CamcorderProfile: predefined camcorder profile settings for camcorder applications

How to "Start Video Recording using android.provider.MediaStore.ACTION_VIDEO_CAPTURE" have been described in last exercise. If you want to develope your own custom camcorder applications (will be introduced in coming post), you have to set many settings manually; such as
- file output format
- Video codec format
- Video bit rate in bits per second
- Video frame rate in frames per second
- Video frame width and height
- Audio codec format
- Audio bit rate in bits per second,
- Audio sample rate
- Number of audio channels for recording.

Starting with Android 2.2 (API Level 8), android.media.CamcorderProfile class provide a static method get(int quality) to retrieve the predefined camcorder profile settings, QUALITY_HIGH and QUALITY_LOW (More profiles for API Level 11). It's a exercise to list the predefined settings for each profile.




First of all, create a /res/values/array.xml to define the profiles, it have to be matched with constCamcorderProfile[] in AndroidCamcorderProfile.java

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<string-array name="profile">
 <item>QUALITY_HIGH</item>
 <item>QUALITY_LOW</item>
</string-array>
</resources>

AndroidCamcorderProfile.java

package com.exercise.AndroidCamcorderProfile;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.media.CamcorderProfile;
import android.media.MediaRecorder.AudioEncoder;
import android.media.MediaRecorder.OutputFormat;
import android.media.MediaRecorder.VideoEncoder;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.AdapterView;
import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;
import android.widget.Spinner;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class AndroidCamcorderProfile extends Activity {
 
 Spinner spProfileList;
 TextView textProfile;
 
 int[] constCamcorderProfile ={
   CamcorderProfile.QUALITY_HIGH,
   CamcorderProfile.QUALITY_LOW};
 
   /** Called when the activity is first created. */
   @Override
   public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
       setContentView(R.layout.main);
      
       spProfileList = (Spinner)findViewById(R.id.profilelist);
       textProfile = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.profile);
      
       ArrayAdapter<CharSequence> adapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(this,
         R.array.profile, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item);
       adapter.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
       spProfileList.setAdapter(adapter);
       spProfileList.setOnItemSelectedListener(spProfileListOnItemSelectedListener);
   }
  
   private Spinner.OnItemSelectedListener spProfileListOnItemSelectedListener
   = new Spinner.OnItemSelectedListener(){

  @Override
  public void onItemSelected(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position,
    long id) {
   // TODO Auto-generated method stub
   String selectedProfile = parent.getAdapter().getItem(position).toString();
   textProfile.setText(selectedProfile);
   CamcorderProfile camcorderProfile
    = CamcorderProfile.get(constCamcorderProfile[position]);
   
   String profileInfo;
   profileInfo = selectedProfile + " : \n"
     + camcorderProfile.toString() + "\n";
   profileInfo += "\n" + "audioBitRate: "
     + String.valueOf(camcorderProfile.audioBitRate)
     + "\n" + "audioChannels: "
     + String.valueOf(camcorderProfile.audioChannels)
     + "\n" + "audioCodec: "
     + getAudioCodec(camcorderProfile.audioCodec)
     + "\n" + "audioSampleRate: "
     + String.valueOf(camcorderProfile.audioSampleRate)
     + "\n" + "duration: "
     + String.valueOf(camcorderProfile.duration)
     + "\n" + "fileFormat: "
     + getFileFormat(camcorderProfile.fileFormat)
     + "\n" + "quality: "
     + String.valueOf(camcorderProfile.quality)
     + "\n" + "videoBitRate: "
     + String.valueOf(camcorderProfile.videoBitRate)
     + "\n" + "videoCodec: "
     + getVideoCodec(camcorderProfile.videoCodec)
     + "\n" + "videoFrameRate: "
     + String.valueOf(camcorderProfile.videoFrameRate)
     + "\n" + "videoFrameWidth: "
     + String.valueOf(camcorderProfile.videoFrameWidth)
     + "\n" + "videoFrameHeight: "
     + String.valueOf(camcorderProfile.videoFrameHeight);   
   
   textProfile.setText(profileInfo);
  }

  @Override
  public void onNothingSelected(AdapterView<?> arg0) {
   // TODO Auto-generated method stub
   textProfile.setText("");
  }};
  
 private String getAudioCodec(int audioCodec){
  switch(audioCodec){
   case AudioEncoder.AMR_NB:
    return "AMR_NB";
   case AudioEncoder.DEFAULT:
    return "DEFAULT";
   default:
    return "unknown";
  }  
 }
 
 private String getFileFormat(int fileFormat){
  switch(fileFormat){
   case OutputFormat.MPEG_4:
    return "MPEG_4";
   case OutputFormat.RAW_AMR:
    return "RAW_AMR";
   case OutputFormat.THREE_GPP:
    return "THREE_GPP";
   case OutputFormat.DEFAULT:
    return "DEFAULT";
   default:
    return "unknown";
  }  
 }
 
 private String getVideoCodec(int videoCodec){
  switch(videoCodec){
   case VideoEncoder.H263:
    return "H263";
   case VideoEncoder.H264:
    return "H264";
   case VideoEncoder.MPEG_4_SP:
    return "MPEG_4_SP";
   case VideoEncoder.DEFAULT:
    return "DEFAULT";
   default:
    return "unknown";
  }  
 }
  
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:orientation="vertical"
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="fill_parent"
   >
<TextView 
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="@string/hello"
   />
<Spinner
   android:id="@+id/profilelist"
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   />
<TextView
   android:id="@+id/profile"
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   />
</LinearLayout>

Download the files.

Related Article:
- A simple exercise of Video Capture using MediaRecorder