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Integrating Images, Audio, and Video in Android Apps

  • Writer: Alex Ricciardi
    Alex Ricciardi
  • Mar 16
  • 3 min read

The article provides an overview on how to incorporate multimedia elements into Android applications. It covers essential aspects such as handling permissions for accessing device resources, displaying images using ImageView and Image composable, and playing audio and video with MediaPlayer, VideoView and Jetpack Media3.


Alexander S. Ricciardi

March 16, 2025

 
An Android Phone and a Laptop with code on the screen.

Incorporating images, audio, and video into an Android app often involves implementing permissions to display images and play videos. This is usually necessary to meet the project's requirements or enhance the user’s experience. This post provides an overview on how to integrate images, audio, and video into Android apps.


Permissions


To integrate images, audio, and video within an Android app, handling permissions is essential because multimedia functionalities require access to sensitive resources like the camera and external storage. Thus, understanding what the necessary permissions are and how to implement them is crucial. Additionally, before they can be implemented, the permissions have to be allowed by the user.


To implement a camera permission, for example, to capture or record videos, an app needs to request access to the camera (Android Developers. n.d.a). This request can be declared in the AndroidManifest.xml file as follows:


<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />

To implement storage permissions to access media files stored on the device, the storage-related permissions need to be declared, and the files must reside in the ediaStore.Images, MediaStore.Video, or MediaStore.Audio (Android Developers. n.d.b).

For apps used in Android 10 (API level 29) and higher, scoped storage is the recommended. With scoped storage, apps have access to their own app-specific directories and can access media files through the MediaStore API. For Android 9 and lower, or not wanting to use scoped storage, the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE (read only) and the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE (write only) permissions need to be declared in the AndroidManifest.xml file as follows:


<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

Image, Audio, and Video


To display images using XML, the ImageView element is used to display images from various sources such as from drawable, local storage, and networks. To use ImageView with a drawable, simply drag the ImageView widget into your activity's layout, and then a pop-up dialog will appear, allowing you to choose from the available drawables (Rishu_mishra, 2025).

When using Composable, the Image composable provides a way to display images. You can load images from different sources, including drawables, bitmaps, and painters (Android Developers. n.d.c).


To play audio, the MediaPlayer class allows to play audio. It supports various audio sources, including local files, streams, and resources (Adityamshidlyali, 2024)

To play videos, the VideoView is a UI element allows playing video content. It supports videos from various sources, including local files, resources, and network URLs (Google Developers, n.d.).

Another alternative to MediaPlayer and VideoView, Jetpack Media3 is an Android library for media that enables apps to display rich audio and visual experiences (Android Developers. n.d.d).


To summarize, integrating into an Android app, images, audio, and video requires handling permissions and the use of different tools. Permissions like CAMERA, READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, and WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE need to be declared in the AndroidManifest.xml file and allowed by the user. For displaying images, ImageView in XML layouts or the Image composable can be used for that purpose. Audio can be managed by using the MediaPlayer class, while for video playing, VideoView can be used. An alternative for audio and video playing is to use the Jetpack Media3 library.


 

References:


Adityamshidlyali (2024, August 12). MediaPlayer class in Android. GeeksForGeeks. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/mediaplayer-class-in-android/


Android Developers (n.d.a). Capture an image. Google. https://developer.android.com/media/camera/camerax/take-photo


Android Developers (n.d.b). Access media files from shared storage. Google. https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/media


Android Developers (n.d.c). Add images to your Android app. Google. https://developer.android.com/codelabs/basic-android-kotlin-compose-add-images#0


Android Developers. (n.d.d). Introduction to Jetpack Media3. Google. https://developer.android.com/media/media3


Google Developers (n.d.). 13.1: Playing video with VideoView. Advanced Android development. Google. https://google-developer-training.github.io/android-developer-advanced-course-practicals/


Rishu_mishra (2025, January 28). ImageView in Android with example. GeeksForGeeks. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/imageview-in-android-with-example/

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