77 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
77 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: Battery consumption
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---
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## How important is battery consumption due to media playback? ##
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Avoiding unnecessary battery consumption is an important aspect of developing a
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good Android application. Media playback can be a major cause of battery drain,
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however its importance for a particular app heavily depends on its usage
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patterns. If an app is only used to play small amounts of media each day, then
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the corresponding battery consumption will only be a small percentage of the
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total consumption of the device. In such it makes sense to prioritize feature
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set and reliability over optimizing for battery when selecting which player to
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use. On the other hand, if an app is often used to play large amounts of media
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each day, then optimizing for battery consumption should be weighted more
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heavily when choosing between a number of viable options.
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## How power efficient is ExoPlayer? ##
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The diverse nature of the Android device and media content ecosystems means that
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it’s difficult to make widely applicable statements about ExoPlayer’s battery
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consumption, and in particular how it compares with Android’s MediaPlayer API.
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Both absolute and relative performance vary by hardware, Android version and the
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media being played. Hence the information provided below should be treated as
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guidance only.
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### Video playback ###
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For video playback, our measurements show that ExoPlayer and MediaPlayer draw
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similar amounts of power. The power required for the display and decoding the
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video stream are the same in both cases, and these account for most of the power
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consumed during playback.
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Regardless of which media player is used, choosing between `SurfaceView` and
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`TextureView` for output can have a significant impact on power consumption.
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`SurfaceView` is more power efficient, with `TextureView` increasing total power
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draw during video playback by as much as 30% on some devices. `SurfaceView`
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should therefore be preferred where possible. Read more about choosing between
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`SurfaceView` and `TextureView`
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[here]({{ site.baseurl }}/ui-components.html#choosing-a-surface-type).
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Below are some power consumption measurements for playing 1080p and 480p video
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on Pixel 2, measured using a [Monsoon power monitor][]. As mentioned above,
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these numbers should not be used to draw general conclusions about power
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consumption across the Android device and media content ecosystems.
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| | MediaPlayer | ExoPlayer |
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|-------------------|:-----------:|:----------|
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| SurfaceView 1080p | 202 mAh | 214 mAh |
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| TextureView 1080p | 219 mAh | 221 mAh |
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| SurfaceView 480p | 194 mAh | 207 mAh |
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| TextureView 480p | 212 mAh | 215 mAh |
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### Audio playback ###
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For short audio playbacks or playbacks when the screen is on, using ExoPlayer
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does not have a significant impact on power compared to using MediaPlayer.
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For long playbacks with the screen off, ExoPlayer's audio offload mode needs to
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be used or ExoPlayer may consume significantly more power than MediaPlayer.
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Audio offload allows audio processing to be offloaded from the CPU to a
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dedicated signal processor. It is used by default by MediaPlayer but not
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ExoPlayer. ExoPlayer introduced support for audio offload in 2.12 as an
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experimental feature. See `DefaultRenderersFactory.setEnableAudioOffload` and
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`ExoPlayer.experimentalSetOffloadSchedulingEnabled` for more details on how
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to enable it.
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Due to SDK API limitations, ExoPlayer's audio offload mode is only available on
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devices running Android 10 and above. MediaPlayer can use audio offload on
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devices running earlier versions of Android. Whether the increased robustness,
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flexibility and feature set that ExoPlayer provides over MediaPlayer is worth
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the increased power consumption for audio only use cases on older devices is
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something an app developer must decide, taking their requirements and app usage
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patterns into account.
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[Monsoon power monitor]: https://www.msoon.com/battery-configuration
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