Introduction to Jetpack Media3

Jetpack Media3 is the new home for media libraries that enables Android apps to display rich audio and visual experiences. Media3 offers a simple architecture with powerful customization, reliability, and optimizations based on device capabilities to abstract away the complexity that comes with fragmentation.

This document provides an introduction to key APIs for implementing playback and editing use cases with Media3.

Playback Components

Media3 offers several key components for playback use cases. The classes that make up these components will be familiar to you if you have worked with previous Android media libraries.

The following diagram demonstrates how these components come together in a typical app.

The different components of a media app that uses Media3 connect
together in several simple ways owing to their sharing of interfaces
and classes. — **Figure 1**: Media app components

The media player

A media player is a component of your app that allows playback of media files. In Media3, you'll find:

Class	Description	Implementation note
`Player`	`Player` is an interface that defines traditional high-level capabilities for a media player, such as the ability to play, pause, and seek.	In Media3, the `Player` interface is a common API implemented or used by several components, including `MediaSession` and `MediaController`, for example.
`ExoPlayer`	`ExoPlayer` is the default implementation of the `Player` interface in Media3.

Learn more about Media3 ExoPlayer

The media session

A media session provides a universal way to interact with a media player. This enables an app to advertise media playback to external sources and to receive playback control requests from external sources. In Media3, you'll find:

Class	Description	Implementation note
`MediaSession`	Media sessions enable your app to interact with an audio or video player. They advertise media playback externally and receive playback commands from external sources.	In Media3, a `MediaSession` needs a `Player` to execute commands and obtain the current state.
`MediaSessionService`	The `MediaSessionService` holds a media session and its associated player in a service separate from your app's main `Activity` to facilitate background playback.
`MediaController`	The `MediaController` class is generally used to send commands from outside your app, for example, from other apps or the system itself. The commands are sent to the underlying `Player` of the associated `MediaSession`.	The `MediaController` class implements the `Player` interface, but when calling a method, the `MediaController` sends the command sent to the connected `MediaSession`. Client apps like Google Assistant can use `MediaController` to control playback in a connected session.
`MediaLibraryService`	A `MediaLibraryService` is similar to a `MediaSessionService`, except that it includes additional APIs so you can serve your content library to client apps.
`MediaBrowser`	The `MediaBrowser` class allows the user to navigate through a media app's content library and select which items to play.	The `MediaBrowser` class implements both the `MediaController` and `Player` interfaces. Similar to `MediaController`, client apps such as Android Auto generally implement `MediaBrowser`.

Learn more about Media3 MediaSession

The UI components

Media3 provides default UI components for viewing video and controlling playback.

Class	Description	Implementation note
`PlayerView`	A default `View` to show video and playback controls.	Connects to `ExoPlayer`, `MediaController` or any other custom `Player`.
`PlayerSurface`	A Composable representing a dedicated drawing `Surface` to show video.	Connects to any `Player`, but does not contain playback controls. Only used for rendering of frames and can be resized according to various `ContentScale` types. This and many other composables can be found in the Compose UI utilities.

Learn more about Media3 UI

Editing components

Media3 includes the Transformer APIs for media editing use cases, including:

Audio and video processing, such as adding filters and effects
Handling special formats, such as HDR video and slow-motion video
Composition, such as combining multiple input files
Exporting the final output to a file

Class	Description	Implementation note
`Transformer`	Use the `Transformer` class to start and stop transformations and to check for progress updates on a running transformation.
`Effects`	An `Effects` object is a collection of audio and video effects to apply to a media item.	You can use `ExoPlayer` to preview the effects added to a media item before starting the export process.
`EditedMediaItem`	An `EditedMediaItem` represents a media item to process and the edits to apply to it.

Learn more about Media3 Transformer

Introduction video

See the video below for an introduction to Media3 from the engineers who built it.