Qt Multimedia
Qt Multimedia is an add-on module that provides a rich set of QML types and C++ classes to handle multimedia content. It contains an easy to use API for playing back audio and video files and rendering those on screen, as well as a comprehensive API for recording audio and video from the systems cameras and microphones.
The functionality of this module is divided into the following submodules:
| Qt Multimedia | Provides API for multimedia-specific use cases. |
| Qt Multimedia Widgets | Provides the widget-based multimedia API. |
Getting started
If you are porting from Qt 5 to Qt 6 see Changes to Qt Multimedia.
If you are new to Qt Multimedia, the QML types can be imported into an application using the following statement in your .qml file.
import QtMultimedia
If you want to use the C++ classes in your application, include the C++ definitions using the following directive:
#include <QtMultimedia> #include <QtMultimediaWidgets>
Note: If you are using a few classes from this module, we recommend including those specific classes only instead of the module.
To link against the C++ libraries, add the following to your project's CMakeLists.txt file. Substitute my_project with the name of your project.
find_package(Qt6 COMPONENTS Multimedia REQUIRED) target_link_libraries(my_project PUBLIC Qt::Multimedia)
QML Types
The following table outlines some important QML types.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| MediaPlayer | Add audio/video playback functionality to a scene. |
| CaptureSession | Create a session for capturing audio/video. |
| Camera | Access a camera connected to the system. |
| AudioInput | Access an audio input (microphone) connected to the system. |
| AudioOutput | Access an audio output (speaker, headphone) connected to the system. |
| VideoOutput | Display video content. |
| MediaRecorder | Record audio/video from the CaptureSession. |
| ImageCapture | Capture still images from the Camera. |
| Video | Add Video playback functionality to a scene. Uses MediaPlayer and VideoOutput types to provide video playback functionality. |
C++ Classes
The following table outlines some important C++ Classes
| Class | Description |
|---|---|
| QMediaPlayer | Playback media from a source. |
| QVideoWidget | Display video from a media player or a capture session. |
| QMediaCaptureSession | Capture audio and video. |
| QCamera | Access a camera connected to the system |
| QAudioInput | Access an audio input (microphone) connected to the system. |
| QAudioOutput | Access an audio output (speaker, headphone) connected to the system. |
| QImageCapture | Capture still images with a camera. |
| QMediaRecorder | Record media content from a capture session. |
| QVideoSink | Access and render individual video frames. |
| QAudioSink | Sends raw audio data to an audio output device. |
For playback QMediaPlayer, QAudioOutput and QVideoOutput contain all the required functionality. The other classes are used for capturing audio and video content, where the QMediaCaptureSession is the central class managing the whole capture/recording process.
Licenses and attributions
The Qt Quick Multimedia module is available under commercial licenses from The Qt Company. In addition, it is available under free software licenses. Since Qt 5.6, these free software licenses are GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3, or the GNU General Public License, version 2. See Qt Licensing for further details.
Related information
Guides
Platform notes
For most features, Qt Multimedia builds upon the multimedia framework of the underlying operating system. Therefore there are several multimedia back ends based on different technologies and APIs.
While we try to support our full API on all platforms, platform specific limitations do exist in a few places. This is due to the fact that the feature set supported by those frameworks varies, implying that some functionality might not be available on all platforms. This is especially true for the set of supported file formats and codecs, as well as advanced camera functionality.
Where limitations exist, we aim to document those in the respective classes and methods.
Reference
- Qt Multimedia