Windows 8: How to play a video from a local Visual Studio Project Folder

  • Article
  1. Problem
    • I couldn't find a way to play a local an embedded video inside one of the Visual Studio 2012 project folders.
    • image
  2. It is fairly easy to play a video from the videos library folder.

**The XAML Code
**

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
 <Page
    x:Class="HelloVideo.MainPage"
    IsTabStop="false"
    xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:local="using:HelloVideo"
    xmlns:d="https://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
    xmlns:mc="https://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    mc:Ignorable="d">
    <Grid Background="{StaticResource ApplicationPageBackgroundThemeBrush}">
        <MediaElement
            x:Name="player"
            HorizontalAlignment="Left"
            AutoPlay="True"/>
    </Grid>
</Page>

  1. Notice the MediaElement on lines 11-14
    • It is used to play the video
    • Properties
      • It needs a name for the code behind (player)
      • I align it horizontally to the left
      • It plays automatically as soon as a video is assigned to it

The Code Behind

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
 using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using Windows.Foundation;
using Windows.Foundation.Collections;
using Windows.Storage;
using Windows.Storage.Pickers;
using Windows.Storage.Streams;
using Windows.UI.Xaml;
using Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls;
using Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Primitives;
using Windows.UI.Xaml.Data;
using Windows.UI.Xaml.Input;
using Windows.UI.Xaml.Media;
using Windows.UI.Xaml.Navigation;
namespace HelloVideo
{
    public sealed partial class MainPage : Page
    {
        public MainPage()
        {
            this.InitializeComponent();
        }
        async protected override void OnNavigatedTo(NavigationEventArgs e)
        {
            // Get to the Assets folder in Visual Studio
            StorageFolder folder = await Windows.ApplicationModel.Package.Current.InstalledLocation.GetFolderAsync("Assets");
            // Get the video we wish to play from the folder above
            StorageFile localVideo = await folder.GetFileAsync("RunFiddler.wmv");

            try
            {
                if (localVideo != null)
                {
                    // Read the video as a stream
                    var stream = await localVideo.OpenAsync(FileAccessMode.Read);
                    // Tell the player to read the stream and indicate the video type (video/wmv)
                    player.SetSource(stream, localVideo.ContentType);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
        }
    }
}

Conclusion Playing a video from a local folder in Visual Studio is easy, once you spend all the time to figure it out as I did. This same technique can be used with almost any file, not just videos. This took me way too long to figure it out. Some days my game is off. I thought I’d pass along my discoveries. Thanks for reading.