Question

I have tested my application on various mobile phones. My applications main functionality is taking pictures and recording video through the phones camera. I didn’t face an issue on most of the mobile phones, but I did face this issue on Motorola DROID RAZR. My application works fine when i take a picture. But I’m facing an issue when I record a video. When I record a video, I get a blank screen. There is no preview showing on the mobile screen. I don’t why its happening, but on most of the mobile phones its working fine. And taking picture working fine on this phone (the droid razr).

Motorola DROID RAZR configuration,

1. OPERATING SYSTEM : Android v2.3.5.
2. CAMERA : HD camera, 8MP.
3. PROCESSOR : TI OMAP4430

Here is my code,

Camera camera = Camera.open();
Parameters params = camera.getParameters();
camera.setDisplayOrientation(90);
camera.setParameters(params);               
camera.setDisplayOrientation(90);

MediaRecorder recorder = new MediaRecorder();
recorder.setCamera(camera);
recorder.setAudioSource(MediaRecorder.AudioSource.CAMCORDER);
recorder.setVideoSource(MediaRecorder.VideoSource.CAMERA);
recorder.setProfile(CamcorderProfile.get(CamcorderProfile.QUALITY_HIGH));
recorder.setVideoSize(640, 480);
recorder.setMaxDuration(25000);
recorder.setOrientationHint(90); 

Update:

I have tested this application on Motorola Droid Razr emulator. I got the following exception,

MediaRecorder(430): prepare failed: -17
System.err(430): java.io.IOException: prepare failed.
System.err(430):    at android.media.MediaRecorder._prepare(Native Method)
System.err(430):    at android.media.MediaRecorder.prepare(MediaRecorder.java:590)

But I didn’t get this exception on my other emulator. How to resolve this issue?

Answer 1

Finally I found the solution. Below code works well on all devices. 😉

        Holder holder = getHolder();
        holder.addCallback(this);
        holder.setType(SurfaceHolder.SURFACE_TYPE_PUSH_BUFFERS);
        Camera camera = Camera.open();
        try {
            camera.setPreviewDisplay(holder);
            camera.startPreview();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e(TAG, e.getMessage());
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        camera.unlock();
        MediaRecorder recorder = new MediaRecorder();
        recorder.setCamera(camera);
        recorder.setAudioSource(MediaRecorder.AudioSource.MIC);
        recorder.setVideoSource(MediaRecorder.VideoSource.CAMERA);
        recorder.setOutputFormat(MediaRecorder.OutputFormat.THREE_GPP);
        recorder.setVideoSize(640, 480);
        recorder.setVideoFrameRate(20);
        recorder.setVideoEncodingBitRate(3000000);
        recorder.setAudioEncoder(MediaRecorder.AudioEncoder.DEFAULT);
        recorder.setVideoEncoder(MediaRecorder.VideoEncoder.H264);

        try {

            String videopath = File.createTempFile("video", ".mp4")
                    .getAbsolutePath();

            recorder.setOutputFile(videopath);

        } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {           
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        recorder.setPreviewDisplay(holder.getSurface());