wx.media.MediaCtrl¶

wx.media.MediaCtrl is a class for displaying various types of media, such as videos, audio files, natively through native codecs.

wx.media.MediaCtrl uses native backends to render media, for example on Windows there is a ActiveMovie/DirectShow backend, and on Macintosh there is a QuickTime backend.

Rendering media¶

Depending upon the backend, wx.media.MediaCtrl can render and display pretty much any kind of media that the native system can - such as an image, mpeg video, or mp3 (without license restrictions - since it relies on native system calls that may not technically have mp3 decoding available, for example, it falls outside the realm of licensing restrictions). For general operation, all you need to do is call Load to load the file you want to render, catch the EVT_MEDIA_LOADED event, and then call Play to show the video/audio of the media in that event. More complex operations are generally more heavily dependent on the capabilities of the backend. For example, QuickTime cannot set the playback rate of certain streaming media - while DirectShow is slightly more flexible in that regard.

Operation¶

When wx.media.MediaCtrl plays a file, it plays until the stop position is reached (currently the end of the file/stream). Right before it hits the end of the stream, it fires off a EVT_MEDIA_STOP event to its parent window, at which point the event handler can choose to veto the event, preventing the stream from actually stopping. Example:

# connect to the media event
self.Bind(wx.media.EVT_MEDIA_STOP, self.OnMediaStop, self.mediactrl)

# ...
def OnMediaStop(self, evt):
    if self.userWantsToSeek:
        self.mediactrl.SetPosition(someOtherPosition)
        evt.Veto()

When wx.media.MediaCtrl stops, either by the EVT_MEDIA_STOP not being vetoed, or by manually calling Stop, where it actually stops is not at the beginning, rather, but at the beginning of the stream. That is, when it stops and play is called, playback is guaranteed to start at the beginning of the media. This is because some streams are not seekable, and when stop is called on them they return to the beginning, thus wx.media.MediaCtrl tries to keep consistent for all types of media. Note that when changing the state of the media through Play and other methods, the media may not actually be in the MEDIASTATE_PLAYING , for example. If you are relying on the media being in certain state, catch the event relevant to the state. See wx.media.MediaEvent for the kinds of events that you can catch.

Video size¶

By default, wx.media.MediaCtrl will scale the size of the video to the requested amount passed to either its constructor or Create. After calling wx.media.MediaCtrl.Load or performing an equivalent operation, you can subsequently obtain the “real” size of the video (if there is any) by calling wx.media.MediaCtrl.GetBestSize . Note that the actual result on the display will be slightly different when wx.media.MediaCtrl.ShowPlayerControls is activated and the actual video size will be less than specified due to the extra controls provided by the native toolkit. In addition, the backend may modify wx.media.MediaCtrl.GetBestSize to include the size of the extra controls - so if you want the real size of the video just disable wx.media.MediaCtrl.ShowPlayerControls . The idea with setting wx.media.MediaCtrl.GetBestSize to the size of the video is that GetBestSize is a Window-derived function that is called when sizers on a window recalculate. What this means is that if you use sizers by default the video will show in its original size without any extra assistance needed from the user.

Player controls¶

Normally, when you use wx.media.MediaCtrl it is just a window for the video to play in. However, some toolkits have their own media player interface. For example, QuickTime generally has a bar below the video with a slider. A special feature available to wx.media.MediaCtrl, you can use the toolkits interface instead of making your own by using the ShowPlayerControls function. There are several options for the flags parameter, with the two general flags being MEDIACTRLPLAYERCONTROLS_NONE which turns off the native interface, and MEDIACTRLPLAYERCONTROLS_DEFAULT which lets wx.media.MediaCtrl decide what native controls on the interface. Be sure to review the caveats outlined in Video size before doing so.

Choosing a backend¶

Generally, you should almost certainly leave this part up to wx.media.MediaCtrl - but if you need a certain backend for a particular reason, such as QuickTime for playing .mov files, all you need to do to choose a specific backend is to pass the name of the backend class to wx.media.MediaCtrl.Create . The following are valid backend identifiers:

MEDIABACKEND_DIRECTSHOW: Use ActiveMovie/DirectShow. Uses the native ActiveMovie (I.E. DirectShow) control. Default backend on Windows and supported by nearly all Windows versions. May display a windows media player logo while inactive.
MEDIABACKEND_QUICKTIME: Use QuickTime. Mac Only. WARNING: May not work correctly when embedded in a wx.Notebook.
MEDIABACKEND_GSTREAMER, Use GStreamer. Unix Only. Requires GStreamer 0.10 along with at the very least the xvimagesink, xoverlay and gst-play modules of gstreamer to function. You need the correct modules to play the relevant files, for example the mad module to play mp3s, etc.
MEDIABACKEND_WMP10, Use Windows Media Player 10 (Windows only). Works on systems with either Windows Media Player 9 or 10 installed.

