@torrent-tv/proxy 2.87.20 → 2.88.0

package/services/encode/OutputOpening.js

@@ -1,758 +1,758 @@
-/**
- * @file Which output answers a request for a file, made if it is not here yet.
- *
- * A request names a file, the tracks wanted and a size; what answers it is an
- * OUTPUT, and deciding which is the encoding component's: the arrangement of
- * the sound, the cut grid, the format the budget settles on, and whether an
- * output already here serves the request instead. Two requests whose outputs
- * agree ARE one output. Who asked is not a parameter: placing the requester on
- * the output is the server operation's business (`server/ViewerRequests.js`),
- * and nothing about a viewer enters what is decided here.
- *
- * What the file says about itself is read by the media component and handed in
- * (`probeMediaInfo`, `probeKeyframeTimes`), as is everything else this reads.
- */
-
-import { createRequire } from "node:module";
-import { buildResolutionLadder, chooseOutputFps } from "./hwaccel.js";
-import { resolveSegmentFormat, SEGMENT_FORMAT_IDS } from "./segment-formats/index.js";
-import { AudioOutput, CutGrid, OUTPUT_NO_CAPACITY, OUTPUT_UNAVAILABLE, OutputSpec, VideoOutput } from "./output/index.js";
-import { Timeline, Timelines } from "./output/Timeline.js";
-import { computeCutGrid } from "./output/cut-grid.js";
-import { Output } from "./output/Output.js";
-import { mediaPlaylistText } from "./output/playlists.js";
-import { formatSeconds } from "./EncodeRuns.js";
-import { EncodedOutput } from "./output/EncodedOutput.js";
-import { decideOutputFormat } from "./quality/output-format.js";
-import { rungForVisiblePicture } from "./quality/visible-rung.js";
-import { audioLoadOf, linkAnswerFigures as linkFiguresOf } from "./quality/link-budget.js";
-import { AUDIO_TRANSCODE_KBPS } from "./args.js";
-
-/**
- * @typedef {Object} SegmentOutputFiles
- * @property {() => string[]} addresses
- * @property {(address: string, index: number) => boolean} isClosed
- * @property {(address: string) => number | null} lastReadAt
- * @property {(address: string) => string} directoryFor
- * @property {(address: string, format: object) => void} useFormat
- */
-
-/** Own package version, stamped onto output-start log lines. */
-const PROXY_VERSION = createRequire(import.meta.url)("../../package.json").version;
-
-export class OutputOpening {
-  /** What this reads and asks of the rest of the proxy, and nothing else. @type {object} */
-  #host;
-
-  /**
-   * @param {object} host - `logger`, `probeMediaInfo`, `probeKeyframeTimes`, `enabled`, `segmentFormat`, `renditions`, `sourceFiles`, `getCachedMediaInfo`, `localBaseUrl`, `tonemapSupported`, `videoEncoder`, `hostLoad`, `keyframeTables`, `timelines`, `segmentDurationSec`, `softwarePresetBenchmark`, `decodeCostModel`, `encodeCost`, `admission`, `outputs`, `segmentOutputFiles`, `hostTimings`, `returns`, `encodeRuns`
-   * @param {SegmentOutputFiles} host.segmentOutputFiles - The storage
-   *   operations needed while selecting or opening an output.
-   */
-  constructor(host) {
-    this.#host = host;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * The box a re-encoded picture is fitted into.
-   *
-   * A box the request names is the box (a quality step names its height). With
-   * none named, the picture the viewer sees decides: the smallest rung of the
-   * source's ladder whose frame is not smaller than it (roadmap item 98). With
-   * neither, zeroes — the source's own size.
-   *
-   * @param {{ normalizedTargetWidth: number, normalizedTargetHeight: number, visiblePicture: { width: number, height: number } | null, sourceWidth: number, sourceHeight: number }} params
-   * @returns {{ width: number, height: number }}
-   */
-  #targetFor({ normalizedTargetWidth, normalizedTargetHeight, visiblePicture, sourceWidth, sourceHeight }) {
-    if (normalizedTargetWidth > 0 || normalizedTargetHeight > 0) {
-      return { width: normalizedTargetWidth, height: normalizedTargetHeight };
-    }
-    const rung = rungForVisiblePicture(
-      buildResolutionLadder(Math.round(Number(sourceWidth) || 0), Math.round(Number(sourceHeight) || 0)),
-      visiblePicture
-    );
-    return rung ? { width: rung.width, height: rung.height } : { width: 0, height: 0 };
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Ask the requester's call whether they may be put on this output, and throw
-   * the refusal the way the route answers it.
-   *
-   * @param {((output: object) => { admitted: boolean, reason: string, speedX: number | null }) | null} claim
-   * @param {object} output
-   * @param {string} logName
-   * @returns {void}
-   */
-  #claimOrRefuse(claim, output, logName) {
-    if (typeof claim !== "function") {
-      return;
-    }
-    const answer = claim(output);
-    if (answer?.admitted) {
-      return;
-    }
-    const reason = answer?.reason || "this machine has no place for one more encoder";
-    this.#host.logger.info(`transcode "${logName}": not opened for this viewer — ${reason} (key=${output.outputKey})`);
-    const error = new Error(`This proxy cannot take this video now: ${reason}.`);
-    error.code = OUTPUT_NO_CAPACITY;
-    error.details = {
-      reason,
-      figures: { speedX: Number.isFinite(answer?.speedX) ? Number(answer.speedX.toFixed(3)) : null, outputKey: output.outputKey }
-    };
-    throw error;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * The output that answers this request: one already here, or one made now.
-   * No encoder is started here — where encoders go is the plan's.
-   *
-   * Throws with `error.code === "TRANSCODE_DISABLED"` when transcoding is
-   * disabled on this proxy instance.
-   *
-   * @param {object} options
-   * @param {string}  options.sourceKey      - Registry source key.
-   * @param {number}  options.fileIndex      - Zero-based file index in the torrent.
-   * @param {boolean} [options.transcodeVideo=false]
-   * @param {boolean} [options.transcodeAudio=false]
-   * @param {string}  [options.fileName=""]              - Display name for log output.
-   * @param {number}  [options.targetWidth=0]            - Target video width (0 = keep source).
-   * @param {number}  [options.targetHeight=0]           - Target video height (0 = keep source).
-   * @param {number}  [options.startPositionSeconds=0]   - Seek start position in seconds.
-   * @param {number}  [options.audioTrackIndex=0]        - Type-relative audio track to map (0:a:N).
-   * @param {boolean} [options.exactSize=false]           - Produce the target box exactly (capped to source), with no budget downscale and no runtime downswitch. Says nothing about who asked: every rung of a master sets it.
-   * @param {number | null} [options.capKbps=null]        - Nominal bitrate limit in kbit/s; null for the size's own. Above the size's own it is refused.
-   * @param {{ width: number, height: number } | null} [options.visiblePicture=null] - The picture as the requesting viewer sees it, in physical pixels. With no target box given, a re-encoded picture's box is the smallest rung whose frame is not smaller than this (roadmap item 98).
-   * @returns {Promise<{ output: EncodedOutput, existed: boolean, audio: { trackIndex: number, transcode: boolean }, verdict: object | null }>}
-   */
-  async open({
-    sourceKey,
-    fileIndex,
-    transcodeVideo = false,
-    transcodeAudio = false,
-    fileName = "",
-    targetWidth = 0,
-    targetHeight = 0,
-    startPositionSeconds = 0,
-    audioTrackIndex = 0,
-    exactSize = false,
-    // The caller takes its audio from a rendition group, so the picture is
-    // encoded without it and each audio track is encoded once for the file
-    // instead of once per rung. Off unless asked for: a browser that does not
-    // know about renditions must still get its audio in the stream.
-    audioRenditions = false,
-    // This session IS one of those renditions: one audio track, no picture, cut
-    // on the same grid as the video it accompanies.
-    audioOnly = false,
-    // The arrangement decided by the session this one belongs to — a variant or
-    // a rendition of it. Every session of one master must agree about where the
-    // audio is, and only the base is in a position to decide: a variant asked on
-    // its own would answer about the rungs IT would be offered at, which is a
-    // different list. Null means "decide it here", which is what a base does.
-    inheritedAudioSeparate = null,
-    segmentFormatId = "",
-    // The cut grid of the session this one is a quality variant of: its
-    // keyframe times and which container they were read from. Present only for
-    // a variant of a session cut at the source's keyframes, and it is what
-    // makes the two interchangeable.
-    inheritedGrid = null,
-    // "manual" when the viewer chose this size by hand, "auto" when it is the
-    // automatic choice; left out, a size produced exactly counts as chosen by
-    // hand. Decides whether an output already here may serve them instead.
-    servingMode = null,
-    // What the requesting viewer's link measured, or null.
-    viewerLinkMbps = null,
-    // The nominal bitrate limit asked for, in kbit/s, or null for the size's
-    // own. Part of the output's identity: another limit is another output.
-    capKbps = null,
-    // The soundtrack THIS viewer receives with the picture — from this output
-    // or beside it — as `{ transcode, bitrateKbps }`. Left out, the one this
-    // request names is theirs. A step opened on a viewer's behalf passes the
-    // track they chose, which need not be the one the picture was opened with.
-    viewerAudio = undefined,
-    visiblePicture = null,
-    // WHETHER THE REQUESTER MAY BE PUT ON THE OUTPUT, and putting them there,
-    // in one synchronous call (roadmap item 97, step 14). Called with the
-    // output the moment it answers the request — a new one registered, or one
-    // already here — and before anything else can run, so that the place it
-    // takes on this machine is counted before the next opening is asked.
-    // Returns `{ admitted, reason, speedX }`; a refusal is thrown as
-    // OUTPUT_NO_CAPACITY and a new output made for it is withdrawn. Who the
-    // requester is stays with the caller: this is handed an opaque call.
-    // Absent — a step or a soundtrack opened on a viewer's behalf, whose place
-    // the preparation already holds — nothing is asked.
-    claim = null
-  }) {
-    if (!this.#host.enabled) {
-      const error = new Error("Audio transcoding is disabled on this proxy.");
-      error.code = "TRANSCODE_DISABLED";
-      throw error;
-    }
-
-    // The container is the viewer's to choose, because the viewer's browser is
-    // what has to decode the result and only it knows what its media stack
-    // accepts. A copied MP3 track is the case that forced this: hls.js demuxes
-    // MPEG-TS itself and hands raw MP3 to an `audio/mpeg` buffer, which every
-    // browser supports, while an fMP4 segment goes to MSE untouched and
-    // `audio/mp4; codecs="mp3"` is refused — measured false in Chromium, where
-    // `canPlayType` cheerfully answers "probably". Same file, same browser:
-    // plays as MPEG-TS, silent loop as fMP4. The proxy's `--segment-format`
-    // stays the default for a client that expresses no preference.
