How to Multitask While Watching a Video on Android

While watching a Samsung Galaxy S3 promotional video on YouTube the other day, one feature that really impressed me was the ability to pop up the video player and view it on top of any other app. Seriously, the only reason I didn’t like to watch videos on my Android was because then I lose the power of multitasking.

Moreover, it’s very annoying to close a music video half way just because you have an important mail to send or someone just sends you an urgent text message. Thus, you see how desperately I needed a feature like that on my HTC One X.

As it’s a software feature, I was hoping to find an app on Play Store which can perform a similar task on any Android device, and indeed, there was one. Super Video is a video player for Android using which you can view your videos on Android on top of any other app. So if you are composing a mail or browsing the web, you can have the video playing in front of you in a resizable widget which always remains on top.

Playing Videos on Super Video

After you install the app, fire it up. The app will automatically scan all the videos that are available on your memory card and list them for you. To play a video, simply click on the thumbnail generated on the app home screen. The video will soon start playing in landscape mode just as it would on any other video app.

Tap the screen while the video is playing to see three Windows-like minimize, restore and close buttons on the top right corner. To pop put the player, tap the restore button. The player will pop out like a picture-in-picture frame with the video playing. You can now watch the video in the popup frame even while working on some other apps.

The popup player provides some basic controls like video navigation, play/pause on the frame. One can control the screen brightness and volume too by dragging the left and right border of the video frame respectively. The other two buttons, minimize and close, do what they are meant to. You can even drag and resize the playback popup window to suit your needs.

Note: One might experience some screen lag when the window pops out. It’s normal.

Furthermore, you can play multiple videos (maximum of 6) at the same time using the app. The limit depends upon your device hardware configuration. I have no idea where this feature can prove to be helpful but it sure sounds fun.

One think to note about the player is that it’s just an add-on to your hardware player and not a software video decoder. Thus, the type of video files that it can play varies from device to device. You might experience some problems while playing files like FLV and MKV if your device does not support them natively.

Conclusion

The software is completely free and does not entertain ads. However, if you want to play YouTube videos using the app, you will have to buy the paid version. So go on and try this new innovative player on your Android device. I am sure it will change the way you feel about playing videos on your smartphone.