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Version: 6.x

Camera

Camera Page

UAVcast-Pro streams video from Raspberry Pi cameras or USB cameras to your ground control station using GStreamer with H.264 encoding over UDP.

Supported Cameras​

Raspberry Pi Camera​

  • Pi Camera Module v1/v2/v3
  • HQ Camera

USB Cameras​

  • Logitech C615, C920
  • Most V4L2-compatible cameras

Verify connected cameras: v4l2-ctl --list-devices

Video Settings​

Resolution, frame rate, and bitrate options are automatically detected from your camera's capabilities.

Low Bandwidth

For limited connectivity (4G), use lower resolution, 15 FPS, and 1000-1500 Kbps bitrate.

Pi Camera Options​

  • Rotation: 0°, 90°, 180°, 270°
  • Flip: Horizontal or vertical mirroring

Multi-Camera​

UAVcast-Pro supports two cameras with instant switching.

Multi-Camera

RC Channel Switching​

Control camera selection from your transmitter:

  1. Enable RC Channel Switching
  2. Select RC channel (1-18)
  3. PWM threshold: < 1500 = Camera 1, > 1500 = Camera 2

Live Preview​

The web interface includes an HLS preview powered by MediaMTX.

Preview vs GCS Latency
  • Web preview (HLS): ~2-3 seconds latency - for setup/monitoring
  • GCS stream (UDP): ~100-200ms latency - for flight operations

Audio​

Available from UAVcast-Pro v6.5.0.

UAVcast-Pro can add sound to the video stream from a USB microphone or from the built-in microphone of a USB camera. Audio is encoded as Opus (default 64 kbps) and costs very little CPU.

  1. On the Camera page, switch on Audio.
  2. Pick an Audio device. Auto uses the microphone that belongs to your configured camera when it has one, otherwise the first capture device found. Microphones built into a camera are labelled with that camera's slot, e.g. USB Audio (Camera 1 microphone). Test tone plays a 440 Hz tone so you can check the audio path without a microphone.
  3. Choose a Bitrate (24-128 kbps). 48-64 kbps is plenty for voice and ambient sound.

Changing any audio setting restarts the camera service.

Where the audio goes​

  • Live preview: always, when the preview is enabled. Browsers start video muted, so use the speaker button in the player to hear it.
  • Ground stations: switch on Send audio to ground stations to send a separate RTP/Opus stream to every ground station that receives video, on its Video Port + 2 (e.g. 5602 for a video port of 5600).
GCS audio support

Mission Planner and QGroundControl play video only and ignore the audio stream. Use a GStreamer or VLC receiver when you need sound at the ground station:

gst-launch-1.0 udpsrc port=5602 caps="application/x-rtp,media=audio,encoding-name=OPUS,clock-rate=48000,payload=97" ! rtpopusdepay ! opusdec ! audioconvert ! autoaudiosink

Audio indicator​

The Audio card and the live preview header show the current state: a live level meter while sound is captured, the active device, and a plain-language reason when audio could not start (no capture device found, device could not be opened, or audio has no destination). Audio never interrupts video: if the microphone fails or is unplugged, video keeps streaming and audio is switched off until the camera service restarts.

Audio troubleshooting​

  • List capture devices: arecord -l
  • The GStreamer ALSA plugin is required: sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-alsa (installed automatically by the UAVcast installer)
  • A microphone that is already in use by another program cannot be opened; stop that program and restart the camera service.

Custom Pipeline​

For unsupported cameras or advanced configurations:

videotestsrc ! x264enc ! video/x-h264, stream-format=byte-stream ! rtph264pay ! udpsink host=192.168.1.100 port=5600

See GStreamer documentation for pipeline syntax.

Receiving Video​

Mission Planner / QGroundControl​

Both applications receive UDP video on port 5600 automatically.

  1. Configure GCS destination in Ground Control Stations
  2. Enable video for that destination
  3. Start camera in UAVcast-Pro
  4. Video appears in HUD

Custom GStreamer Source (Mission Planner)​

Right-click HUD → Video → Set GStreamer Source

Mission Planner GStreamer

udpsrc port=5600 caps="application/x-rtp, media=video, clock-rate=90000, encoding-name=H264, payload=96" ! rtpjitterbuffer ! rtph264depay ! avdec_h264 ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw,format=BGRA ! appsink name=outsink

GStreamer (Windows)​

Installation​

  1. Download from gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download
    • Choose MSVC 64-bit runtime installer
Select Complete Installation

You must select "Complete" installation. Video will not work with Typical or Custom installation.

  1. Open Command Prompt and navigate to GStreamer:

    cd C:\gstreamer\1.0\msvc_x86_64\bin

  2. Run receive command:

    gst-launch-1.0 -v udpsrc port=5600 caps="application/x-rtp, media=(string)video, clock-rate=(int)90000, encoding-name=(string)H264" ! rtpjitterbuffer ! rtph264depay ! avdec_h264 ! videoconvert ! autovideosink sync=false

Windows Helper Script​

Save as start-video.cmd:

@echo off
cd /d C:\gstreamer\1.0\msvc_x86_64\bin
gst-launch-1.0 -v udpsrc port=5600 caps="application/x-rtp, media=(string)video, clock-rate=(int)90000, encoding-name=(string)H264" ! rtpjitterbuffer ! rtph264depay ! avdec_h264 ! videoconvert ! autovideosink sync=false
pause

GStreamer (Ubuntu)​

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad

Then run the same gst-launch-1.0 command.

GStreamer (Mac)​

brew install gstreamer gst-libav gst-plugins-ugly gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-bad gst-plugins-good

Then run the same gst-launch-1.0 command.

Android​

Install QGroundControl - video is received automatically on port 5600.

Troubleshooting​

Camera Not Detected​

Pi Camera:

libcamera-hello --list-cameras
sudo raspi-config  # Enable camera interface
sudo reboot

USB Camera:

v4l2-ctl --list-devices

No Video on GCS​

  1. Verify GCS destination IP and port in Ground Control Stations
  2. Check firewall allows UDP 5600
  3. Test with gst-launch-1.0 command

Choppy Video​

Reduce settings: 640x480, 15 FPS, 1500 Kbps

Video Stops After Switching Camera​

A resolution saved for one camera may not exist on another (for example 2304x1296 from a Pi camera on a 720p webcam). UAVcast falls back to the largest resolution the camera supports and logs which one it used; pick a supported resolution in Video Settings to silence the warning.