-    // An unrecognised value falls back to the operator's choice rather than to
-    // the library default — `resolveSegmentFormat` cannot tell the two apart,
-    // and this value arrives from a client.
-    const segmentFormat = SEGMENT_FORMAT_IDS.includes(segmentFormatId)
-      ? resolveSegmentFormat(segmentFormatId)
-      : this.#host.segmentFormat;
-
-    const normalizedTargetWidth = Number.isInteger(targetWidth) && targetWidth > 0 ? targetWidth : 0;
-    const normalizedTargetHeight = Number.isInteger(targetHeight) && targetHeight > 0 ? targetHeight : 0;
-    // Round seek position to the nearest 10 s so that two consumers seeking
-    // to similar positions can share the same ffmpeg session.
-    const normalizedStartPosition =
-      Number.isFinite(startPositionSeconds) && startPositionSeconds > 0
-        ? Math.round(startPositionSeconds / 10) * 10
-        : 0;
-    const normalizedAudioTrack =
-      Number.isInteger(audioTrackIndex) && audioTrackIndex > 0 ? audioTrackIndex : 0;
-    // What the requester wants of the sound, handed back so the viewer who
-    // asked can be told apart from another viewer of the same output.
-    const audio = { trackIndex: normalizedAudioTrack, transcode: transcodeAudio === true };
-    // Which FILE the chosen soundtrack lives in, and which track it is inside
-    // that file. A release often ships its dub as a file of its own beside the
-    // picture, and the number that travels between the browser, this route and
-    // the `a/<n>/` address is flat across both — see `audio-inventory.js`. This
-    // is the one place that resolves it, so nothing downstream carries two
-    // vocabularies.
-    const audioSource = this.#host.renditions.resolveAudioSource(sourceKey, fileIndex, normalizedAudioTrack);
-    // The file itself, held once for every session of it. Its name, its key and
-    // the facts a probe of it returned used to be copied onto each session, so
-    // two viewers of one film held two copies of numbers that cannot differ —
-    // and twenty places assembled its key by hand to reach the caches that are
-    // keyed by a file.
-    const file = this.#host.sourceFiles.get(sourceKey, fileIndex, fileName);
-    const forceExactSize = exactSize === true && transcodeVideo;
-    // Whether this output carries its sound at all — decided HERE, before the
-    // key, and never derived a second time.
-    //
-    // It used to be settled after the session had already been put in the map,
-    // which was survivable only while the key carried the audio parameters
-    // unconditionally: the key could say "no sound in this output" while the
-    // output muxed it, and two viewers who chose different languages would then
-    // have shared one encode and one of them would have heard the other's.
-    const audioSeparate = inheritedAudioSeparate === null
-      ? this.#host.renditions.audioTravelsSeparately({
-          sourceKey,
-          fileIndex,
-          audioRenditions,
-          // The rung this session will be NAMED by. The budget may still
-          // downscale the encode below it, and that cannot change the answer:
-          // what it picks is a rung of the same ladder, already in the set.
-          ownHeight: normalizedTargetHeight
-        })
-      : inheritedAudioSeparate === true;
-    // A rendition IS the sound, so it carries it whatever the arrangement says;
-    // a picture carries it only when the browser is not taking it separately.
-    const carriesAudio = audioOnly === true || !audioSeparate;
-    const carriesVideo = audioOnly !== true;
-    const createEntryMs = Date.now();
-    // The directory belongs to the OUTPUT, not to this session: two sessions
-    // whose parameters agree produce interchangeable segments, so they write
-    // into one place and each serves what the other has already made. The start
-    // position is deliberately not part of it — segment 42 covers the same span
-    // whoever began where.
-    // The file this session's encoder READS. A soundtrack shipped as its own
-    // file is encoded FROM that file, and an audio rendition carries nothing
-    // else — so it reads the sidecar directly and needs no second input at all.
-    // The muxed case, where a browser takes its audio inside the picture's own
-    // stream, is the one that reads two files.
-    //
-    // Which of the two this is used to be a boolean on the session
-    // (`readsSidecarAlone`) beside a string URL built from it. It is the same
-    // statement as "the file it reads is not the file of the picture", so it is
-    // that comparison now and there is nothing to keep in step.
-    const audioFile = this.#host.sourceFiles.get(sourceKey, audioSource.fileIndex, audioSource.name);
-    const inputFile = audioOnly === true && audioSource.isSidecar ? audioFile : file;
-    // Media info (duration/resolution/fps/startTime/HDR) up front, so we can
-    // serve a complete VOD playlist (#EXT-X-ENDLIST) with the correct total
-    // duration and a fully seekable timeline before a single segment exists.
-    // Reuse the planner's probe when it is available and complete — the plan
-    // request just ran the same ffmpeg scan over the same input. Fall back to
-    // a fresh probe otherwise (proxy restarted between plan and session, or a
-    // critical field is missing).
-    const mediaInfoStartMs = Date.now();
-    const cachedMediaInfo = this.#host.getCachedMediaInfo?.({ sourceKey, fileIndex }) ?? null;
-    const cachedUsable =
-      cachedMediaInfo &&
-      Number.isFinite(cachedMediaInfo.durationSeconds) &&
-      cachedMediaInfo.durationSeconds > 0 &&
-      Number.isFinite(cachedMediaInfo.width) &&
-      cachedMediaInfo.width > 0 &&
-      Number.isFinite(cachedMediaInfo.height) &&
-      cachedMediaInfo.height > 0;
-    // Always the PICTURE's, even when this session reads a soundtrack from
-    // another file: the timeline, the duration and the cut grid are the
-    // picture's, and a rendition exists to be played WITH it. Only where the
-    // sidecar's own timeline begins is read from the sidecar, just below.
-    // No session id on it: this read is a probe of the picture, not this
-    // session's own delivery, and counting it against the session would tell a
-    // waiting browser that its film is arriving when what arrived was a header.
-    const pictureUrl = file.streamUrl(this.#host.localBaseUrl);
-    const mediaInfo = cachedUsable
-      ? cachedMediaInfo
-      : await this.#host.probeMediaInfo(pictureUrl.toString());
-    const mediaInfoMs = Date.now() - mediaInfoStartMs;
-    const mediaInfoSource = cachedUsable ? "cached" : "probed";
-    // The file takes in what the probe said. It is the same answer for every
-    // session of this file — a quality step, a soundtrack, a second viewer — so
-    // it is kept once instead of being copied into each. A later session with a
-    // fresher reading updates it: on a cold torrent the first probe can come
-    // back without a duration, and the second is the one that has it.
-    file.learn(mediaInfo);
-    const durationSeconds = file.durationSeconds ?? 0;
-    const sourceWidth = file.width;
-    const sourceHeight = file.height;
-    const sourceStartTime = file.startTime;
-    // Where the timeline of a soundtrack shipped as its own file begins.
-    //
-    // A soundtrack in another file has a start time of its own, and it is the
-    // one that must be subtracted when the output is relabelled onto a
-    // zero-based timeline: subtract the picture's instead and the sound sits at
-    // a fixed offset from it for the whole film. Read from the file rather than
-    // assumed to be zero, because assuming it is exactly the fault being
-    // avoided.
-    //
-    // NOT awaited. Creating a session used to stop here until the answer came
-    // back, and on a cold start the answer needs the sidecar's header off the
-    // swarm — 8121 ms of every session created, measured three times out of
-    // three on 2026-09-03. What is known now is used now, and the reading runs
-    // behind; when it lands it lands on the FILE, which every session of that
-    // soundtrack shares, so the spawn path sees it without re-reading anything.
-    //
-    // Unknown means "no difference between the two timelines", not "the
-    // soundtrack starts at zero". The shift exists to correct a difference
-    // between two containers; asserting one that has not been read is inventing
-    // a number, while assuming none leaves the sound exactly where a release
-    // remuxed from a single source puts it.
-    if (audioSource.isSidecar) {
-      this.#host.renditions.warmFileStartTime(audioFile);
-    }
-    // Tone-map an HDR source to SDR only when re-encoding video on the software
-    // path and this ffmpeg has the filters. Hardware encoders keep their own
-    // (untone-mapped) path for now; when unavailable, HDR falls back to a plain
-    // 8-bit convert (washed-out but playable).
-    const applyTonemap =
-      transcodeVideo === true &&
-      mediaInfo.isHdr === true &&
-      this.#host.tonemapSupported &&
-      this.#host.videoEncoder?.kind === "software";
-    // Output frame rate inherited from the source (integer, capped) so 25/30
-    // fps content is not resampled to 24. Fixed-GOP encoders keep the fps↔GOP
-    // relationship exact; time-based-keyframe encoders just use it as the rate.
-    const outputFps = chooseOutputFps(mediaInfo.fps);
-    const hasDuration = Number.isFinite(durationSeconds) && durationSeconds > 0;
-    const logName = file.name;
-
-    // Size the reader's window in seconds of playback rather than bytes. Needs
-    // the file's own average byte rate, which is size ÷ duration; the size
-    // comes from the same stats call the realtime budget uses. Best effort —
-    // without it the reader keeps its own byte default.
-    //
-    // Sized for the file being READ, which for a soundtrack shipped separately
-    // is that file: it is a twentieth of the picture's size over the same
-    // duration, so the picture's byte rate would buy a window twenty times
-    // wider than the seconds it is meant to represent, and the piece store
-    // would hold it.
-    const readWindowBytes = await this.#host.hostLoad.readWindowBytesFor(
-      inputFile.sourceKey,
-      inputFile.fileIndex,
-      durationSeconds
-    );
-    if (!hasDuration) {
-      this.#host.logger.warn(
-        `transcode "${logName}": could not probe duration; falling back to ` +
-          "ffmpeg-managed (growing) playlist"
-      );
-    }
-
-    // For the video-copy path we cannot insert keyframes, so the playlist's
-    // segment boundaries must match the source's real keyframes (otherwise the
-    // player sees gaps on seek). Re-encoded video uses a uniform grid for
-    // segment boundaries instead (its fixed GOP makes the cuts land there —
-    // computeSegmentBoundaries ignores keyframeTimes when transcodeVideo).
