Multimedia Overview#

A set of APIs for working with audio, video and camera devices.

Multimedia support in Qt is provided by the Qt Multimedia module. The Qt Multimedia module provides a rich feature set that enables you to easily take advantage of a platform’s multimedia capabilities, such as media playback and the use of camera devices.

Features#

Here are some things you can do with the Qt Multimedia APIs:

  • Access raw audio devices for input and output.

  • Play low latency sound effects.

  • Play 3D spatial audio.

  • Play media files in playlists (such as compressed audio or video files).

  • Record audio and compress it.

  • Use a camera, including viewfinder, image capture, and movie recording

  • Decode audio media files into memory for processing.

Multimedia Components#

The Qt Multimedia APIs are categorized into three main components. More information specific to each component is available in the overview pages. You can also take a look at some recipes .

Multimedia Recipes#

For some quick recipes, see this table:

Use case

Examples

QML Types

C++ Classes

Playing a sound effect

SoundEffect

QSoundEffect

Playing 3D sound

audiopanning

SpatialSound, AudioEngine

QSpatialSound, QAudioEngine

Playing encoded audio (MP3, AAC etc)

player

MediaPlayer

QMediaPlayer

Playing raw audio data with low latency

audiooutput

QAudioSink

Accessing raw audio input data

spectrum , audiosource

QAudioSource

Recording encoded audio data

audiorecorder

CaptureSession , AudioInput , MediaRecorder

QMediaCaptureSession , QAudioInput , QMediaRecorder

Discovering audio and video devices

audiodevices

MediaDevices , audioDevice , cameraDevice

QMediaDevices , QAudioDevice , QCameraDevice

Video Playback

player , mediaplayer

MediaPlayer , VideoOutput , Video

QMediaPlayer , QVideoWidget , QGraphicsVideoItem

Capturing audio and video

camera , recorder

CaptureSession , Camera , AudioInput VideoOutput

QMediaCaptureSession , QCamera , QAudioInput , QVideoWidget

Capturing photos

camera , recorder

CaptureSession , Camera , ImageCapture

QMediaCaptureSession , QCamera , QImageCapture

Capturing movies

camera , recorder

CaptureSession , Camera , MediaRecorder

QMediaCaptureSession , QCamera , QMediaRecorder

Limitations#

The Qt Multimedia APIs build upon the multimedia framework of the underlying platform. This can mean that support for various codecs, or containers will vary between machines. This support depends on what the end user has installed. See Supported Media Formats for more detail.

Note

Qt Multimedia APIs depend on functionality provided by QCoreApplication, and multimedia objects created using the Qt Multimedia APIs can only be used during the lifetime of this application object. It is therefore important to create a QCoreApplication, QGuiApplication, or QApplication before accessing any of the Qt Multimedia APIs. If the application object is recreated, make sure that any Qt Multimedia objects are also recreated.

Changes from Previous Versions#

If you previously used Qt Multimedia in Qt 5, see Changes to Qt Multimedia for more information on what has changed, and what you might need to change when porting code to Qt 6.

Reference Documentation#