Creating a backend¶

Window Styles¶

Creating a backend for wx.media.MediaCtrl is a rather simple process. Simply derive from MediaBackendCommonBase and implement the methods you want. The methods in MediaBackend correspond to those in wx.media.MediaCtrl except for MediaCtrl.CreateControl which does the actual creation of the control, in cases where a custom control is not needed you may simply call wx.Control.Create . You need to make sure to use the DECLARE_CLASS and IMPLEMENT_CLASS macros. The only real tricky part is that you need to make sure the file in compiled in, which if there are just backends in there will not happen and you may need to use a force link hack (see FORCE_LINK_MODULE usage in the mediactrl sample). There is a rather simple example of how to create a backend in the ActiveXContainer documentation. ^^ This class supports the following styles:

wx.media.MC_NO_AUTORESIZE: By default, the control will automatically adjust its size to exactly fit the size of a loaded video as soon as a video is loaded. If this flag is given, the control will not change its size automatically and it must be done manually (if desired) using Layout. It is strongly recommended to use this flag and handle control resizing manually (note that this style is only available in wxWidgets 3.1.6, so it is only possible to do it when using this or later version). ^^

Class Hierarchy¶

Inheritance diagram for class MediaCtrl:

Methods Summary¶

`__init__`	Default constructor - you `MUST` call `Create` before calling any other methods of wx.media.MediaCtrl.
`Create`	Creates this control.
`GetBestSize`	Obtains the best size relative to the original/natural size of the video, if there is any.
`GetPlaybackRate`	Obtains the playback rate, or speed of the media.
`GetState`	Obtains the state the playback of the media is in.
`GetVolume`	Gets the volume of the media from a 0.0 to 1.0 range.
`Length`	Obtains the length - the total amount of time the media has in milliseconds.
`Load`	Loads the file that fileName refers to.
`LoadURI`	Loads the location that uri refers to.
`LoadURIWithProxy`	Loads the location that `uri` refers to with the proxy `proxy` .
`Pause`	Pauses playback of the media.
`Play`	Resumes playback of the media.
`Seek`	Seeks to a position within the media.
`SetPlaybackRate`	Sets the playback rate, or speed of the media, to that referred by dRate.
`SetVolume`	Sets the volume of the media from a 0.0 to 1.0 range to that referred by `dVolume` .
`ShowPlayerControls`	A special feature to wx.media.MediaCtrl.
`Stop`	Stops the media.
`Tell`	Obtains the current position in time within the media in milliseconds.

Properties Summary¶

`BestSize`	See `GetBestSize`
`PlaybackRate`	See `GetPlaybackRate` and `SetPlaybackRate`
`State`	See `GetState`
`Volume`	See `GetVolume` and `SetVolume`

Class API¶

class wx.media.MediaCtrl(Control)¶

Possible constructors:

MediaCtrl()

MediaCtrl(parent, id=-1, fileName="", pos=DefaultPosition,
          size=DefaultSize, style=0, szBackend="", validator=DefaultValidator,
          name="mediaCtrl")

MediaCtrl is a class for displaying various types of media, such as videos, audio files, natively through native codecs.

Methods¶

__init__(self, *args, **kw)¶

Overloaded Implementations:

__init__ (self)

Default constructor - you MUST call Create before calling any other methods of wx.media.MediaCtrl.

__init__ (self, parent, id=-1, fileName=””, pos=DefaultPosition, size=DefaultSize, style=0, szBackend=””, validator=DefaultValidator, name=”mediaCtrl”)

Constructor that calls Create .

You may prefer to call Create directly to check to see if wx.media.MediaCtrl is available on the system.

Parameters:

parent (wx.Window) – parent of this control. Must not be None.
id (wx.WindowID) – id to use for events
fileName (string) – If not empty, the path of a file to open.
pos (wx.Point) – Position to put control at.
size (wx.Size) – Size to put the control at and to stretch movie to.
style (long) – Optional styles. It is recommended to use MC_NO_AUTORESIZE, although it is not used by default for compatibility reasons.
szBackend (string) – Name of backend you want to use, leave blank to make wx.media.MediaCtrl figure it out.
validator (wx.Validator) – validator to use.
name (string) – Window name.

Create(self, parent, id=-1, fileName="", pos=DefaultPosition, size=DefaultSize, style=0, szBackend="", validator=DefaultValidator, name="mediaCtrl")¶

Creates this control.

Returns False if it can’t load the media located at fileName or it can’t create a backend.

If you specify a file to open via fileName and you don’t specify a backend to use, wx.media.MediaCtrl tries each of its backends until one that can render the path referred to by fileName can be found.