-    //
-    // But the probe is ALSO used for something both branches need: choosing a
-    // SOURCE seek position ffmpeg can actually land on. `-ss` before `-i` trusts
-    // the container's own on-the-fly seek/index, which for some containers
-    // (observed: AVI with VBR MP3 audio) can point at a position with no valid
-    // frame boundary at all — ffmpeg then fails outright ("Seek failed" /
-    // "Header missing"), not just imprecisely. Snapping the seek to the nearest
-    // KNOWN real keyframe (see #startEncodeRun) avoids that. So probe for both
-    // branches; on failure both fall back to their current behaviour (uniform
-    // grid for boundaries, raw target for seeking) — no regression.
-    // The file's own table — the object every reader of this file holds, so a
-    // read that answers after this session was made still reaches it.
-    const keyframes = this.#host.keyframeTables.of({ sourceKey, fileIndex });
-    let keyframeMs = -1; // -1 = not run (skipped), -2 = running in the background
-    // A quality variant of a session whose cuts are the source's keyframes must
-    // be cut at exactly those same times, or its segments cannot stand where
-    // the other's would have. Nothing has to be handed over for that: the table
-    // is the FILE's, and a variant is a session of the same file, so it reads
-    // the one answer. What the inherited grid still carries is the CORRECTED
-    // boundaries and the published playlist, which are properties of the family
-    // rather than of the file.
-    if (inheritedGrid) {
-      // Nothing to read: the table above IS the file's, corrections included.
-    } else if (hasDuration && !transcodeVideo && !audioOnly) {
-      // Video-COPY path: the keyframe times are REQUIRED to build correct
-      // segment boundaries (the playlist itself), so this MUST block session
-      // creation — an incorrect playlist is worse than a slower start.
-      //
-      // The wait is bounded, and the bound is what the read costs on a real
-      // host rather than a figure picked here (`KEYFRAME_TABLE_BUDGET_MS`). A
-      // comment in this place used to promise a short timeout and "never more
-      // than ~6 s to session start" when no timeout existed at all; the file
-      // comes off a torrent, so the bytes the table lives in may still be
-      // arriving, and a session used to wait for them without limit.
-      //
-      // What is read is the container's OWN table (Cues/stss) rather than a
-      // scan of the media. On the copy path ffmpeg can only cut at the source's
-      // existing keyframes, so these times ARE the segment boundaries —
-      // declaring an even grid instead is a falsehood the player punishes: it
-      // walks the whole file to rebuild the timeline, or presents audio with no
-      // picture because a segment starts with nothing decodable (both
-      // field-observed 2026-08-02). Scanning cannot supply them here — the file
-      // comes off a torrent, and a full packet scan of 5.5 GB found 77
-      // keyframes in 45 s without finishing, while the container index yields
-      // all 570 in 0.8 s from two point reads (16 KB).
-      const keyframeStartMs = Date.now();
-      const { arrived } = await this.#host.keyframeTables.within({ sourceKey, fileIndex, logName });
-      keyframeMs = Date.now() - keyframeStartMs;
-      if (!arrived) {
-        // A read that ran out of its budget is still running, and the table is
-        // still unanswered — which is not the same as a file with no keyframes,
-        // and the distinction is the table's own (`answered` against
-        // `readable`). Recorded as an absence it would make a passing shortage
-        // of bytes look like a property of the bytes, and every later session
-        // of the file would re-encode a picture that can be copied.
-        this.#host.logger.warn(
-          `transcode: the keyframe table for "${logName}" has not arrived in ` +
-            `${Math.round(this.#host.keyframeTables.budgetMs / 1000)}s, so this session re-encodes the picture ` +
-            "instead of copying it; the read goes on and the next session of this file gets the copy"
-        );
-      }
-      if (!keyframes.readable) {
-        // No index, so there is no honest grid for a COPY: a copied picture can
-        // only be cut at the source's own keyframes, and we do not know where
-        // they are. Declaring an even grid instead is a falsehood the player
-        // punishes — it walks the whole file to rebuild the timeline, or shows
-        // audio with no picture because a segment begins with nothing
-        // decodable (both field-observed 2026-08-02).
-        //
-        // Re-encoding is the honest answer and costs an encoder: keyframes are
-        // then PLACED at our own cut times rather than found, so the grid is
-        // correct by construction whatever the container. MPEG-TS is the case
-        // this exists for — measured 2026-08-21, 669 real keyframes and no
-        // index of any kind to read them from — and a container whose index
-        // could not be read in the budget lands here too, which is right for
-        // the same reason.
-        transcodeVideo = true;
-        if (keyframes.answered) {
-          this.#host.logger.warn(
-            `transcode: no keyframe index in the ${keyframes.format} container for ` +
-              `"${logName}" — a copied picture has no honest grid without one, so the video is ` +
-              "re-encoded instead and its keyframes are placed on our own cuts"
-          );
-        }
-      }
-    } else if (hasDuration && transcodeVideo) {
-      // Re-encode path: keyframeTimes are ONLY used to snap a LATER seek (see
-      // #startEncodeRun) — segment boundaries stay on the uniform grid either
-      // way. So this does NOT need to block session creation / the first
-      // segment's start. Run it in the background with a FULL budget instead of
-      // the 6 s cap: AVI-class containers need a full packet scan, which 6 s can
-      // never afford without delaying playback start — that starved budget is
-      // exactly why the probe kept missing on the container where the seek bug
-      // was field-diagnosed. A run reads the file's table on every call, so a
-      // seek that happens AFTER this finishes picks it up automatically; one
-      // that happens before falls back to the existing circuit breaker as a
-      // safety net (no regression either way).
-      keyframeMs = -2;
-      const backgroundStartedAt = Date.now();
-      void this.#host.probeKeyframeTimes(inputFile.streamUrl(this.#host.localBaseUrl).toString(), 25_000).then((times) => {
-        // Into the FILE's table, which the picture, its quality steps and a
-        // second viewer's session all hold — so nothing has to be alive for the
-        // answer to be kept, and the session this probe was started for may
-        // long since have gone. It used to be written onto whichever session
-        // was still there, and dropped outright when none was.
-        this.#host.keyframeTables.learn({ sourceKey, fileIndex }, { times, format: "packet probe" });
-        const elapsedMs = Date.now() - backgroundStartedAt;
-        this.#host.logger.info(
-          times
-            ? `transcode: background keyframe probe found ${times.length} keyframes ` +
-                `(${elapsedMs}ms) for "${logName}" — later seeks will snap to them`
-            : `transcode: background keyframe probe unavailable (${elapsedMs}ms) for "${logName}" ` +
-                `— seeks keep using the raw target (falls back to the circuit breaker on failure)`
-        );
-      });
-    }
-    this.#host.logger.info(
-      `cold-start "${logName}": media-info=${mediaInfoMs}ms (${mediaInfoSource}) ` +
-        `keyframes=${keyframeMs === -1 ? "skipped" : keyframeMs === -2 ? "background" : `${keyframeMs}ms`} ` +
-        `create-total=${Date.now() - createEntryMs}ms`
-    );
-    // Which grid this session is cut on. A copy has no choice: only where the
-    // source already has a keyframe. A re-encode normally takes the even grid —
-    // it produces every frame and may put keyframes where it likes — unless it
-    // is a variant of a keyframe-cut session, in which case it must land on the
-    // same times to be interchangeable with it.
-    // An audio rendition carries no picture, so it has no keyframes of its own
-    // to be cut at: it takes the grid of the video it accompanies, whatever that
-    // is. Handed one, it uses it; handed none, the base is on the even grid and
-    // so is this. Falling into the COPY branch instead — which is what
-    // `transcodeVideo: false` means everywhere else — would put the audio of a
-    // re-encoded stream on the source's keyframe times while the player was
-    // told the even grid, and the two drift further apart with every segment.
-    const useKeyframeGrid = hasDuration &&
-      keyframes.readable &&
-      (audioOnly ? inheritedGrid != null : (!transcodeVideo || inheritedGrid != null));
-    // A rung takes the grid it was handed, rather than working one out again
-    // from the same index. The two are not the same table: the one it is handed
-    // has been CORRECTED wherever a produced segment showed the index to be
-    // wrong, and it is those corrected times the copy actually cuts at. Building
-    // it afresh here would put the rung back on the index's fiction and undo the
-    // alignment it exists for.
-    // The file's own table, made once and shared by every session of it. A
-    // quality step is a different OUTPUT and the same cuts — which is exactly
-    // the agreement `inheritedGrid` used to arrange by handing a copy to each
-    // new session — so it is keyed by the file and the kind of grid, and
-    // nothing else.
-    const timeline = this.#host.timelines.get(
-      Timelines.keyFor(sourceKey, fileIndex, useKeyframeGrid ? "keyframe" : "uniform"),
-      () => {
-        const cut = hasDuration
-          ? computeCutGrid({
-              useKeyframeGrid,
-              durationSeconds,
-              segDur: this.#host.segmentDurationSec,
-              keyframeTimes: keyframes.times,
-              startTime: sourceStartTime
-            })
-          : { boundaries: [], sourceTimes: [] };
-        const inherited = Array.isArray(inheritedGrid?.boundaries) && inheritedGrid.boundaries.length > 1;
-        return new Timeline({
-          boundaries: inherited ? [...inheritedGrid.boundaries] : cut.boundaries,
-          // The file's own clock for those cuts. An inherited table brings its
-          // boundaries and not this, so the seek falls back to searching there.
-          sourceTimes: inherited ? null : cut.sourceTimes,
-          cutGrid: useKeyframeGrid ? "keyframe" : "uniform"
-        });
-      }
-    );
-    // What this session will PUBLISH. A member of a family takes its base's
-    // published table verbatim; a session with no base publishes what it cuts
-    // at. The two differ exactly by the corrections made since the family's
-    // first playlist was written, and that difference is what must never reach
-    // the player as two different timelines.
-    const publishedGrid = timeline.published.length > 1 ? timeline.published : null;
-    const segmentCount = timeline.segmentCount;
-
-    // THE FORMAT, decided before the output is named, and possibly an output
-    // already here instead (`encode/quality/output-format.js`).
