I'm the developer of Spirit Cloud, an SMB client/server for Android. The client implements its own Document Provider and uses Android's Storage Access Framework. This works great for apps like Microsoft Word that have integrated with Storage Access Framework but it doesn't work well with media players which typically haven't integrated with SAF and use Media Providers instead.
Reading up on Media Providers, it seems it only makes sense if the content is local to the device. If it is, the content can be added to the Media Store. If I am reading things right, a networked media provider would need to copy all the content to the device and add it to the Media store in order for things to work. That would defeat the whole notion of a network media provider.
Storage Access Framework, with document providers, seems like it is not designed for media files at all. Most players want the ability to seek within the media content for fast forward and reverse. With SAF, this is not possible. What is the best way to deliver networked media content to Android apps?
I've implemented an SMB Document Provider. I'm simply trying to understand the best way to deliver networked media content.