In this article you’ll see the code to create a video player with PyQT5.
It contains a menu bar for opening the video file.

PyQt5 can play a video file inside your own window. Two classes do the work: QVideoWidget is the box the picture shows in, QMediaPlayer reads the file and sends the sound and the frames.

You never talk to the video file directly. You give the player a file and the player drives the widget.

PyQt5 supports multimedia, including a video widget: QVideoWidget. This is used in combination with the class QMediaPlayer.

The QMediaPlayer class has all kinds of properties that you may know from video players: audioAvailable, duration, position, volume and a few others.

Introduction

We create a window (QMainWindow) that contains a widget for its contents (QWidget).
Then we add the videowidget and control widgets.

pyqt video player 
videoWidget = QVideoWidget()

self.playButton = QPushButton()
self.playButton.setEnabled(False)
self.playButton.setIcon(self.style().standardIcon(QStyle.SP_MediaPlay))
self.playButton.clicked.connect(self.play)

The player will only play a video, in this example we don’t use back buttons, stop buttons.

QMediaPlayer Example

The complete code below:

# PyQt5 Video player
#!/usr/bin/env python

from PyQt5.QtCore import QDir, Qt, QUrl
from PyQt5.QtMultimedia import QMediaContent, QMediaPlayer
from PyQt5.QtMultimediaWidgets import QVideoWidget
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import (QApplication, QFileDialog, QHBoxLayout, QLabel,
        QPushButton, QSizePolicy, QSlider, QStyle, QVBoxLayout, QWidget)
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QMainWindow,QWidget, QPushButton, QAction
from PyQt5.QtGui import QIcon
import sys

class VideoWindow(QMainWindow):

    def __init__(self, parent=None):
        super(VideoWindow, self).__init__(parent)
        self.setWindowTitle("PyQt Video Player Widget Example - pythonprogramminglanguage.com") 

        self.mediaPlayer = QMediaPlayer(None, QMediaPlayer.VideoSurface)

        videoWidget = QVideoWidget()

        self.playButton = QPushButton()
        self.playButton.setEnabled(False)
        self.playButton.setIcon(self.style().standardIcon(QStyle.SP_MediaPlay))
        self.playButton.clicked.connect(self.play)

        self.positionSlider = QSlider(Qt.Horizontal)
        self.positionSlider.setRange(0, 0)
        self.positionSlider.sliderMoved.connect(self.setPosition)

        self.errorLabel = QLabel()
        self.errorLabel.setSizePolicy(QSizePolicy.Preferred,
                QSizePolicy.Maximum)

        # Create new action
        openAction = QAction(QIcon('open.png'), '&Open', self)        
        openAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+O')
        openAction.setStatusTip('Open movie')
        openAction.triggered.connect(self.openFile)

        # Create exit action
        exitAction = QAction(QIcon('exit.png'), '&Exit', self)        
        exitAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+Q')
        exitAction.setStatusTip('Exit application')
        exitAction.triggered.connect(self.exitCall)

        # Create menu bar and add action
        menuBar = self.menuBar()
        fileMenu = menuBar.addMenu('&File')
        #fileMenu.addAction(newAction)
        fileMenu.addAction(openAction)
        fileMenu.addAction(exitAction)

        # Create a widget for window contents
        wid = QWidget(self)
        self.setCentralWidget(wid)

        # Create layouts to place inside widget
        controlLayout = QHBoxLayout()
        controlLayout.setContentsMargins(0, 0, 0, 0)
        controlLayout.addWidget(self.playButton)
        controlLayout.addWidget(self.positionSlider)

        layout = QVBoxLayout()
        layout.addWidget(videoWidget)
        layout.addLayout(controlLayout)
        layout.addWidget(self.errorLabel)

        # Set widget to contain window contents
        wid.setLayout(layout)

        self.mediaPlayer.setVideoOutput(videoWidget)
        self.mediaPlayer.stateChanged.connect(self.mediaStateChanged)
        self.mediaPlayer.positionChanged.connect(self.positionChanged)
        self.mediaPlayer.durationChanged.connect(self.durationChanged)
        self.mediaPlayer.error.connect(self.handleError)

    def openFile(self):
        fileName, _ = QFileDialog.getOpenFileName(self, "Open Movie",
                QDir.homePath())

        if fileName != '':
            self.mediaPlayer.setMedia(
                    QMediaContent(QUrl.fromLocalFile(fileName)))
            self.playButton.setEnabled(True)

    def exitCall(self):
        sys.exit(app.exec_())

    def play(self):
        if self.mediaPlayer.state() == QMediaPlayer.PlayingState:
            self.mediaPlayer.pause()
        else:
            self.mediaPlayer.play()

    def mediaStateChanged(self, state):
        if self.mediaPlayer.state() == QMediaPlayer.PlayingState:
            self.playButton.setIcon(
                    self.style().standardIcon(QStyle.SP_MediaPause))
        else:
            self.playButton.setIcon(
                    self.style().standardIcon(QStyle.SP_MediaPlay))

    def positionChanged(self, position):
        self.positionSlider.setValue(position)

    def durationChanged(self, duration):
        self.positionSlider.setRange(0, duration)

    def setPosition(self, position):
        self.mediaPlayer.setPosition(position)

    def handleError(self):
        self.playButton.setEnabled(False)
        self.errorLabel.setText("Error: " + self.mediaPlayer.errorString())

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = QApplication(sys.argv)
    player = VideoWindow()
    player.resize(640, 480)
    player.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

Putting it together

  • Create a QVideoWidget and add it to the layout of your window.
  • Create a QMediaPlayer with the widget as parent.
  • player.setVideoWidget(widget) connects the two.
  • player.setMedia(QUrl.fromLocalFile('clip.mp4')) loads the file.
  • player.play() starts it.
  • player.positionChanged tells you where you are, useful for a progress bar.
  • player.setVolume(50) takes 0 to 100.
  • player.playbackStateChanged tells you if it is playing or paused.

Play a file from the internet with QUrl('https://example.com/clip.mp4') instead. Not every codec is included, so if a file stays black install VLC on the machine.

Want more practice on this? Practise this on PyChallenge, there are short browser exercises you can run right after reading.