-    const decided = decideOutputFormat({
-      encodesPicture: transcodeVideo && carriesVideo,
-      exact: forceExactSize,
-      target: this.#targetFor({ normalizedTargetWidth, normalizedTargetHeight, visiblePicture, sourceWidth, sourceHeight }),
-      source: { width: sourceWidth, height: sourceHeight, megabitsPerSecond: file.decode?.megabitsPerSecond ?? null, decode: file.decode },
-      fps: outputFps,
-      encoder: this.#host.videoEncoder,
-      benchmark: this.#host.softwarePresetBenchmark,
-      cost: {
-        decodeModel: this.#host.decodeCostModel,
-        observedDecodeCostSec: this.#host.encodeCost.decodeCostFor(file.key)?.costSec ?? null,
-        requiredSpeed: this.#host.hostLoad.requiredSpeedFor(sourceKey, fileIndex)
-      },
-      chooseBudget: (params) => this.#host.encodeCost.chooseEncodeBudget(params),
-      machineAdmission: this.#host.admission
-        ? (candidate) => this.#host.admission.previewCandidate(candidate, file)
-        : null,
-      tonemap: applyTonemap,
-      capKbps,
-      limitsFor: (frame) => this.#host.limitsFor(frame),
-      audioLoad: audioLoadOf(
-        viewerAudio !== undefined
-          ? viewerAudio
-          : { transcode: transcodeAudio === true, bitrateKbps: audioSource.bitrateKbps ?? null },
-        AUDIO_TRANSCODE_KBPS
-      ),
-      specWith: (encode) => new OutputSpec({
-        sourceKey,
-        segmentFormatId: segmentFormat.id,
-        // Where it is ACTUALLY cut: a copy whose container states no keyframes
-        // is re-encoded onto the even grid, and is named so.
-        grid: new CutGrid({ kind: useKeyframeGrid ? "keyframe" : "uniform", fileIndex }),
-        video: carriesVideo ? new VideoOutput({ fileIndex, encode }) : null,
-        audio: carriesAudio
-          ? new AudioOutput({ fileIndex: audioSource.fileIndex, trackIndex: audioSource.sourceTrackIndex, transcode: transcodeAudio === true })
-          : null
-      }),
-      serving: {
-        mode: servingMode ?? (forceExactSize ? "manual" : "auto"),
-        linkMbps: viewerLinkMbps,
-        keys: [...this.#host.outputs.values()].map((other) => other.outputKey).concat(this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.addresses()),
-        readyAt: (key) => this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.isClosed(key, timeline.indexForTime(Math.max(0, startPositionSeconds))),
-        observedPeakMbps: (candidate) => this.#host.observedPeakMbps?.(candidate) ?? null
-      }
-    });
-    if (decided.unavailable) {
-      this.#host.logger.info(
-        `transcode "${logName}": no output suits this viewer — ${decided.unavailable.reason} ` +
-        `${JSON.stringify(decided.unavailable.figures)} (wanted ${decided.wantedKey})`
-      );
-      const error = new Error(`No output suits this viewer: ${decided.unavailable.reason}.`);
-      // Bound by the MACHINE rather than by the viewer's link, for the output a
-      // viewer is opening: another proxy is the answer, found before anything
-      // plays. A step asked for on their behalf stays "unavailable", which is
-      // how every caller of a step already reads a refusal.
-      error.code = decided.unavailable.bound === "machine" && typeof claim === "function"
-        ? OUTPUT_NO_CAPACITY
-        : OUTPUT_UNAVAILABLE;
-      error.details = { reason: decided.unavailable.reason, figures: decided.unavailable.figures, wantedKey: decided.wantedKey };
-      throw error;
-    }
-    if (decided.answer) {
-      this.#host.logger.info(
-        `transcode "${logName}": ${decided.answer.verdict} for this viewer ${JSON.stringify(linkFiguresOf(decided.answer))}`
-      );
-    }
-    const spec = decided.spec;
-    const budget = decided.budget;
-    if (decided.reusedKey) {
-      this.#host.logger.info(`transcode "${logName}": served by an output already here, ${decided.reusedKey}, instead of ${decided.wantedKey}`);
-    }
-    transcodeVideo = carriesVideo ? spec.transcodesVideo : transcodeVideo;
-    const width = spec.video?.encode?.width ?? 0;
-    const height = spec.video?.encode?.height ?? 0;
-    const outputKey = spec.toKey();
-    // THE NAME FOLLOWS FROM THE KEY, so there is nothing to look it up in. A
-    // second table held key → name, which is a fact that can go out of step
-    // with the thing it points at: a session disposed without the table being
-    // cleared leaves a name pointing at nothing, and the next viewer of that
-    // output is handed it.
-    const existingId = spec.toName();
-    if (existingId) {
-      const existing = this.#host.outputs.get(existingId);
-      if (existing) {
-        this.#claimOrRefuse(claim, existing, logName);
-        return { output: existing, existed: true, audio, verdict: decided.answer ? linkFiguresOf(decided.answer) : null };
-      }
-    }
-
-    // Only a session actually made is timed: a viewer joining one costs none
-    // of what this figure predicts for the next viewer who has to wait.
-    this.#host.hostTimings.rememberSessionCreateLatency(Date.now() - createEntryMs);
-    const sessionId = spec.toName();
-    const output = new Output({
-      encodeWidth: width,
-      encodeHeight: height,
-      outputFps,
-      softwarePreset: spec.video?.encode?.preset ?? null,
-      applyTonemap: spec.video?.encode?.tonemap === true
-    });
-
-    const session = new EncodedOutput({
-      id: sessionId,
-      spec,
-      file,
-      keyframes,
-      timeline,
-      segmentFormat,
-      output,
-      useSyntheticPlaylist: hasDuration,
-      playlistText: hasDuration ? mediaPlaylistText({ boundaries: publishedGrid, segmentFormat }) : "",
-      variantHeight: forceExactSize && height > 0 ? height : undefined
-    });
-    this.#host.outputs.set(sessionId, session);
-    // THE PLACE ON THIS MACHINE, taken in the same synchronous stretch as the
-    // registration: priced as registered, and withdrawn whole if refused, so a
-    // refused opening leaves nothing behind — no directory, no timing.
-    try {
-      this.#claimOrRefuse(claim, session, logName);
-    } catch (error) {
-      this.#host.outputs.delete(sessionId);
-      throw error;
-    }
-
-    // Only now, when nothing above can still throw. Everything from the probe
-    // to the keyframe index used to run with the directory already made, so a
-    // failure between the two left it behind: nothing tracks a directory whose
-    // session was never registered, and no sweep looks for one. Proxy
-    // 2.9.101-2.9.102 failed here on every single request and the leftovers
-    // were the only trace of it on disk.
-    // A RETURN, if this output was held before — and its age, which is the one
-    // term of the keeping period that nothing measures. Read BEFORE the
-    // directory is claimed, since claiming it is what marks it read.
-    this.#host.returns.note({ lastReadAt: this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.lastReadAt(spec.toKey()), now: Date.now() });
-    this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.directoryFor(spec.toKey());
-    this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.useFormat(spec.toKey(), segmentFormat);
-    this.#host.hostTimings.noteOutputCreated(session, createEntryMs);
-    this.#host.encodeRuns.setReadWindow(session, readWindowBytes);
-    this.#host.encodeCost.notePredictionFor(session, output.encodeHeight);
-    // Decided before the key was built and only recorded here. Whether the audio
-    // travels separately decides the ffmpeg arguments, what the master says,
-    // whether the rendition route answers at all AND what the session is keyed
-    // on, and those four must agree for the whole life of the session — a
-    // session whose picture was encoded without audio cannot start muxing it in
-    // at the next restart without either playing it twice or refusing the
-    // append, and one keyed as carrying no sound must never mux somebody else's
-    // language into a picture two viewers share.
-    //
-    // It must not be asked a second time, because the answer moves: the offered
-    // list is recomputed as the host learns what this source costs, and
-    // crossing "two rungs" would flip the arrangement under a stream that is
-    // playing.
-    this.#host.logger.info(
-      // Proxy version on the session-start line: a field report always includes
-      // one of these, so "is the host actually running the build I published?"
-      // is answered by the log itself instead of a round trip to the machine.
-      `transcode ${sessionId} start (proxy ${PROXY_VERSION}) "${logName}" ` +
-        // Where the browser asked the encoder to begin. A resume that reaches
-        // hls.js but not this call makes the player request a segment nobody
-        // was told to produce: measured 2026-08-06, the session began at #0
-        // while the player asked for #127 and gave up 45.6 s later. Neither
-        // side saying what it meant is why that took three attempts to place.
-        `start=${Math.round(normalizedStartPosition)}s ` +
-        `video=${transcodeVideo ? `${this.#host.videoEncoder.name}${output.softwarePreset ? `/${output.softwarePreset}` : ""}` : "copy"} ` +
-        `audio=${transcodeAudio ? "aac" : "copy"} ` +
-        // Branch tag for log correlation: A = video re-encode (fixed GOP, grid
-        // aligned, ts-offset); B = video copy (cut at source keyframes, copyts).
-        `branch=${transcodeVideo ? "A(reencode,fixed-gop)" : "B(copy,copyts)"} ` +
-        `seg=${timeline.cutGrid} ` +
-        `${sourceWidth && sourceHeight ? `src=${sourceWidth}x${sourceHeight} ` : ""}` +
-        // The size produced, and how it was arrived at: exactly as asked, the
-        // budget's rung of the viewer's own ladder, or the box asked for where
-        // there is no ladder to choose from.
-        `${transcodeVideo
-          ? `enc=${output.encodeWidth || "src"}x${output.encodeHeight || "src"}@${output.outputFps} ` +
-            `size=${forceExactSize ? "exact" : budget ? `budget rung ${budget.rungIndex + 1}/${budget.ladder.length}` : "asked"} `
-          : ""}` +
-        // HDR source and whether the tone-map chain was applied (vs washed-out
-        // fallback when the filters are missing or on a hardware encoder).
-        `${transcodeVideo && mediaInfo.isHdr ? `hdr=1 tonemap=${applyTonemap ? "on" : "off"} ` : ""}` +
-        `${sourceStartTime ? `start=${sourceStartTime.toFixed(3)} ` : ""}` +
-        `duration=${hasDuration ? formatSeconds(durationSeconds) : "unknown"} segments=${segmentCount} ` +
-        // What this session was keyed on, which is what decides whether the next
-        // viewer joins it or starts a second encoder beside it. Printed because
-        // a fork was undiagnosable without it: on 2026-09-03 two viewers of one
-        // copied picture got two sessions with identical descriptions and
-        // byte-identical output, both create requests were 265 bytes, and
-        // nothing anywhere said what the two had been told apart by.
-        `key=${outputKey}`
-    );
-
-    // Where the first encoder goes is the plan's, placed by the same arithmetic
-    // as every later one from where the viewers stand; the requester is placed
-    // by the operation that asked for this output.
