Hi @salvor1,
While our software team does contribute to/help maintain parts of QGroundControl, we’re not the primary developers. The correct way to make feature requests is as GitHub issues, which can then be discussed by the developers, and if appropriate it may be implemented by someone who has the requisite skillset and available time. If you’re interested, here’s one I raised recently
As to the particular points you’ve raised, most of them are no longer relevant in QGC 4.1. The new interface separates the video recording widget from the telemetry, and changes the compass arrow. Telemetry data and a timestamp are included in a subtitle file that gets recorded with each video.
I made this short example video recently for a different purpose, but it happens to show all of those aspects:
On the video overlay front, if company name/information is important you can raise an issue for it, but in the interim you can add a line to the subtitles file that runs for the whole video duration. Alternatively you can set a logo in QGC and then do a screen recording instead of a normal video recording, at the cost of not being able to hide the telemetry/widgets in the recording later.
I expect live voice annotation is unlikely to be added, but you can open an issue for it if you want to. Video notes are perhaps a bit more likely, as they could be saved as part of the subtitle file, but it would still be a significant amount of work to implement, so I wouldn’t expect it to be added particularly soon. At this point QGC is best suited to monitoring and controlling vehicles, rather than making detailed inspection notes/event recording. I agree that simple ways of recording events and jumping between them in later playback could be very useful, but QGC currently isn’t well set up for that kind of workflow.
If you’re after QGC alternatives, I’m aware that Eiva (@NaviSuiteMobula) makes NaviSuite Mobula, and Mission Robotics (@wholm) have their own topside software (which I believe requires their electronics replacement), both of which are more tailored to inspection/event tagging workflows
I’m unsure whether that kind of functionality is available in the other alternatives in Third Party Products/Ground Control Software.