Parameters:

parent (wx.Window) – parent of this control. Must not be None.
id (wx.WindowID) – id to use for events
fileName (string) – If not empty, the path of a file to open.
pos (wx.Point) – Position to put control at.
size (wx.Size) – Size to put the control at and to stretch movie to.
style (long) – Optional styles. It is recommended to use MC_NO_AUTORESIZE, although it is not used by default for compatibility reasons.
szBackend (string) – Name of backend you want to use, leave blank to make wx.media.MediaCtrl figure it out.
validator (wx.Validator) – validator to use.
name (string) – Window name.

Return type:

bool

GetBestSize(self)¶

Obtains the best size relative to the original/natural size of the video, if there is any.

See Video size for more information.

Return type:: Size

GetPlaybackRate(self)¶

Obtains the playback rate, or speed of the media.

1.0 represents normal speed, while 2.0 represents twice the normal speed of the media, for example. Not supported on the GStreamer (Unix) backend.

Return type:: float
Returns:: zero on failure.

GetState(self)¶

Obtains the state the playback of the media is in.

`wx.media.MEDIASTATE_STOPPED`	The media has stopped.
`wx.media.MEDIASTATE_PAUSED`	The media is paused.
`wx.media.MEDIASTATE_PLAYING`	The media is currently playing.

Return type:: wx.media.MediaState

GetVolume(self)¶

Gets the volume of the media from a 0.0 to 1.0 range.

Return type:: float

Note

Due to rounding and other errors the value returned may not be the exact value sent to SetVolume .

Length(self)¶

Obtains the length - the total amount of time the media has in milliseconds.

Return type:: wx.FileOffset

Load(self, fileName)¶

Loads the file that fileName refers to.

Returns False if loading fails.

Parameters:: fileName (string) –
Return type:: bool

LoadURI(self, uri)¶

Loads the location that uri refers to.

Note that this is very implementation-dependent, although HTTP URI/URLs are generally supported, for example. Returns False if loading fails.

Parameters:: uri (string) –
Return type:: bool

LoadURIWithProxy(self, uri, proxy)¶

Loads the location that uri refers to with the proxy proxy .

Not implemented on most backends so it should be called with caution. Returns False if loading fails.

Parameters:

uri (string) –
proxy (string) –

Return type:

bool

Pause(self)¶

Pauses playback of the media.

Return type:: bool

Play(self)¶

Resumes playback of the media.

Return type:: bool

Seek(self, where, mode=FromStart)¶

Seeks to a position within the media.

Parameters:

where (wx.FileOffset) –
mode (SeekMode) –

Return type:

wx.FileOffset

Todo

Document the SeekMode parameter mode, and perhaps also the FileOffset and SeekMode themselves.

SetPlaybackRate(self, dRate)¶

Sets the playback rate, or speed of the media, to that referred by dRate.

1.0 represents normal speed, while 2.0 represents twice the normal speed of the media, for example. Not supported on the GStreamer (Unix) backend. Returns True if successful.

Parameters:: dRate (float) –
Return type:: bool

SetVolume(self, dVolume)¶

Sets the volume of the media from a 0.0 to 1.0 range to that referred by dVolume .

1.0 represents full volume, while 0.5 represents half (50 percent) volume, for example.

Parameters:: dVolume (float) –
Return type:: bool

Note

The volume may not be exact due to conversion and rounding errors, although setting the volume to full or none is always exact. Returns True if successful.

ShowPlayerControls(self, flags=MEDIACTRLPLAYERCONTROLS_DEFAULT)¶

A special feature to wx.media.MediaCtrl.

Applications using native toolkits such as QuickTime usually have a scrollbar, play button, and more provided to them by the toolkit. By default wx.media.MediaCtrl does not do this. However, on the DirectShow and QuickTime backends you can show or hide the native controls provided by the underlying toolkit at will using ShowPlayerControls . Simply calling the function with default parameters tells wx.media.MediaCtrl to use the default controls provided by the toolkit. The function takes a MediaCtrlPlayerControls enumeration, please see available show modes there.

For more info see Player controls.

Currently only implemented on the QuickTime and DirectShow backends. The function returns True on success.

Parameters:: flags (MediaCtrlPlayerControls) –
Return type:: bool

Stop(self)¶

Stops the media.

See Operation for an overview of how stopping works.

Return type:: bool

Tell(self)¶

Obtains the current position in time within the media in milliseconds.

Return type:: wx.FileOffset

Properties¶

BestSize¶: See GetBestSize

PlaybackRate¶: See GetPlaybackRate and SetPlaybackRate

State¶: See GetState

Volume¶: See GetVolume and SetVolume

Navigation

wx.media.MediaCtrl¶

Rendering media¶

Operation¶

Video size¶

Player controls¶

Choosing a backend¶

Creating a backend¶

Window Styles¶

Class Hierarchy¶

Methods Summary¶

Properties Summary¶

Class API¶

Methods¶

Properties¶