-    return { output: session, existed: false, audio, verdict: decided.answer ? linkFiguresOf(decided.answer) : null };
-  }
-}
+/**
+ * @file Which output answers a request for a file, made if it is not here yet.
+ *
+ * A request names a file, the tracks wanted and a size; what answers it is an
+ * OUTPUT, and deciding which is the encoding component's: the arrangement of
+ * the sound, the cut grid, the format the budget settles on, and whether an
+ * output already here serves the request instead. Two requests whose outputs
+ * agree ARE one output. Who asked is not a parameter: placing the requester on
+ * the output is the server operation's business (`server/ViewerRequests.js`),
+ * and nothing about a viewer enters what is decided here.
+ *
+ * What the file says about itself is read by the media component and handed in
+ * (`probeMediaInfo`, `probeKeyframeTimes`), as is everything else this reads.
+ */
+
+import { createRequire } from "node:module";
+import { buildResolutionLadder, chooseOutputFps } from "./hwaccel.js";
+import { resolveSegmentFormat, SEGMENT_FORMAT_IDS } from "./segment-formats/index.js";
+import { AudioOutput, CutGrid, OUTPUT_NO_CAPACITY, OUTPUT_UNAVAILABLE, OutputSpec, VideoOutput } from "./output/index.js";
+import { Timeline, Timelines } from "./output/Timeline.js";
+import { computeCutGrid } from "./output/cut-grid.js";
+import { Output } from "./output/Output.js";
+import { mediaPlaylistText } from "./output/playlists.js";
+import { formatSeconds } from "./EncodeRuns.js";
+import { EncodedOutput } from "./output/EncodedOutput.js";
+import { decideOutputFormat } from "./quality/output-format.js";
+import { rungForVisiblePicture } from "./quality/visible-rung.js";
+import { audioLoadOf, linkAnswerFigures as linkFiguresOf } from "./quality/link-budget.js";
+import { AUDIO_TRANSCODE_KBPS } from "./args.js";
+
+/**
+ * @typedef {Object} SegmentOutputFiles
+ * @property {() => string[]} addresses
+ * @property {(address: string, index: number) => boolean} isClosed
+ * @property {(address: string) => number | null} lastReadAt
+ * @property {(address: string) => string} directoryFor
+ * @property {(address: string, format: object) => void} useFormat
+ */
+
+/** Own package version, stamped onto output-start log lines. */
+const PROXY_VERSION = createRequire(import.meta.url)("../../package.json").version;
+
+export class OutputOpening {
+  /** What this reads and asks of the rest of the proxy, and nothing else. @type {object} */
+  #host;
+
+  /**
+   * @param {object} host - `logger`, `probeMediaInfo`, `probeKeyframeTimes`, `enabled`, `segmentFormat`, `renditions`, `sourceFiles`, `getCachedMediaInfo`, `localBaseUrl`, `tonemapSupported`, `videoEncoder`, `hostLoad`, `keyframeTables`, `timelines`, `segmentDurationSec`, `softwarePresetBenchmark`, `decodeCostModel`, `encodeCost`, `admission`, `outputs`, `segmentOutputFiles`, `hostTimings`, `returns`, `encodeRuns`
+   * @param {SegmentOutputFiles} host.segmentOutputFiles - The storage
+   *   operations needed while selecting or opening an output.
+   */
+  constructor(host) {
+    this.#host = host;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The box a re-encoded picture is fitted into.
+   *
+   * A box the request names is the box (a quality step names its height). With
+   * none named, the picture the viewer sees decides: the smallest rung of the
+   * source's ladder whose frame is not smaller than it (roadmap item 98). With
+   * neither, zeroes — the source's own size.
+   *
+   * @param {{ normalizedTargetWidth: number, normalizedTargetHeight: number, visiblePicture: { width: number, height: number } | null, sourceWidth: number, sourceHeight: number }} params
+   * @returns {{ width: number, height: number }}
+   */
+  #targetFor({ normalizedTargetWidth, normalizedTargetHeight, visiblePicture, sourceWidth, sourceHeight }) {
+    if (normalizedTargetWidth > 0 || normalizedTargetHeight > 0) {
+      return { width: normalizedTargetWidth, height: normalizedTargetHeight };
+    }
+    const rung = rungForVisiblePicture(
+      buildResolutionLadder(Math.round(Number(sourceWidth) || 0), Math.round(Number(sourceHeight) || 0)),
+      visiblePicture
+    );
+    return rung ? { width: rung.width, height: rung.height } : { width: 0, height: 0 };
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Ask the requester's call whether they may be put on this output, and throw
+   * the refusal the way the route answers it.
+   *
+   * @param {((output: object) => { admitted: boolean, reason: string, speedX: number | null }) | null} claim
+   * @param {object} output
+   * @param {string} logName
+   * @returns {void}
+   */
+  #claimOrRefuse(claim, output, logName) {
+    if (typeof claim !== "function") {
+      return;
+    }
+    const answer = claim(output);
+    if (answer?.admitted) {
+      return;
+    }
+    const reason = answer?.reason || "this machine has no place for one more encoder";
+    this.#host.logger.info(`transcode "${logName}": not opened for this viewer — ${reason} (key=${output.outputKey})`);
+    const error = new Error(`This proxy cannot take this video now: ${reason}.`);
+    error.code = OUTPUT_NO_CAPACITY;
+    error.details = {
+      reason,
+      figures: { speedX: Number.isFinite(answer?.speedX) ? Number(answer.speedX.toFixed(3)) : null, outputKey: output.outputKey }
+    };
+    throw error;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The output that answers this request: one already here, or one made now.
+   * No encoder is started here — where encoders go is the plan's.
+   *
+   * Throws with `error.code === "TRANSCODE_DISABLED"` when transcoding is
+   * disabled on this proxy instance.
+   *
+   * @param {object} options
+   * @param {string}  options.sourceKey      - Registry source key.
+   * @param {number}  options.fileIndex      - Zero-based file index in the torrent.
+   * @param {boolean} [options.transcodeVideo=false]
+   * @param {boolean} [options.transcodeAudio=false]
+   * @param {string}  [options.fileName=""]              - Display name for log output.
+   * @param {number}  [options.targetWidth=0]            - Target video width (0 = keep source).
+   * @param {number}  [options.targetHeight=0]           - Target video height (0 = keep source).
+   * @param {number}  [options.startPositionSeconds=0]   - Seek start position in seconds.
+   * @param {number}  [options.audioTrackIndex=0]        - Type-relative audio track to map (0:a:N).
+   * @param {boolean} [options.exactSize=false]           - Produce the target box exactly (capped to source), with no budget downscale and no runtime downswitch. Says nothing about who asked: every rung of a master sets it.
+   * @param {number | null} [options.capKbps=null]        - Nominal bitrate limit in kbit/s; null for the size's own. Above the size's own it is refused.
+   * @param {{ width: number, height: number } | null} [options.visiblePicture=null] - The picture as the requesting viewer sees it, in physical pixels. With no target box given, a re-encoded picture's box is the smallest rung whose frame is not smaller than this (roadmap item 98).
+   * @returns {Promise<{ output: EncodedOutput, existed: boolean, audio: { trackIndex: number, transcode: boolean }, verdict: object | null }>}
+   */
+  async open({
+    sourceKey,
+    fileIndex,
+    transcodeVideo = false,
+    transcodeAudio = false,
+    fileName = "",
+    targetWidth = 0,
+    targetHeight = 0,
+    startPositionSeconds = 0,
+    audioTrackIndex = 0,
+    exactSize = false,
+    // The caller takes its audio from a rendition group, so the picture is
+    // encoded without it and each audio track is encoded once for the file
+    // instead of once per rung. Off unless asked for: a browser that does not
+    // know about renditions must still get its audio in the stream.
+    audioRenditions = false,
+    // This session IS one of those renditions: one audio track, no picture, cut
+    // on the same grid as the video it accompanies.
+    audioOnly = false,
+    // The arrangement decided by the session this one belongs to — a variant or
+    // a rendition of it. Every session of one master must agree about where the
+    // audio is, and only the base is in a position to decide: a variant asked on
+    // its own would answer about the rungs IT would be offered at, which is a
+    // different list. Null means "decide it here", which is what a base does.
+    inheritedAudioSeparate = null,
+    segmentFormatId = "",
+    // The cut grid of the session this one is a quality variant of: its
+    // keyframe times and which container they were read from. Present only for
+    // a variant of a session cut at the source's keyframes, and it is what
+    // makes the two interchangeable.
+    inheritedGrid = null,
+    // "manual" when the viewer chose this size by hand, "auto" when it is the
+    // automatic choice; left out, a size produced exactly counts as chosen by
+    // hand. Decides whether an output already here may serve them instead.
+    servingMode = null,
+    // What the requesting viewer's link measured, or null.
+    viewerLinkMbps = null,
+    // The nominal bitrate limit asked for, in kbit/s, or null for the size's
+    // own. Part of the output's identity: another limit is another output.
+    capKbps = null,
+    // The soundtrack THIS viewer receives with the picture — from this output
+    // or beside it — as `{ transcode, bitrateKbps }`. Left out, the one this
+    // request names is theirs. A step opened on a viewer's behalf passes the
+    // track they chose, which need not be the one the picture was opened with.
+    viewerAudio = undefined,
+    visiblePicture = null,
+    // WHETHER THE REQUESTER MAY BE PUT ON THE OUTPUT, and putting them there,
+    // in one synchronous call (roadmap item 97, step 14). Called with the
+    // output the moment it answers the request — a new one registered, or one
+    // already here — and before anything else can run, so that the place it
+    // takes on this machine is counted before the next opening is asked.
+    // Returns `{ admitted, reason, speedX }`; a refusal is thrown as
+    // OUTPUT_NO_CAPACITY and a new output made for it is withdrawn. Who the
+    // requester is stays with the caller: this is handed an opaque call.
+    // Absent — a step or a soundtrack opened on a viewer's behalf, whose place
+    // the preparation already holds — nothing is asked.
+    claim = null
+  }) {
+    if (!this.#host.enabled) {
+      const error = new Error("Audio transcoding is disabled on this proxy.");
+      error.code = "TRANSCODE_DISABLED";
+      throw error;
+    }
+
+    // The container is the viewer's to choose, because the viewer's browser is
+    // what has to decode the result and only it knows what its media stack
+    // accepts. A copied MP3 track is the case that forced this: hls.js demuxes
+    // MPEG-TS itself and hands raw MP3 to an `audio/mpeg` buffer, which every
+    // browser supports, while an fMP4 segment goes to MSE untouched and
+    // `audio/mp4; codecs="mp3"` is refused — measured false in Chromium, where
+    // `canPlayType` cheerfully answers "probably". Same file, same browser:
+    // plays as MPEG-TS, silent loop as fMP4. The proxy's `--segment-format`
+    // stays the default for a client that expresses no preference.
