For SMM related activity problem as described in this context, i solved this problem in just three steps:
Step 1: I redefined player, playerview as global variables instead of local variables thus:
Sub Globals
'....
Dim player As SimpleExoPlayer
Dim playerview As SimpleExoPlayerView
'....
end sub
Step 2: Immediately after MediaManager.SetMedia(pnl1, url), hold the media view as demonstrated below, i am sure it can be better improved using wait for (pnl1) SMM_mediaready(...) and SetMediaWithExtra, though didn't work for my scenario
MediaManager.SetMedia(panel, Starter.downloadserverip & FileName)
playerview = panel.GetView(0).GetView(0)
player = playerview.Tag
playerview.Player = player
player.Play
Step3: Under activity_pause, place this code to pause video when activity is moved to background that pauses the activity
Sub Activity_Pause (UserClosed As Boolean)
If UserClosed = True Then
player.pause
player.Play
End If
End Sub
Note: It offers perfect solution to my typical challenge as defined under this context