Background artwork for audio in Cast

Using com.google.android.exoplayer2.MediaMetadata it’s possible to add only one artwork with .setArtworkUri(). On a cast device with display, that artwork would display next to the title with no possibility to set a background, leaving the screen black when the playing controls disappear after a few settings. A background artwork was displayed up until version 15 when we could use ‘MediaMetadata.loadItems’. Is there a way to display a background again?

[marcbaechinger]

You can add it to the extras with your own key and then take it from there in the MediaItemConverter:

MediaItem.Builder builder = new MediaItem.Builder();
Bundle extras = new Bundle();
extras.putString(MY_KEY_CAST_BACKGROUND_IMAGE_URI, backgroundImageUri);
builder.setMediaMetadata(
    new MediaMetadata.Builder()
        .setExtras(extras)
        .build());
MediaItem mediaItem = builder.build();

Then in the MediaItemConverter you can get the image uri from mediaItem.mediaMetadata.extras.getString(MY_KEY_CAST_BACKGROUND_IMAGE_URI) and use it to create a cast WebImage to be added to the cast item.

[abdurahmanadilovic]

same issue, can’t find an alternative to addImage on MediaItem and MediaItem is needed for .setMediaItem() on the CastPlayer. Also, the Chromecast TV interface dims after a couple of seconds, I assume because there is only one image loaded.

Looking at the CastPlayer it does internally convert MediaItem to MediaQueueItem before its sends data to the cast device, I think it would make sense to open the interface and make CastPlayer accept MediaQueueItem.

@marcbaechinger The issue is I think that currently there can be only one image set on the MediaItem, even if there is a custom converter class, MediaItem builder has an option to set only setArtworkUri() and I think we are missing something like setBackgroundArtworkUri(). The way that was done before was by calling addImage() multiple times.