Way to play video files in Tkinter?

The following code works for me with GStreamer 1.0 and Python 3 under Ubuntu 16.04. It also enables eight video players stacked in a column in a single window. (The sound channels are simply mixed together.)

The libav/ffmpeg fork created problems under Ubuntu 14.04, which seem to be solved under 16.04. Note that you need the package gstreamer1.0-libav in addition to gstreamer1.0-plugins-*.

The code builds on the 2011 answer by @koehlma, which assumed GStreamer 0.10 and Python 2.

import sys
import os

if sys.version_info[0] < 3:
    import Tkinter as tkinter
else:
    import tkinter

import gi
gi.require_version('Gst', '1.0')
from gi.repository import Gst, GObject

# Needed for set_window_handle():
gi.require_version('GstVideo', '1.0')
from gi.repository import GstVideo

def set_frame_handle(bus, message, frame_id):
    if not message.get_structure() is None:
        if message.get_structure().get_name() == 'prepare-window-handle':
            display_frame = message.src
            display_frame.set_property('force-aspect-ratio', True)
            display_frame.set_window_handle(frame_id)

NUMBER_OF_FRAMES = 8 # with more frames than arguments, videos are repeated
relative_height = 1 / float(NUMBER_OF_FRAMES)

# Only argument number checked, not validity.
number_of_file_names_given = len(sys.argv) - 1
if number_of_file_names_given < 1:
    print('Give at least one video file name.')
    sys.exit()
if number_of_file_names_given < NUMBER_OF_FRAMES:
    print('Up to', NUMBER_OF_FRAMES, 'video file names can be given.')
file_names = list()
for index in range(number_of_file_names_given):
    file_names.append(sys.argv[index + 1])

window = tkinter.Tk()
window.title("Multiple videos in a column using Tk and GST 1.0")
window.geometry('480x960')

Gst.init(None)
GObject.threads_init()

for number in range(NUMBER_OF_FRAMES):
    display_frame = tkinter.Frame(window, bg='')
    relative_y = number * relative_height
    display_frame.place(relx = 0, rely = relative_y,
            anchor = tkinter.NW, relwidth = 1, relheight = relative_height)
    frame_id = display_frame.winfo_id()

    player = Gst.ElementFactory.make('playbin', None)
    fullname = os.path.abspath(file_names[number % len(file_names)])
    player.set_property('uri', 'file://%s' % fullname)
    player.set_state(Gst.State.PLAYING)

    bus = player.get_bus()
    bus.enable_sync_message_emission()
    bus.connect('sync-message::element', set_frame_handle, frame_id)

window.mainloop()

Tha easy way is by using tkVideo

to install it

pip install tkVideo

this is script that show you how does it work easily!

from tkinter import *
from tkvideo import tkvideo

root = Tk()
my_label = Label(root)
my_label.pack()
player = tkvideo("C:\path\to\video.mp4", my_label, loop = 1, size = (1280,720))
player.play()

root.mainloop()

this is PyPI link to it for more informations.

I’ve recently made a package to do this, borderless video player. It also plays audio in sync.

pip install bvPlayer

The code:

from bvPlayer import bvPlayer

bvPlayer("file.mp4")

The repository

koehlma’s answer is quite outdated. The "Tkinter" should be "tkinter"; "gst" should "Gst"; "playbin2" should be "playbin". "STATE_PLAYING" should be "State.PLAYING". The below setup and codes works on Debian 11 as of Apr 5, 2022.

First of all, the packages you need to install are

apt install python3-gi python3-gst-1.0 python3-tk

And the code should be updated to:

import os
import sys
import tkinter as tkinter

import gi
gi.require_version('Gst', '1.0')
from gi.repository import Gst as gst
from gi.repository import GObject as gobject

def on_sync_message(bus, message, window_id):
        return
        # message does not have structure field any more.
        if not message.structure is None:
            if message.structure.get_name() == 'prepare-xwindow-id':
                image_sink = message.src
                image_sink.set_property('force-aspect-ratio', True)
                image_sink.set_xwindow_id(window_id)

gobject.threads_init()

window = tkinter.Tk()
window.geometry('500x400')

video = tkinter.Frame(window, bg='#000000')
video.pack(side=tkinter.BOTTOM,anchor=tkinter.S,expand=tkinter.YES,fill=tkinter.BOTH)

window_id = video.winfo_id()

gst.init(None)
player = gst.ElementFactory.make('playbin', 'player')
player.set_property('video-sink', None)
player.set_property('uri', 'file://%s' % (os.path.abspath(sys.argv[1])))
player.set_state(gst.State.PLAYING)

bus = player.get_bus()
bus.add_signal_watch()
bus.enable_sync_message_emission()
bus.connect('sync-message::element', on_sync_message, window_id)

window.mainloop()

Make use of tkvideoplayer version>=2.0.0 library, which can help you to play, pause, seek, get metadata of the video etc.

pip install tkvideoplayer

Sample example:

import tkinter as tk
from tkVideoPlayer import TkinterVideo

root = tk.Tk()

videoplayer = TkinterVideo(master=root, scaled=True)
videoplayer.load(r"samplevideo.mp4")
videoplayer.pack(expand=True, fill="both")

videoplayer.play() # play the video

root.mainloop()

An example to create a complete video player is in the GitHub page

Refer documentation