Cast Extension Artwork metadata not working

As of the recent deprecation of CastPlayer.loaditem() , I have updated to using com.google.android.exoplayer2.MediaMetadata.

Previously, I would add artwork like this and it would appear in the system notification media item as well as the Cast Player ExpandedControlsActivity.

val movieMetadata = MediaMetadata(MediaMetadata.MEDIA_TYPE_MOVIE)
movieMetadata.addImage(WebImage(Uri.parse(posterImage)))

I am now attempting to use the functions: movieMetadata.setArtworkUri() movieMetadata.setArtworkData()

But they do not result in the image being shown.

[dani3l3]

Thanks, I appreciate the detailed explanation.

In the code before you have built MediaQueueItems and passed them to loadItems(). Now after the deprecated method has been removed, you need to add the fields to the MediaItem when building it with the MediaItem.Builder. This is the same MediaItem that you use with ExoPlayer. So you need to do this only once and you can use the same MediaItem for both players.

Yes I have done this part.

Because under the hood, CastPlayer is still using MediaQueueItems we need to convert them when passing it to RemoteMediaClient of the Cast SDK. That’s when the MediaItemConverter comes into play.

Yes, I conceptually understand the back and forth that needs to happen.

So you are certainly right that the interface has change. However, I think it’s for the benefit of the user who is building an app with ExoPlayer and CastPlayer. Sorry if this causes some more effort than you planned for migrating to the current version. Please accept my apologies.

I do accept the apologies but yes it does cause more effort. It is something Google keeps doing… for the same reason I am waiting to update billing library because it also has breaking changes. But I digress.

So if you before have used fields for MediaQueueItem that are not copied over by the default converter, you need to create a custom converter (the artwork is an example of missing properties in the current version. We will push an updated DefaultMediaItemConverter to the dev-v2 branch soon, that supports more fields including the artwork out-of-the-box).

Here I tried following the example you gave in this other thread https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/issues/7915 … but it only partially works, nowadays… that was written a while ago and some more things have changed 😃 … for example the key method .getTag() doesn’t work anymore… that, too, has been since deprecated… how quickly things change! I tried replacing it with just the .tag property… which compiles… only to figure out that the whole playbackProperties (or localConfiguration - they are basically the same stuff, right?) come up as a NULL object at runtime??.. I have not understood why…

return (MediaQueueItem)mediaItem.playbackProperties.getTag();

… so my coverter doesn’t really convert, so far… I managed to wire up the basics because I have the stream URL in another field mediaId of the MediaItem object… so in the converter I was able to rebuild a basic MediaQueueItem object… but indeed it’s not really a ‘conversion’ and I lose all other info/metadata which are needed down the road by the UX…

would you be so kind to point me at a newer example of working code for such a custom converter that would work with the 2.16 version?

Styling MediaRouteControllerDialog falls under what the cast SDK is doing. CastPlayer does not deal with this so I don’t think that changes in the CastPlayer create difficulties with this. Please let me know if you think differently.

You are most probably right… once I manage to have a working converter we will be able to confirm if things are picked up again by the UX elements or not.

Thanks a lot,

[dani3l3]

I don’t have more info at the moment and I have been busy with higher business priorities… for now I postponed the upgrade and kept the old but working stuff.