QGC Guide (master)

Video ​

When video streaming is enabled (Application Settings - Video), QGroundControl will display the video stream for the currently selected vehicle in the "video switcher window" at the bottom left of the map. You can press the switcher anywhere to toggle Video and Map to foreground.

INFO

Video streaming is configured/enabled in Application Settings > General tab > Video.

You can further configure video display using controls on the switcher:

  • Resize the switcher by dragging the icon in the top right corner.
  • Hide the switcher by pressing the toggle icon in the lower left.
  • Detach the video switcher window by pressing on the icon in its top left corner (once detached, you can move and resize the window just like any other in your OS). If you close the detached window the switcher will re-lock to the QGC Fly view.

When a stream is lost, its last picture stays on screen, dimmed, under VIDEO LOST - RECONNECTING until the video returns. A stream you stop or change is cleared instead.

Video Statistics ​

While a video stream plays, the Video indicator in the Fly View toolbar shows its frame rate and bitrate (its resolution with the Qt Multimedia video backend, which can't measure the bitrate). The indicator turns orange while a stream loses packets, drops frames, or shows less than three quarters of the frame rate its camera advertises. To check the health of the video link, click the indicator: its dropdown shows, about once a second:

  • Source and URL: how the stream arrives (RTSP, RTP/UDP, MPEG-TS over UDP or TCP) and its address, without user name, password or query values.
  • Camera stream: the name of the stream a MAVLink camera advertises.
  • Frame rate: frames shown per second, averaged over the last three seconds.
  • Dropped: frames dropped since the stream started because display couldn't keep up.
  • Bitrate: compressed video received, averaged over the last three seconds.
  • Video: resolution and video format, such as H.264.
  • Keyframe interval: the time between the last two keyframes. A long interval makes the picture take longer to recover from packet loss.
  • Decoder: the video decoder, and whether it decodes in hardware or software. Decoder restarts counts the times the decoder was replaced after an error or a stall.
  • Display path: how decoded frames reach the screen: CPU, or the zero-copy GPU path (for example DMABuf, GL or D3D11). GPU fallbacks counts frames the GPU path couldn't import, which took the CPU path instead.
  • Latency: the delay the video pipeline adds on top of the network (mostly the RTP jitter buffer).
  • Packet loss and Jitter (RTP streams only: UDP h.264/h.265 and RTSP): the share of packets lost over the last second (with the number lost since the stream started), and the variation in packet arrival times. They are not shown for MPEG-TS streams, nor for UDP streams in Low Latency Mode, which has no jitter buffer to measure them.
  • Late / duplicate packets (RTP streams only): packets that arrived after their playout time, and packets that arrived twice.
  • Retransmissions (RTSP): lost packets QGroundControl asked the camera to send again, and how many arrived in time.
  • Uptime: how long the stream has played since it last connected. Reconnects counts the times it came back after a loss.
  • Recording: while recording, how long and how much has been written.

For a MAVLink camera, its advertised frame rate, bitrate and resolution follow the measured ones in brackets. When a camera also sends a thermal stream, its statistics appear below.

For a USB camera, the indicator shows the frame rate and the resolution (for example 1080p), and its dropdown shows under USB Camera:

  • Camera: the camera's name.
  • Frame rate: frames shown per second, averaged over the last three seconds, followed by the frame rate the camera was set up for. Many USB cameras lower their frame rate in dim light to expose longer.
  • Video: resolution and the format the camera sends, such as MJPEG or YUYV.
  • Display path: CPU for frames in memory, GPU for frames that reach the screen as textures.
  • Uptime: how long the camera has shown video.

QGroundControl tells you when the USB camera reports an error, and tries it again a few times, two seconds apart. It also tells you when the camera is unplugged, and shows its video again once it is plugged back in.

Expand the dropdown (">") to change, without leaving the Fly View, the Low Latency Mode and RTP jitter latency of a network stream (under Video Stream), the Video Backend, Decoder Priority and Force CPU Video Path (under Decoding; changing any restarts the video) and the Grid Lines, Telemetry Overlay and Display Fit of the video (under Video Display). Restart Video reconnects the streams, and All Video Settings opens Application Settings > Video. For a USB camera, only the Video Display settings and All Video Settings apply.

Record Video ​

If supported by the camera and vehicle, QGroundControl can start and stop video recording on the camera itself. QGroundControl can also record the video stream and save it locally.

TIP

Video stored on the camera may be of much higher quality, but it is likely that your ground station will have a much larger recording capacity.

Record Video Stream (on GCS) ​

Video stream recording is controlled on the video stream instrument page. Press the red circle to start recording a new video (a new video file is created each time the circle is pressed); the circle will change into a red square while recording is in progress. If the stream drops out while recording, the recording continues once the stream is back, in a new file named after the first with _part2, _part3 and so on added (for example 2026-10-24_10.15.00_part2.mp4). With the Qt Multimedia video backend a stream is recorded as a USB camera is (below), from the video on display: it continues in the same file once the stream is back. Recordings carry the time they started and, as their comment, the QGroundControl version that recorded them.

A USB camera is recorded the same way, with its telemetry subtitles. QGroundControl encodes it with Qt: as H.264 where the platform's encoder accepts the camera's frames, otherwise with the next codec that does (H.265, AV1, VP9, MPEG-4 Part 2 or MPEG-2). On Linux, Qt encodes H.264 only on the GPU (VA-API or NVENC), so without one a USB camera recording is MPEG-4 Part 2. USB Camera Recording Codec in Application Settings > Video picks a codec to try first. If Qt can't write the recording format's container, another container is used and the file is named for it. A recording ends when the USB camera, or its format, changes.

Video stream recording is configured in the Application Settings > General tab:

  • Video Recording - specifies the recording file format and storage limits.

    INFO

    Videos are saved in Matroska format (.mkv) by default. This format is relatively robust against corruption in case of errors.

  • Miscellaneous - Streamed video is saved under the Application Load/Save Path.

TIP

The stored video includes just the video stream itself. To record video with QGroundControl application elements displayed, you should use separate screen recording software.

Record Video on Camera ​

Start/stop video recording on the camera itself using the camera instrument page. First toggle to video mode, then select the red button to start recording.