@torrent-tv/proxy 2.87.7 → 2.87.8

package/services/viewer/Viewer.js

@@ -1,657 +1,657 @@
-/**
- * @file One person watching, and everything that is true of them alone.
- *
- * A viewer is not a property of the material. What they are listening to, which
- * quality step they have on screen, what is being prepared for them, where they
- * are and what their link can carry — none of it changes a byte of what any
- * encoder produces, and none of it belongs to a session, which is a description
- * of an OUTPUT.
- *
- * It was six parallel maps hung on the session, each keyed by consumer id:
- * `audioChoiceByConsumer`, `activeVariantByConsumer`,
- * `warmingVariantByConsumer`, `warmingAudioByConsumer`, `consumerHeads`,
- * `netReports`. Six places to remember to update and six to remember to forget,
- * and the forgetting was already wrong — releasing a consumer emptied none of
- * them, so a viewer who had left went on counting as wanting their soundtrack
- * until their head expired, and their entries stayed for the life of the
- * session.
- *
- * One object, one map, one thing to remove.
- *
- * **TWO INDEPENDENT FACTS, NOT ONE.** A viewer is somewhere, and a viewer is
- * either still here or gone. Until 2026-09-05 both were answered by one field —
- * the position, which is written only when a segment is requested — so a viewer
- * who had just arrived counted as absent, and an output all of whose viewers
- * count as absent has every encoder on it stopped. That is exactly what
- * happened on 2026-09-05: a soundtrack's encoder was stopped 1.25 s after it
- * started, having produced nothing, its `init.mp4` was therefore never made,
- * and the picture could not be played without it. The browser could not rescue
- * itself either, because the only thing that would have marked the viewer
- * present was a request for a segment — which needs the `init.mp4` that the
- * stopped encoder was going to make.
- *
- * So: **position is known from the moment a viewer arrives** — it is in the
- * request that created the output, as a time on the source, and it is either
- * zero or what the address bar carried. And **presence is a fact of the
- * connection**, not of the last file asked for.
- *
- * **Nothing here knows about ffmpeg, the disk or the torrent.** A viewer states
- * what they want and where they are; what to make of that is the orchestrator's
- * question, and it reads a union of viewers rather than any one of them.
- */
-
-import { Assignments } from "./Assignments.js";
-import { bufferTrend, trendRunStart } from "./buffer-trend.js";
-
-/**
- * How long a generation this viewer has left behind goes on accepting NEW
- * requests.
- *
- * A CHOSEN NUMBER, and it is named here rather than buried so that it reads as
- * one. It cannot be derived today: it should come from the player's own retry
- * policy, and this product overrides that policy on its own page while the
- * native path in Safari has none at all that can be read. Until the retries a
- * real player actually makes are measured, the value is given and the checks
- * are written against what is given.
- *
- * What it protects: a request made just before a seek, still in flight when the
- * seek lands, is answered by the output it was made against instead of being
- * decided again against a position the viewer has already left.
- */
-export const ACCEPT_WINDOW_MS = 30_000;
-
-export class Viewer {
-  /**
-   * @param {string} id - The consumer id the browser sends with every request
-   *   that means "this viewer".
-   * @param {number} [now] - When they arrived. Presence starts here, so a
-   *   viewer counts as watching from the instant they are known.
-   */
-  constructor(id, now = Date.now()) {
-    this.id = String(id ?? "");
-    /**
-     * Which soundtrack this viewer is listening to and whether their browser
-     * needs it re-encoded. Theirs alone: two viewers of one picture may have
-     * chosen different languages, and one browser may decode a track another
-     * cannot.
-     * @type {{ trackIndex: number, transcode: boolean }}
-     */
-    this.audio = { trackIndex: 0, transcode: false };
-    /** The quality step on their screen. Null means the base session. @type {string | null} */
-    this.activeVariantId = null;
-    /** A step being prepared for a switch they have not made yet. @type {string | null} */
-    this.warmingVariantId = null;
-    /**
-     * When the warming of that step began, so the time a move takes to be
-     * ready can be kept (roadmap item 97, step 14). @type {number | null}
-     */
-    this.warmingSince = null;
-    /** A soundtrack being prepared for the same reason. @type {string | null} */
-    this.warmingAudioId = null;
-    /**
-     * An output of the height on their screen, at another bitrate limit, being
-     * prepared so that their NEXT segments come from it (roadmap item 97, step
-     * 12). Not `warmingVariantId`: that is a step their player will switch to,
-     * and the page says when it has. Here the address does not change, the
-     * player is never told, and the switch is made on this side once the
-     * segment they will ask for next is closed on the new output.
-     *
-     * `askedHeights` are the heights their player asks for under which the
-     * output on screen is chosen — a step is chosen under the height asked and
-     * named after the height produced, so there can be more than one — and the
-     * move replaces the choice under each; `direction` is why it was started.
-     *
-     * @type {{ askedHeights: number[], outputId: string, outputKey: string, direction: "down" | "up", reason: string, since: number } | null}
-     */
-    this.sameHeightSwitch = null;
-    /**
-     * Where their picture stood when they last said so, and when they said it.