+    // An unrecognised value falls back to the operator's choice rather than to
+    // the library default — `resolveSegmentFormat` cannot tell the two apart,
+    // and this value arrives from a client.
+    const segmentFormat = SEGMENT_FORMAT_IDS.includes(segmentFormatId)
+      ? resolveSegmentFormat(segmentFormatId)
+      : this.#host.segmentFormat;
+
+    const normalizedTargetWidth = Number.isInteger(targetWidth) && targetWidth > 0 ? targetWidth : 0;
+    const normalizedTargetHeight = Number.isInteger(targetHeight) && targetHeight > 0 ? targetHeight : 0;
+    // Round seek position to the nearest 10 s so that two consumers seeking
+    // to similar positions can share the same ffmpeg session.
+    const normalizedStartPosition =
+      Number.isFinite(startPositionSeconds) && startPositionSeconds > 0
+        ? Math.round(startPositionSeconds / 10) * 10
+        : 0;
+    const normalizedAudioTrack =
+      Number.isInteger(audioTrackIndex) && audioTrackIndex > 0 ? audioTrackIndex : 0;
+    // What the requester wants of the sound, handed back so the viewer who
+    // asked can be told apart from another viewer of the same output.
+    const audio = { trackIndex: normalizedAudioTrack, transcode: transcodeAudio === true };
+    // Which FILE the chosen soundtrack lives in, and which track it is inside
+    // that file. A release often ships its dub as a file of its own beside the
+    // picture, and the number that travels between the browser, this route and
+    // the `a/<n>/` address is flat across both — see `audio-inventory.js`. This
+    // is the one place that resolves it, so nothing downstream carries two
+    // vocabularies.
+    const audioSource = this.#host.renditions.resolveAudioSource(sourceKey, fileIndex, normalizedAudioTrack);
+    // The file itself, held once for every session of it. Its name, its key and
+    // the facts a probe of it returned used to be copied onto each session, so
+    // two viewers of one film held two copies of numbers that cannot differ —
+    // and twenty places assembled its key by hand to reach the caches that are
+    // keyed by a file.
+    const file = this.#host.sourceFiles.get(sourceKey, fileIndex, fileName);
+    const forceExactSize = exactSize === true && transcodeVideo;
+    // Whether this output carries its sound at all — decided HERE, before the
+    // key, and never derived a second time.
+    //
+    // It used to be settled after the session had already been put in the map,
+    // which was survivable only while the key carried the audio parameters
+    // unconditionally: the key could say "no sound in this output" while the
+    // output muxed it, and two viewers who chose different languages would then
+    // have shared one encode and one of them would have heard the other's.
+    const audioSeparate = inheritedAudioSeparate === null
+      ? this.#host.renditions.audioTravelsSeparately({
+          sourceKey,
+          fileIndex,
+          audioRenditions,
+          // The rung this session will be NAMED by. The budget may still
+          // downscale the encode below it, and that cannot change the answer:
+          // what it picks is a rung of the same ladder, already in the set.
+          ownHeight: normalizedTargetHeight
+        })
+      : inheritedAudioSeparate === true;
+    // A rendition IS the sound, so it carries it whatever the arrangement says;
+    // a picture carries it only when the browser is not taking it separately.
+    const carriesAudio = audioOnly === true || !audioSeparate;
+    const carriesVideo = audioOnly !== true;
+    const createEntryMs = Date.now();
+    // The directory belongs to the OUTPUT, not to this session: two sessions
+    // whose parameters agree produce interchangeable segments, so they write
+    // into one place and each serves what the other has already made. The start
+    // position is deliberately not part of it — segment 42 covers the same span
+    // whoever began where.
+    // The file this session's encoder READS. A soundtrack shipped as its own
+    // file is encoded FROM that file, and an audio rendition carries nothing
+    // else — so it reads the sidecar directly and needs no second input at all.
+    // The muxed case, where a browser takes its audio inside the picture's own
+    // stream, is the one that reads two files.
+    //
+    // Which of the two this is used to be a boolean on the session
+    // (`readsSidecarAlone`) beside a string URL built from it. It is the same
+    // statement as "the file it reads is not the file of the picture", so it is
+    // that comparison now and there is nothing to keep in step.
+    const audioFile = this.#host.sourceFiles.get(sourceKey, audioSource.fileIndex, audioSource.name);
+    const inputFile = audioOnly === true && audioSource.isSidecar ? audioFile : file;
+    // Media info (duration/resolution/fps/startTime/HDR) up front, so we can
+    // serve a complete VOD playlist (#EXT-X-ENDLIST) with the correct total
+    // duration and a fully seekable timeline before a single segment exists.
+    // Reuse the planner's probe when it is available and complete — the plan
+    // request just ran the same ffmpeg scan over the same input. Fall back to
+    // a fresh probe otherwise (proxy restarted between plan and session, or a
+    // critical field is missing).
+    const mediaInfoStartMs = Date.now();
+    const cachedMediaInfo = this.#host.getCachedMediaInfo?.({ sourceKey, fileIndex }) ?? null;
+    const cachedUsable =
+      cachedMediaInfo &&
+      Number.isFinite(cachedMediaInfo.durationSeconds) &&
+      cachedMediaInfo.durationSeconds > 0 &&
+      Number.isFinite(cachedMediaInfo.width) &&
+      cachedMediaInfo.width > 0 &&
+      Number.isFinite(cachedMediaInfo.height) &&
+      cachedMediaInfo.height > 0;
+    // Always the PICTURE's, even when this session reads a soundtrack from
+    // another file: the timeline, the duration and the cut grid are the
+    // picture's, and a rendition exists to be played WITH it. Only where the
+    // sidecar's own timeline begins is read from the sidecar, just below.
+    // No session id on it: this read is a probe of the picture, not this
+    // session's own delivery, and counting it against the session would tell a
+    // waiting browser that its film is arriving when what arrived was a header.
+    const pictureUrl = file.streamUrl(this.#host.localBaseUrl);
+    const mediaInfo = cachedUsable
+      ? cachedMediaInfo
+      : await this.#host.probeMediaInfo(pictureUrl.toString());
+    const mediaInfoMs = Date.now() - mediaInfoStartMs;
+    const mediaInfoSource = cachedUsable ? "cached" : "probed";
+    // The file takes in what the probe said. It is the same answer for every
+    // session of this file — a quality step, a soundtrack, a second viewer — so
+    // it is kept once instead of being copied into each. A later session with a
+    // fresher reading updates it: on a cold torrent the first probe can come
+    // back without a duration, and the second is the one that has it.
+    file.learn(mediaInfo);
+    const durationSeconds = file.durationSeconds ?? 0;
+    const sourceWidth = file.width;
+    const sourceHeight = file.height;
+    const sourceStartTime = file.startTime;
+    // Where the timeline of a soundtrack shipped as its own file begins.
+    //
+    // A soundtrack in another file has a start time of its own, and it is the
+    // one that must be subtracted when the output is relabelled onto a
+    // zero-based timeline: subtract the picture's instead and the sound sits at
+    // a fixed offset from it for the whole film. Read from the file rather than
+    // assumed to be zero, because assuming it is exactly the fault being
+    // avoided.
+    //
+    // NOT awaited. Creating a session used to stop here until the answer came
+    // back, and on a cold start the answer needs the sidecar's header off the
+    // swarm — 8121 ms of every session created, measured three times out of
+    // three on 2026-09-03. What is known now is used now, and the reading runs
+    // behind; when it lands it lands on the FILE, which every session of that
+    // soundtrack shares, so the spawn path sees it without re-reading anything.
+    //
+    // Unknown means "no difference between the two timelines", not "the
+    // soundtrack starts at zero". The shift exists to correct a difference
+    // between two containers; asserting one that has not been read is inventing
+    // a number, while assuming none leaves the sound exactly where a release
+    // remuxed from a single source puts it.
+    if (audioSource.isSidecar) {
+      this.#host.renditions.warmFileStartTime(audioFile);
+    }
+    // Tone-map an HDR source to SDR only when re-encoding video on the software
+    // path and this ffmpeg has the filters. Hardware encoders keep their own
+    // (untone-mapped) path for now; when unavailable, HDR falls back to a plain
+    // 8-bit convert (washed-out but playable).
+    const applyTonemap =
+      transcodeVideo === true &&
+      mediaInfo.isHdr === true &&
+      this.#host.tonemapSupported &&
+      this.#host.videoEncoder?.kind === "software";
+    // Output frame rate inherited from the source (integer, capped) so 25/30
+    // fps content is not resampled to 24. Fixed-GOP encoders keep the fps↔GOP
+    // relationship exact; time-based-keyframe encoders just use it as the rate.
+    const outputFps = chooseOutputFps(mediaInfo.fps);
+    const hasDuration = Number.isFinite(durationSeconds) && durationSeconds > 0;
+    const logName = file.name;
+
+    // Size the reader's window in seconds of playback rather than bytes. Needs
+    // the file's own average byte rate, which is size ÷ duration; the size
+    // comes from the same stats call the realtime budget uses. Best effort —
+    // without it the reader keeps its own byte default.
+    //
+    // Sized for the file being READ, which for a soundtrack shipped separately
+    // is that file: it is a twentieth of the picture's size over the same
+    // duration, so the picture's byte rate would buy a window twenty times
+    // wider than the seconds it is meant to represent, and the piece store
+    // would hold it.
+    const readWindowBytes = await this.#host.hostLoad.readWindowBytesFor(
+      inputFile.sourceKey,
+      inputFile.fileIndex,
+      durationSeconds
+    );
+    if (!hasDuration) {
+      this.#host.logger.warn(
+        `transcode "${logName}": could not probe duration; falling back to ` +
+          "ffmpeg-managed (growing) playlist"
+      );
+    }
+
+    // For the video-copy path we cannot insert keyframes, so the playlist's
+    // segment boundaries must match the source's real keyframes (otherwise the
+    // player sees gaps on seek). Re-encoded video uses a uniform grid for
+    // segment boundaries instead (its fixed GOP makes the cuts land there —
+    // computeSegmentBoundaries ignores keyframeTimes when transcodeVideo).
