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POAndroid: how to get a video thumbnail of a file that's private to your application?
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  1. POAndroid: how to get a video thumbnail of a file that's private to your application?
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    copied!<h2>Question:</h2> <p>How do you get a video thumbnail for an application-private file? Specifically, is there a way to extract video frames from an .mpeg file directly?</p> <h2>Background:</h2> <ol> <li>My application includes a camera that can record video.</li> <li>For product reasons, the video file is initially created and written in private mode in the application's private data directory, making it private to the application. This is done using: <a href="http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Context.html#openFileOutput%28java.lang.String,%20int%29" rel="noreferrer"><code>Context#openFileOutput(fileName, Context.MODE_PRIVATE)</code></a> - a typical file path looks like this: <code>/data/data/[package.name]/files/[fileName].mp4</code> -- FYI I already tried using <code>Context.MODE_WORLD_READABLE</code> instead of <code>Context.MODE_PRIVATE</code> but it didn't help.</li> <li>Even though the video may eventually end up in external storage (by moving the file to <a href="http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Environment.html#getExternalStoragePublicDirectory%28java.lang.String%29" rel="noreferrer"><code>Environment#getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(Environment.DIRECTORY_MOVIES)</code>)</a>, the thumbnail <em>must</em> be displayed while the video is in application-private storage.</li> <li><p>It seems like <a href="http://developer.android.com/reference/android/media/ThumbnailUtils.html#createVideoThumbnail%28java.lang.String,%20int%29" rel="noreferrer"><code>ThumbnailUtils.createVideoThumbnail(String, int)</code></a> works fine for the file after it is moved to the public directory (regardless of adding it to the MediaStore), but silently fails (returns <code>null</code>) when the file is in internal storage.</p> <ul> <li>Note: as long as the video file is in application-private storage, it is not added to the MediaStore (the image/video content provider on the device Gallery feeds on). Only once the video is moved to external storage do I add it the MediaStore. This is a product-related decision which I cannot circumnavigate; unless there's a way to add the video the media store without it being visible to other apps... I wonder if videos in application-private storage can be added to the media store and would remain application-private but gain all the free "services" provided by the media store such as thumbnail generation.</li> </ul></li> </ol>
 

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