video_view

pub version pub points pub downloads

video_view is a lightweight media player with subtitle rendering^subtitle 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 -c core.symlinks=true 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
  1. Reference video_view in your Dart code:
import 'package:video_view/video_view.dart';
  1. 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+ MediaPlayer^mediaplayer
Linux N/A mpv^mpv
Web Chrome 84+ / Safari 15+ / Firefox 90+ <video>, ShakaPlayer^shaka

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)^h265, AV1^apple
Audio Codec AAC, MP3
Container Format MP4, TS, WebM^apple
Subtitle Format WebVTT^vtt, CEA-608/708
Transfer Protocol HTTP, HLS, LL-HLS, DASH^avplayer, MSS^avplayer

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';

^subtitle: Only internal subtitle tracks are supported. ^mediaplayer: MediaPlayer may lead to crash on certain Windows builds when rendering subtitles. ^mpv: video_view requires mpv(v0.4+) or libmpv(aka mpv-libs) on Linux. Developers integrating this plugin into Linux app should install libmpv-dev(aka mpv-libs-devel) instead. If unavailable in your package manager, please build mpv from source. For details refer to mpv-build. ^shaka: video_view requires ShakaPlayer v4.15+ to enable HLS, DASH, MSS support on web platforms. ^h265: Windows user may need to install a free H.265 decoder from Microsoft Store. Web platforms may lack H.265 support except for Apple webkit. ^apple: Apple platforms may lack WebM and AV1 support. ^vtt: WebVTT subtitles within HLS are not supported by Linux backend. ^avplayer: DASH and MSS are not supported by iOS/macOS backend.

Libraries

video_view