+    //
+    // But the probe is ALSO used for something both branches need: choosing a
+    // SOURCE seek position ffmpeg can actually land on. `-ss` before `-i` trusts
+    // the container's own on-the-fly seek/index, which for some containers
+    // (observed: AVI with VBR MP3 audio) can point at a position with no valid
+    // frame boundary at all — ffmpeg then fails outright ("Seek failed" /
+    // "Header missing"), not just imprecisely. Snapping the seek to the nearest
+    // KNOWN real keyframe (see #startEncodeRun) avoids that. So probe for both
+    // branches; on failure both fall back to their current behaviour (uniform
+    // grid for boundaries, raw target for seeking) — no regression.
+    // The file's own table — the object every reader of this file holds, so a
+    // read that answers after this session was made still reaches it.
+    const keyframes = this.#host.keyframeTables.of({ sourceKey, fileIndex });
+    let keyframeMs = -1; // -1 = not run (skipped), -2 = running in the background
+    // A quality variant of a session whose cuts are the source's keyframes must
+    // be cut at exactly those same times, or its segments cannot stand where
+    // the other's would have. Nothing has to be handed over for that: the table
+    // is the FILE's, and a variant is a session of the same file, so it reads
+    // the one answer. What the inherited grid still carries is the CORRECTED
+    // boundaries and the published playlist, which are properties of the family
+    // rather than of the file.
+    if (inheritedGrid) {
+      // Nothing to read: the table above IS the file's, corrections included.
+    } else if (hasDuration && !transcodeVideo && !audioOnly) {
+      // Video-COPY path: the keyframe times are REQUIRED to build correct
+      // segment boundaries (the playlist itself), so this MUST block session
+      // creation — an incorrect playlist is worse than a slower start.
+      //
+      // The wait is bounded, and the bound is what the read costs on a real
+      // host rather than a figure picked here (`KEYFRAME_TABLE_BUDGET_MS`). A
+      // comment in this place used to promise a short timeout and "never more
+      // than ~6 s to session start" when no timeout existed at all; the file
+      // comes off a torrent, so the bytes the table lives in may still be
+      // arriving, and a session used to wait for them without limit.
+      //
+      // What is read is the container's OWN table (Cues/stss) rather than a
+      // scan of the media. On the copy path ffmpeg can only cut at the source's
+      // existing keyframes, so these times ARE the segment boundaries —
+      // declaring an even grid instead is a falsehood the player punishes: it
+      // walks the whole file to rebuild the timeline, or presents audio with no
+      // picture because a segment starts with nothing decodable (both
+      // field-observed 2026-08-02). Scanning cannot supply them here — the file
+      // comes off a torrent, and a full packet scan of 5.5 GB found 77
+      // keyframes in 45 s without finishing, while the container index yields
+      // all 570 in 0.8 s from two point reads (16 KB).
+      const keyframeStartMs = Date.now();
+      const { arrived } = await this.#host.keyframeTables.within({ sourceKey, fileIndex, logName });
+      keyframeMs = Date.now() - keyframeStartMs;
+      if (!arrived) {
+        // A read that ran out of its budget is still running, and the table is
+        // still unanswered — which is not the same as a file with no keyframes,
+        // and the distinction is the table's own (`answered` against
+        // `readable`). Recorded as an absence it would make a passing shortage
+        // of bytes look like a property of the bytes, and every later session
+        // of the file would re-encode a picture that can be copied.
+        this.#host.logger.warn(
+          `transcode: the keyframe table for "${logName}" has not arrived in ` +
+            `${Math.round(this.#host.keyframeTables.budgetMs / 1000)}s, so this session re-encodes the picture ` +
+            "instead of copying it; the read goes on and the next session of this file gets the copy"
+        );
+      }
+      if (!keyframes.readable) {
+        // No index, so there is no honest grid for a COPY: a copied picture can
+        // only be cut at the source's own keyframes, and we do not know where
+        // they are. Declaring an even grid instead is a falsehood the player
+        // punishes — it walks the whole file to rebuild the timeline, or shows
+        // audio with no picture because a segment begins with nothing
+        // decodable (both field-observed 2026-08-02).
+        //
+        // Re-encoding is the honest answer and costs an encoder: keyframes are
+        // then PLACED at our own cut times rather than found, so the grid is
+        // correct by construction whatever the container. MPEG-TS is the case
+        // this exists for — measured 2026-08-21, 669 real keyframes and no
+        // index of any kind to read them from — and a container whose index
+        // could not be read in the budget lands here too, which is right for
+        // the same reason.
+        transcodeVideo = true;
+        if (keyframes.answered) {
+          this.#host.logger.warn(
+            `transcode: no keyframe index in the ${keyframes.format} container for ` +
+              `"${logName}" — a copied picture has no honest grid without one, so the video is ` +
+              "re-encoded instead and its keyframes are placed on our own cuts"
+          );
+        }
+      }
+    } else if (hasDuration && transcodeVideo) {
+      // Re-encode path: keyframeTimes are ONLY used to snap a LATER seek (see
+      // #startEncodeRun) — segment boundaries stay on the uniform grid either
+      // way. So this does NOT need to block session creation / the first
+      // segment's start. Run it in the background with a FULL budget instead of
+      // the 6 s cap: AVI-class containers need a full packet scan, which 6 s can
+      // never afford without delaying playback start — that starved budget is
+      // exactly why the probe kept missing on the container where the seek bug
+      // was field-diagnosed. A run reads the file's table on every call, so a
+      // seek that happens AFTER this finishes picks it up automatically; one
+      // that happens before falls back to the existing circuit breaker as a
+      // safety net (no regression either way).
+      keyframeMs = -2;
+      const backgroundStartedAt = Date.now();
+      void this.#host.probeKeyframeTimes(inputFile.streamUrl(this.#host.localBaseUrl).toString(), 25_000).then((times) => {
+        // Into the FILE's table, which the picture, its quality steps and a
+        // second viewer's session all hold — so nothing has to be alive for the
+        // answer to be kept, and the session this probe was started for may
+        // long since have gone. It used to be written onto whichever session
+        // was still there, and dropped outright when none was.
+        this.#host.keyframeTables.learn({ sourceKey, fileIndex }, { times, format: "packet probe" });
+        const elapsedMs = Date.now() - backgroundStartedAt;
+        this.#host.logger.info(
+          times
+            ? `transcode: background keyframe probe found ${times.length} keyframes ` +
+                `(${elapsedMs}ms) for "${logName}" — later seeks will snap to them`
+            : `transcode: background keyframe probe unavailable (${elapsedMs}ms) for "${logName}" ` +
+                `— seeks keep using the raw target (falls back to the circuit breaker on failure)`
+        );
+      });
+    }
+    this.#host.logger.info(
+      `cold-start "${logName}": media-info=${mediaInfoMs}ms (${mediaInfoSource}) ` +
+        `keyframes=${keyframeMs === -1 ? "skipped" : keyframeMs === -2 ? "background" : `${keyframeMs}ms`} ` +
+        `create-total=${Date.now() - createEntryMs}ms`
+    );
+    // Which grid this session is cut on. A copy has no choice: only where the
+    // source already has a keyframe. A re-encode normally takes the even grid —
+    // it produces every frame and may put keyframes where it likes — unless it
+    // is a variant of a keyframe-cut session, in which case it must land on the
+    // same times to be interchangeable with it.
+    // An audio rendition carries no picture, so it has no keyframes of its own
+    // to be cut at: it takes the grid of the video it accompanies, whatever that
+    // is. Handed one, it uses it; handed none, the base is on the even grid and
+    // so is this. Falling into the COPY branch instead — which is what
+    // `transcodeVideo: false` means everywhere else — would put the audio of a
+    // re-encoded stream on the source's keyframe times while the player was
+    // told the even grid, and the two drift further apart with every segment.
+    const useKeyframeGrid = hasDuration &&
+      keyframes.readable &&
+      (audioOnly ? inheritedGrid != null : (!transcodeVideo || inheritedGrid != null));
+    // A rung takes the grid it was handed, rather than working one out again
+    // from the same index. The two are not the same table: the one it is handed
+    // has been CORRECTED wherever a produced segment showed the index to be
+    // wrong, and it is those corrected times the copy actually cuts at. Building
+    // it afresh here would put the rung back on the index's fiction and undo the
+    // alignment it exists for.
+    // The file's own table, made once and shared by every session of it. A
+    // quality step is a different OUTPUT and the same cuts — which is exactly
+    // the agreement `inheritedGrid` used to arrange by handing a copy to each
+    // new session — so it is keyed by the file and the kind of grid, and
+    // nothing else.
+    const timeline = this.#host.timelines.get(
+      Timelines.keyFor(sourceKey, fileIndex, useKeyframeGrid ? "keyframe" : "uniform"),
+      () => {
+        const cut = hasDuration
+          ? computeCutGrid({
+              useKeyframeGrid,
+              durationSeconds,
+              segDur: this.#host.segmentDurationSec,
+              keyframeTimes: keyframes.times,
+              startTime: sourceStartTime
+            })
+          : { boundaries: [], sourceTimes: [] };
+        const inherited = Array.isArray(inheritedGrid?.boundaries) && inheritedGrid.boundaries.length > 1;
+        return new Timeline({
+          boundaries: inherited ? [...inheritedGrid.boundaries] : cut.boundaries,
+          // The file's own clock for those cuts. An inherited table brings its
+          // boundaries and not this, so the seek falls back to searching there.
+          sourceTimes: inherited ? null : cut.sourceTimes,
+          cutGrid: useKeyframeGrid ? "keyframe" : "uniform"
+        });
+      }
+    );
+    // What this session will PUBLISH. A member of a family takes its base's
+    // published table verbatim; a session with no base publishes what it cuts
+    // at. The two differ exactly by the corrections made since the family's
+    // first playlist was written, and that difference is what must never reach
+    // the player as two different timelines.
+    const publishedGrid = timeline.published.length > 1 ? timeline.published : null;
+    const segmentCount = timeline.segmentCount;
+
+    // THE FORMAT, decided before the output is named, and possibly an output
+    // already here instead (`encode/quality/output-format.js`).