-     *
-     * ONE FACT WITH ONE WRITER: the viewer. It is set when they arrive — from
-     * the position their own create request named — and moved only by what they
-     * state afterwards, a seek or a report carrying their playhead. Never null
-     * for a viewer this process has met, because a viewer arrives by asking for
-     * a position.
-     *
-     * A REQUEST FOR A SEGMENT IS NOT A POSITION and never writes here. It says
-     * how far their buffer has reached, which is a different quantity and one
-     * nothing in the plan needs: a segment either exists and is served, or does
-     * not and is waited for.
-     *
-     * Two writers is what this replaced, and the cost is measured. Until
-     * 2026-09-13 a seek wrote `seeked` while a request wrote `seconds`, and
-     * `positionSeconds` preferred whichever was set — so the two took turns and
-     * the priority map jumped back and forth by one or two segments several
-     * times a second. Field that day, one output over one second:
-     * `p100:#9..#10`, `p100:#18..#20`, `p100:#16..#18`, `p100:#18..#20`, with
-     * the second viewer stopped dead at 1673.6 s throughout. The encoder
-     * placement followed the map, as it must, and the machine spent six minutes
-     * on 77 starts and 141 stops against one normal end.
-     *
-     * @type {{ seconds: number, at: number } | null}
-     */
-    this.position = null;
-    /**
-     * When this viewer was last known to be there.
-     *
-     * Every piece of evidence refreshes it: a request of any kind, a link
-     * report, an echo of a delivery probe. It is NOT the position's timestamp —
-     * a viewer with a full buffer legitimately asks for nothing for a minute
-     * and is no less present for it.
-     *
-     * @type {number}
-     */
-    this.lastSeenAt = now;
-    /**
-     * Set when something has SAID this viewer is gone — the browser released
-     * the session, or their connection closed. Silence never sets it: a
-     * paused viewer, a viewer whose tab is hidden and whose timers the browser
-     * has throttled, and a viewer holding two minutes of buffer are all silent
-     * and all still watching.
-     *
-     * @type {boolean}
-     */
-    this.gone = false;
-    /** What their link was last measured to carry. @type {object | null} */
-    this.netReport = null;
-    /**
-     * "manual" while the size on their screen was picked by hand, "auto" while
-     * it is the automatic choice, null until their page has said.
-     *
-     * @type {"auto" | "manual" | null}
-     */
-    this.qualityMode = null;
-    /**
-     * The height the quality budget last asked THIS viewer's player to move
-     * to, while the request stands. Created only in AUTO (`askQuality`), read
-     * back only by this viewer's own progress poll, and let go once they are
-     * there, once it has run out, or once they are no longer in AUTO.
-     *
-     * `urgent` when their buffer would run dry before anything else could
-     * arrive: their page then switches without waiting for a cushion.
-     *
-     * @type {{ height: number, at: number, reason: string, urgent: boolean } | null}
-     */
-    this.qualityAsk = null;
-    /**
-     * Every output this viewer is watching, by session id: the picture, the
-     * quality step on their screen, the soundtrack they chose.
-     *
-     * THE ONLY STORED FORM of the relation "this person watches this output".
-     * The question from the other end — who watches this output — is answered
-     * by `Viewers.forOutput`, which derives it from these sets. It used to be a
-     * second index kept beside this one, and two stored copies of one relation
-     * are two answers that can disagree. The registry is small, so deriving is
-     * cheaper than keeping the copies in step.
-     *
-     * This is what replaced a film object. There is no "film" anywhere in this
-     * proxy — its parts are born at different times, die at different times and
-     * are addressed separately — and the three link fields that stood in for one
-     * could not say how many people were listening to a soundtrack.
-     *
-     * @type {Set<string>}
-     */
-    this.outputs = new Set();
-    /**
-     * Which output answers THIS viewer, and for how long that stands.
-     *
-     * Their own, which is the whole of roadmap item 97: the record it replaces
-     * — one entry per file and height, read by everybody — meant a viewer on a
-     * thin link decided for a viewer on a thick one. What it holds and why each
-     * fact is there is in `Assignments.js`.
-     *
-     * @type {Assignments}
-     */
-    this.assignments = new Assignments({ acceptWindowMs: ACCEPT_WINDOW_MS });
-    /**
-     * On what the output this viewer was last given was judged: the verdict of
-     * their own link against its whole load, and the figures. `estimated to
-     * fit` is admitted and NOT confirmed — the figure is an average, not a
-     * bound — and the page is told so rather than left to assume it.
-     * @type {object | null}
-     */
-    this.servingVerdict = null;
-    /**
-     * The files this viewer has subtitles switched on for, as
-     * `sourceKey:fileIndex`.
-     *
-     * A subscription is a fact about a PERSON, not about a channel. Held on the
-     * channel — as it was until now — it dies with the channel, so a seamless
-     * reconnect silently lost subtitles for the rest of the session, and a
-     * transport that rotates its association on purpose would lose them every
-     * time it rotated. Held here it survives both by construction: whatever
-     * channel this viewer is reachable on next, they are still subscribed.
