External audio in QGC

Hi all,
Any thoughts on whether external audio (eg USB microphone) can be recorded over the QGC video file? (stable or daily builds)

Cheers

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Hi @spotxuv,

As per our Software Components diagram, QGC expects an audio stream at UDP port 5601. By default that’s sent by Companion, which uses gstreamer to stream the camera audio, but it should be possible to change the device used for that, or turn it off (comment it out in .companion.rc) and instead set up an audio stream at the topside (e.g. from a USB microphone recording spoken comments or something).

If you’re wanting to keep the camera audio and add in a voiceover or something on top that would probably require doing a separate voiceover recording while operating (or afterwards), and then combining that in post with the existing video recording audio using ffmpeg or video editing software.

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Have you considered using OBS or another screen recorder to record your screen while flying the ROV and using a USB microphone? You could even have QGroundControl recording too as a backup if your computer has enough processing power.

Great, thanks @EliotBR , will give it a try
@btrue yes I did try that, but the issue with using OBS is that there is a 0.5-1 sec video delay (regardless of settings used), but no audio delay, so the tracks are always out of sync.

Hi @spotxuv,

I was looking into how this is set up and apparently that specific connection in our docs is incorrect for current QGC, and audio input currently isn’t supported in QGC (my apologies for misleading you).

Companion does stream audio (from our Low-Light HD USB Camera) to UDP:5601 (so you can receive the stream yourself if you want), but QGC audio receiving was apparently only available back when Blue Robotics had a custom fork. We apparently tried to add it to mainstream QGC after we’d merged across, but that pull request was put on hold while waiting for some other changes elsewhere, and has since been closed. It’s not clear why the PR was closed, so I’ve asked about it in the open issue on supporting audio recording.


Having re-read your post, it’s also not clear whether you’re wanting to record audio from the vehicle (which I assumed was the case), or from the topside (e.g. for narrating operation). Regardless, the recording will unfortunately need to be done external to QGC, so there may be some adjustment required to get things synched, and/or some muxing to add the audio to the video file afterwards.

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hi goodmorning, i have the some issue, i need to add some comment in to the video without obs, how can i procede for change the device used, for use an usb microphone?

Hi @brov, welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

As above, QGroundControl doesn’t support audio recording at this stage. If you need to record spoken comments with a USB microphone then the simplest solution is likely to use any arbitrary sound recording program, then use a video editor to align the sound recording with the video afterwards.

It may be helpful to clap in front of the camera at the start of the video, so you can do the alignment more easily. That’s the same approach that’s used in movies, except they use a rigid clapboard for extra precision.

ok thankk you for your fast reply, and what do you think if i take the audio from microphone and i stream it over udp in channel 5601 is possible ?

As above,

If you stream your audio to UDP port 5601 you’ll still need to receive it and record it yourself (in a separate application), and align it with the video afterwards.

If you need to use QGroundControl for it then you can follow

but there’s no timeline on when that will be resolved, so if you need audio recording you’ll need to do it yourself (outside of QGC) for now.

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Does anyone have any tips/software for streaming or capturing camera audio from UDP:5601 in Win 10?

Hi @BillyBudd,

I believe it should be possible to receive and record an audio stream from VLC, ffmpeg, or gstreamer. Note that audio streaming is not yet supported on BlueOS, so if you’ve upgraded from our old Companion Software then there currently won’t be an audio stream available to receive.

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Thanks Eliotđź‘Ť only just recently purchased so have the blue os installed. Will just use a gopro and sync offline but planning to build/integrate a hydrophone eventually. Do you know if anyone has done this already with the bluerov2?