- Qt 6.12
- Qt Multimedia
- Qt Multimedia Examples
- QML Video Example
- Qt 6.12.0 Reference Documentation

# QML Video Example

Transforming video and camera viewfinder content.

QML Video demonstrates the various transformations (move; resize; rotate; change aspect ratio) that can be applied to QML VideoOutput and Camera types.

It also shows how native code can be combined with QML to implement more advanced functionality - in this case, C++ code is used to calculate the QML frame rate. This value is rendered in QML in a semi-transparent item overlaid on the video content.

The following image shows the application executing the video-overlay scene, which creates a dummy overlay item (just a semi-transparent Rectangle), which moves across the VideoOutput item.

#### Running the Example

You can run the example from:

- Qt Creator

  Open the Welcome mode and select the example from Examples. For more information, see Qt Creator: Tutorial: Build and run.

- Qt Extension for Visual Studio Code

  Run the Qt: Open Qt examples command from the Command Palette, and select the example from the list. For more information, see Qt Extension for Visual Studio Code: Tutorial: Build and run.

#### Application Structure

The `Main.qml` file creates a UI which includes the following items:

- Two `Button` instances, each of which displays a filename, and can be used to launch a `FileDialog`.
- An exit `Button`.
- A `SceneSelectionPanel`, which is a flickable list displaying the available scenes.
- At the lower left, an item which displays the QML repainting rate - the upper number is the instantaneous frame rate and the lower number is the average over the past second.

Each scene in the flickable list is implemented in its own QML file - for example the video-basic scene (which just displays a static VideoOutput in the center of the screen) is implemented in the `VideoBasic.qml` file. As you can see from the code, this makes use of a type of inheritance; a `VideoBasic` item ...

     SceneBasic {
         contentType: "video"
     }

... is of type `SceneBasic` ...

     import QtQuick
     import QtQuick.Controls

     Scene {
         id: root
         property string contentType
         ...
         Content {
             id: content
         ...
         }

         Label {
             anchors {
                 horizontalCenter: parent.horizontalCenter
                 bottom: parent.bottom
                 margins: 20
             }
             text: content.started ? qsTr("Tap the screen to stop content")
                                   : qsTr("Tap the screen to start content")
             z: 2.0
         }

         MouseArea {
             anchors.fill: parent
             onClicked: {
                 if (content.started)
                     content.stop()
                 else
                     content.start()
             }
         }

         Component.onCompleted: root.content = content
     }

... which itself is a `Scene`:

     import QtQuick
     import QtQuick.Controls

     Rectangle {
         id: root
         ...
         property QtObject content
         ...
         Button {
             id: closeButton
             anchors {
                 top: parent.top
                 right: parent.right
                 margins: root.margins
             }
             z: 2.0
             text: qsTr("Back")
             onClicked: root.close()
         }
     }

`SceneBasic` describes the structure and behavior of the scene, but is agnostic of the type of content which will be displayed - this is abstracted by `Content`.

This pattern allows us to define a particular use case (in this case, simply display a static piece of content), and then instantiate that use case for both video content (`VideoBasic`) and camera content `({CameraBasic})`. This approach is used to implement many of the other scenes - for example, "repeatedly slide the content from left to right and back again" is implemented by `SceneMove`, on which `VideoMove` and `CameraMove` are based.

Depending on the value of the contentType property in the top-level scene instance, the embedded `Content` item creates either a MediaPlayer or a Camera item.

#### Calculating and Displaying QML Painting Rate

The QML painting rate is calculated by the FrequencyMonitor class, which turns a stream of events (received via the notify() slot), into an instantaneous and an averaged frequency:

     class FrequencyMonitor : public QObject
     {
         Q_OBJECT
         QML_ELEMENT
         Q_PROPERTY(qreal instantaneousFrequency READ instantaneousFrequency NOTIFY
                            instantaneousFrequencyChanged)
         Q_PROPERTY(qreal averageFrequency READ averageFrequency NOTIFY averageFrequencyChanged)
         ...
     public slots:
         Q_INVOKABLE void notify();
     };

The FrequencyMonitor class is exposed to QML by adding the macro QML_ELEMENT to the class declaration as shown above, and its data is displayed by defining a QML item called FrequencyItem, like this:

     import frequencymonitor

     Rectangle {
         id: root
         ...
         function notify() {
             monitor.notify()
         }

         FrequencyMonitor {
             id: monitor
             onAverageFrequencyChanged: {
                 averageFrequencyText.text = monitor.averageFrequency.toFixed(2)
             }
         }

         Text {
             id: labelText
             anchors {
                 left: parent.left
                 top: parent.top
                 margins: 10
             }
             color: root.textColor
             font.pixelSize: 0.6 * root.textSize
             text: root.label
             width: root.width - 2*anchors.margins
             elide: Text.ElideRight
         }

         Text {
             id: averageFrequencyText
             anchors {
                 right: parent.right
                 bottom: parent.bottom
                 margins: 10
             }
             color: root.textColor
             font.pixelSize: root.textSize
         }
     }

The result looks like this:

All that remains is to connect the afterRendering() signal of the QQuickView object to a JavaScript function, which will eventually call `frequencyItem.notify()`:

     int main(int argc, char *argv[])
     {
         QGuiApplication app(argc, argv);
         ...
         QQuickView viewer;
         ...
         QQuickItem *rootObject = viewer.rootObject();
         ...
         QObject::connect(&viewer, SIGNAL(afterRendering()), rootObject, SLOT(qmlFramePainted()));

Example project @ code.qt.io