Multimedia Overview

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.

Audio Overview
Video Overview
Camera Overview
Spatial Audio Overview (Technology Preview)

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

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