ".../data/de..../files"?

Every new Android version brings new restrictions on the access to folders or external storage. I'm really not to keen on doing any changes in this respect. Usually, this works fine on some devices, but completely breaks others. Did I mention we accept pull requests?

[1] https://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html

[cnleo]

Ok if nobody want more file formats support, ok.
If averyone happy about the status, pleas ignore me.

But as reminder, you can play all formats of your choice if you use an alternative player.
Only the handling to get the file they downloaded from AntennaPod (are not supporting to play) to the player (they supporting to play) is a little complicated.

P.S. The rename from .opus to .ogg without success to play. I have read that android supports only opus-codec in mkv-container (not sure is it true, not tested).

[keunes]

Ok if nobody want more file formats support, ok.
If averyone happy about the status, pleas ignore me.

I hope no-one gets annoyed in this discussion 👍 Let's try to keep a positive vibe ;)

If you want to play fancy new audio formats (The reason I look down on them so much is that, in my experience, the decoders that are shipped with Android tend to suck, MP3 still gives you the best compatibility), just get a reasonable current Android version...

Agree in principle, but trying to demand updates from big vendors like Samsung is pointless: There are lawsuits over this updating thing, and we should not expect a) users to buy a new phone if Android gets out of date or that b) users can install whatever on their phones (depending on their &/or their phones' capabilities).

as reminder, you can play all formats of your choice if you use an alternative player.

Agree here

AntennaPod is a podcast manager. Playing the file in external players pretty much takes out the managing part and degrades it to a downloader. Not too sure I want that.

Don't be exaggerating @mfietz ;) I agree it's best to keep everything together, but giving users the option to in some cases move away from this standard might not be such a bad idea. Even if AP doesn't play certain files itself it serves it's managing purpose (e.g. downloading, storing, favouriting, sharing, tracking played & unplayed albeit manually).
What about for example a button in the episode view's overflow menu to "Open with..." (& let the user take care of 'marking as listened'/remove from queue etc)?

[domingos86]

It probably doesn't hurt to let users open the file with media player apps. My suggestion would go to add another item to the share submenu whenever the file is available offline. This applies at least for context menus in the queue or other lists, and for the overflow menu on the media player activity. I don't know however if there's an implicit intent that could be used for #2015 (maybe ACTION_INSERT, although it seems unlikely).

[KAMiKAZOW]

If more formats is the only reason: https://wiki.videolan.org/LibVLC

[mfietz]

@KAMiKAZOW Thought about it. Would add about 30 MB to the app's size. And we would have to build separate APKs for separate architectures. In short: Nope.

[keunes]

My suggestion would go to add another item to the share submenu

Not sure I'd look there ('share') if I wanted to open a file with another player/app (actually I think I wouldn't).

Thought about it. Would add about 30 MB to the app's size. And we would have to build separate APKs for separate architectures.

Could it potentially theoretically work like as a plugin which has to be downloaded separately & enabled through the settings?

[domingos86]

Not sure I'd look there ('share') if I wanted to open a file with another player/app (actually I think I wouldn't).

Conceptually, the notions are equivalent. For instance, when on AP you share the episode URL, most of the options you see aren't really messaging apps but rather other apps that let you take notes or do some action to the URL. So sharing isn't as much about sharing with other people, more about sharing with other apps.

Could it potentially theoretically work like as a plugin which has to be downloaded separately & enabled through the settings?

The plugin idea isn't bad at all... although I'd say it's far from being a priority at the moment. Show me a decent podcast with no format AP supports and my opinion could change.

[domingos86]

Still on the "Share..." point, we of course would not call this feature a share feature, more like a "play on other app" or something similar (hopefully better sounding). The idea to include it in the share submenu is because it's conceptually similar and not many users would use it, so we should rather not fill up the menu with less important items.

[Slomo17]

i also would like this feature for an alternative video player, i use a player which sets the brightness to maximum when it starts playing.

[keunes]

Could this be considered 'covered' with the introduction of ExoPlayer (in #2655)? While the implementation requested is support for external players, the problem identified by OP is the lack of support for specific file formats (which may be covered now with ExoPlayer, hence my question).
@cnleo @ByteHamster

[ByteHamster]

I agree that playing with an alternative audio player would defeat the whole purpose of AntennaPod. You would no longer have the option to continue playback where you stopped, even marking episodes as played would have to be done manually.

To support more file formats, we added ExoPlayer in version 1.7.1. You can enable the player in Settings -> Playback -> Media Player.