+    const decided = decideOutputFormat({
+      encodesPicture: transcodeVideo && carriesVideo,
+      exact: forceExactSize,
+      target: this.#targetFor({ normalizedTargetWidth, normalizedTargetHeight, visiblePicture, sourceWidth, sourceHeight }),
+      source: { width: sourceWidth, height: sourceHeight, megabitsPerSecond: file.decode?.megabitsPerSecond ?? null, decode: file.decode },
+      fps: outputFps,
+      encoder: this.#host.videoEncoder,
+      benchmark: this.#host.softwarePresetBenchmark,
+      cost: {
+        decodeModel: this.#host.decodeCostModel,
+        observedDecodeCostSec: this.#host.encodeCost.decodeCostFor(file.key)?.costSec ?? null,
+        requiredSpeed: this.#host.hostLoad.requiredSpeedFor(sourceKey, fileIndex)
+      },
+      chooseBudget: (params) => this.#host.encodeCost.chooseEncodeBudget(params),
+      machineAdmission: this.#host.admission
+        ? (candidate) => this.#host.admission.previewCandidate(candidate, file)
+        : null,
+      tonemap: applyTonemap,
+      capKbps,
+      limitsFor: (frame) => this.#host.limitsFor(frame),
+      audioLoad: audioLoadOf(
+        viewerAudio !== undefined
+          ? viewerAudio
+          : { transcode: transcodeAudio === true, bitrateKbps: audioSource.bitrateKbps ?? null },
+        AUDIO_TRANSCODE_KBPS
+      ),
+      specWith: (encode) => new OutputSpec({
+        sourceKey,
+        segmentFormatId: segmentFormat.id,
+        // Where it is ACTUALLY cut: a copy whose container states no keyframes
+        // is re-encoded onto the even grid, and is named so.
+        grid: new CutGrid({ kind: useKeyframeGrid ? "keyframe" : "uniform", fileIndex }),
+        video: carriesVideo ? new VideoOutput({ fileIndex, encode }) : null,
+        audio: carriesAudio
+          ? new AudioOutput({ fileIndex: audioSource.fileIndex, trackIndex: audioSource.sourceTrackIndex, transcode: transcodeAudio === true })
+          : null
+      }),
+      serving: {
+        mode: servingMode ?? (forceExactSize ? "manual" : "auto"),
+        linkMbps: viewerLinkMbps,
+        keys: [...this.#host.outputs.values()].map((other) => other.outputKey).concat(this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.addresses()),
+        readyAt: (key) => this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.isClosed(key, timeline.indexForTime(Math.max(0, startPositionSeconds))),
+        observedPeakMbps: (candidate) => this.#host.observedPeakMbps?.(candidate) ?? null
+      }
+    });
+    if (decided.unavailable) {
+      this.#host.logger.info(
+        `transcode "${logName}": no output suits this viewer — ${decided.unavailable.reason} ` +
+        `${JSON.stringify(decided.unavailable.figures)} (wanted ${decided.wantedKey})`
+      );
+      const error = new Error(`No output suits this viewer: ${decided.unavailable.reason}.`);
+      // Bound by the MACHINE rather than by the viewer's link, for the output a
+      // viewer is opening: another proxy is the answer, found before anything
+      // plays. A step asked for on their behalf stays "unavailable", which is
+      // how every caller of a step already reads a refusal.
+      error.code = decided.unavailable.bound === "machine" && typeof claim === "function"
+        ? OUTPUT_NO_CAPACITY
+        : OUTPUT_UNAVAILABLE;
+      error.details = { reason: decided.unavailable.reason, figures: decided.unavailable.figures, wantedKey: decided.wantedKey };
+      throw error;
+    }
+    if (decided.answer) {
+      this.#host.logger.info(
+        `transcode "${logName}": ${decided.answer.verdict} for this viewer ${JSON.stringify(linkFiguresOf(decided.answer))}`
+      );
+    }
+    const spec = decided.spec;
+    const budget = decided.budget;
+    if (decided.reusedKey) {
+      this.#host.logger.info(`transcode "${logName}": served by an output already here, ${decided.reusedKey}, instead of ${decided.wantedKey}`);
+    }
+    transcodeVideo = carriesVideo ? spec.transcodesVideo : transcodeVideo;
+    const width = spec.video?.encode?.width ?? 0;
+    const height = spec.video?.encode?.height ?? 0;
+    const outputKey = spec.toKey();
+    // THE NAME FOLLOWS FROM THE KEY, so there is nothing to look it up in. A
+    // second table held key → name, which is a fact that can go out of step
+    // with the thing it points at: a session disposed without the table being
+    // cleared leaves a name pointing at nothing, and the next viewer of that
+    // output is handed it.
+    const existingId = spec.toName();
+    if (existingId) {
+      const existing = this.#host.outputs.get(existingId);
+      if (existing) {
+        this.#claimOrRefuse(claim, existing, logName);
+        return { output: existing, existed: true, audio, verdict: decided.answer ? linkFiguresOf(decided.answer) : null };
+      }
+    }
+
+    // Only a session actually made is timed: a viewer joining one costs none
+    // of what this figure predicts for the next viewer who has to wait.
+    this.#host.hostTimings.rememberSessionCreateLatency(Date.now() - createEntryMs);
+    const sessionId = spec.toName();
+    const output = new Output({
+      encodeWidth: width,
+      encodeHeight: height,
+      outputFps,
+      softwarePreset: spec.video?.encode?.preset ?? null,
+      applyTonemap: spec.video?.encode?.tonemap === true
+    });
+
+    const session = new EncodedOutput({
+      id: sessionId,
+      spec,
+      file,
+      keyframes,
+      timeline,
+      segmentFormat,
+      output,
+      useSyntheticPlaylist: hasDuration,
+      playlistText: hasDuration ? mediaPlaylistText({ boundaries: publishedGrid, segmentFormat }) : "",
+      variantHeight: forceExactSize && height > 0 ? height : undefined
+    });
+    this.#host.outputs.set(sessionId, session);
+    // THE PLACE ON THIS MACHINE, taken in the same synchronous stretch as the
+    // registration: priced as registered, and withdrawn whole if refused, so a
+    // refused opening leaves nothing behind — no directory, no timing.
+    try {
+      this.#claimOrRefuse(claim, session, logName);
+    } catch (error) {
+      this.#host.outputs.delete(sessionId);
+      throw error;
+    }
+
+    // Only now, when nothing above can still throw. Everything from the probe
+    // to the keyframe index used to run with the directory already made, so a
+    // failure between the two left it behind: nothing tracks a directory whose
+    // session was never registered, and no sweep looks for one. Proxy
+    // 2.9.101-2.9.102 failed here on every single request and the leftovers
+    // were the only trace of it on disk.
+    // A RETURN, if this output was held before — and its age, which is the one
+    // term of the keeping period that nothing measures. Read BEFORE the
+    // directory is claimed, since claiming it is what marks it read.
+    this.#host.returns.note({ lastReadAt: this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.lastReadAt(spec.toKey()), now: Date.now() });
+    this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.directoryFor(spec.toKey());
+    this.#host.segmentOutputFiles.useFormat(spec.toKey(), segmentFormat);
+    this.#host.hostTimings.noteOutputCreated(session, createEntryMs);
+    this.#host.encodeRuns.setReadWindow(session, readWindowBytes);
+    this.#host.encodeCost.notePredictionFor(session, output.encodeHeight);
+    // Decided before the key was built and only recorded here. Whether the audio
+    // travels separately decides the ffmpeg arguments, what the master says,
+    // whether the rendition route answers at all AND what the session is keyed
+    // on, and those four must agree for the whole life of the session — a
+    // session whose picture was encoded without audio cannot start muxing it in
+    // at the next restart without either playing it twice or refusing the
+    // append, and one keyed as carrying no sound must never mux somebody else's
+    // language into a picture two viewers share.
+    //
+    // It must not be asked a second time, because the answer moves: the offered
+    // list is recomputed as the host learns what this source costs, and
+    // crossing "two rungs" would flip the arrangement under a stream that is
+    // playing.
+    this.#host.logger.info(
+      // Proxy version on the session-start line: a field report always includes
+      // one of these, so "is the host actually running the build I published?"
+      // is answered by the log itself instead of a round trip to the machine.
+      `transcode ${sessionId} start (proxy ${PROXY_VERSION}) "${logName}" ` +
+        // Where the browser asked the encoder to begin. A resume that reaches
+        // hls.js but not this call makes the player request a segment nobody
+        // was told to produce: measured 2026-08-06, the session began at #0
+        // while the player asked for #127 and gave up 45.6 s later. Neither
+        // side saying what it meant is why that took three attempts to place.
+        `start=${Math.round(normalizedStartPosition)}s ` +
+        `video=${transcodeVideo ? `${this.#host.videoEncoder.name}${output.softwarePreset ? `/${output.softwarePreset}` : ""}` : "copy"} ` +
+        `audio=${transcodeAudio ? "aac" : "copy"} ` +
+        // Branch tag for log correlation: A = video re-encode (fixed GOP, grid
+        // aligned, ts-offset); B = video copy (cut at source keyframes, copyts).
+        `branch=${transcodeVideo ? "A(reencode,fixed-gop)" : "B(copy,copyts)"} ` +
+        `seg=${timeline.cutGrid} ` +
+        `${sourceWidth && sourceHeight ? `src=${sourceWidth}x${sourceHeight} ` : ""}` +
+        // The size produced, and how it was arrived at: exactly as asked, the
+        // budget's rung of the viewer's own ladder, or the box asked for where
+        // there is no ladder to choose from.
+        `${transcodeVideo
+          ? `enc=${output.encodeWidth || "src"}x${output.encodeHeight || "src"}@${output.outputFps} ` +
+            `size=${forceExactSize ? "exact" : budget ? `budget rung ${budget.rungIndex + 1}/${budget.ladder.length}` : "asked"} `
+          : ""}` +
+        // HDR source and whether the tone-map chain was applied (vs washed-out
+        // fallback when the filters are missing or on a hardware encoder).
+        `${transcodeVideo && mediaInfo.isHdr ? `hdr=1 tonemap=${applyTonemap ? "on" : "off"} ` : ""}` +
+        `${sourceStartTime ? `start=${sourceStartTime.toFixed(3)} ` : ""}` +
+        `duration=${hasDuration ? formatSeconds(durationSeconds) : "unknown"} segments=${segmentCount} ` +
+        // What this session was keyed on, which is what decides whether the next
+        // viewer joins it or starts a second encoder beside it. Printed because
+        // a fork was undiagnosable without it: on 2026-09-03 two viewers of one
+        // copied picture got two sessions with identical descriptions and
+        // byte-identical output, both create requests were 265 bytes, and
+        // nothing anywhere said what the two had been told apart by.
+        `key=${outputKey}`
+    );
+
+    // Where the first encoder goes is the plan's, placed by the same arithmetic
+    // as every later one from where the viewers stand; the requester is placed
+    // by the operation that asked for this output.
+    return { output: session, existed: false, audio, verdict: decided.answer ? linkFiguresOf(decided.answer) : null };
+  }
+}