-     *
-     * @type {Set<string>}
-     */
-    this.wantsCuesFor = new Set();
-    // WHETHER THE PICTURE IS MOVING, and separately WHETHER THIS VIEWER IS
-    // BLOCKED ON US. Two booleans, because there are three states and one
-    // boolean cannot hold them:
-    //
-    //   playing        the picture advances, a second of film per second;
-    //   waiting        it does not advance because we have not delivered;
-    //   neither        the viewer stopped it themselves.
-    //
-    // Collapsed into one, the middle state read as the third: a viewer frozen
-    // for want of a segment counted as somebody who had chosen to stop, so
-    // nothing in front of them fell due and the work went to whoever was
-    // playing. That is backwards — a viewer waiting on us is the most urgent
-    // there is. The page tells the two apart exactly (its element says whether
-    // the picture advances, and the component owns the viewer's own pause) and
-    // states both.
-    //
-    // `playing` STARTS FALSE, and that is the whole of the fault of
-    // 2026-09-14. It used to start true, and the position is carried forward by
-    // the clock at that rate, so a viewer who had never said anything walked
-    // 146 seconds into a film they had not begun: the tab was hidden, the page
-    // deliberately held start-up until it was shown, and this end assumed the
-    // film was running the entire time. A statement about somebody else's
-    // machine is theirs to make. Until they make it the rate is zero.
-    //
-    // `waiting` STARTS TRUE, which is what a viewer arriving is: they have
-    // asked for a film and hold none of it. So their work is made first from
-    // the instant they arrive, without the position ever being invented.
-    this.playing = false;
-    this.waiting = true;
-    // Whether the page carrying this viewer is ON SCREEN, and whether the
-    // picture has been pulled out of it.
-    //
-    // Two facts, not one, and the second is why the first is not enough: a
-    // hidden tab has its timers throttled by the browser — 800 ms of event-loop
-    // lag measured in the field — so it asks for nothing and looks exactly like
-    // a viewer holding a full cushion. Delivery stood still for the last six
-    // minutes of the session of 2026-09-08 and nothing anywhere said the tab had
-    // gone away. But a picture in picture-in-picture is watched WHILE the tab is
-    // hidden, so hiding alone cannot mean "not watching".
-    //
-    // A page that says nothing is on screen, which is what every page meant
-    // before it could say otherwise.
-    this.onScreen = true;
-    this.inPictureInPicture = false;
-    // Seconds of film held ahead of the picture, as the page last said. It is
-    // measured at the moment the position beside it was, which is what makes it
-    // the bound on carrying that position forward — see `positionSeconds`.
-    this.bufferedSeconds = null;
-    /**
-     * What the page said it held, and when, since this viewer last moved to
-     * another place in the film — what the buffer's trend is read from
-     * (`buffer-trend.js`). A seek empties the buffer, so what came before it
-     * says nothing about what comes after.
-     *
-     * @type {Array<{ at: number, seconds: number }>}
-     */
-    this.bufferReadings = [];
-    /** The span the trend was last asked over; readings older than its run are let go. @type {number} */
-    this.trendSpanSec = 0;
-    /**
-     * The picture as this viewer sees it, in physical pixels: the frame that
-     * would be shown without being enlarged, as their page measured it. The
-     * upper bound of the height of a re-encoded output made for them (roadmap
-     * item 98). Null until their page has said.
-     *
-     * @type {{ width: number, height: number } | null}
-     */
-    this.visiblePicture = null;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Where they are, in SECONDS of film, and nothing else.
-   *
-   * A segment number cannot live here: the picture and the soundtrack of one
-   * film are cut independently and into different numbers of pieces — 454
-   * against 401 on the field file of 2026-09-05 — so piece 48 of one is not the
-   * same moment as piece 48 of the other. Whoever holds a cut grid turns these
-   * seconds into their own numbers.
-   *
-   * @param {number} seconds
-   * @param {number} [now]
-   */
-  moveTo(seconds, now = Date.now()) {
-    if (!Number.isFinite(seconds) || seconds < 0) {
-      return;
-    }
-    this.#place(seconds, now);
-    // The buffer's history belongs to the place they left.
-    this.bufferReadings = [];
-    // WHAT THEY HELD AT THE PLACE THEY LEFT SAYS NOTHING ABOUT THE PLACE THEY
-    // ARRIVED AT. A seek empties the buffer by construction — the player
-    // discards what it holds and fetches from the new position — so carrying
-    // the old cushion over would license the position to run forward again from
-    // material that no longer exists. Zero is the truthful floor until they say
-    // otherwise, and a viewer who has just seeked says so within a tick.
-    this.bufferedSeconds = 0;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Where they are, stated — without anything a move to another place means.
-   *
-   * @param {number} seconds
-   * @param {number} now
-   * @returns {void}
-   */
-  #place(seconds, now) {
-    this.position = { seconds, at: now };
-    this.lastSeenAt = now;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Which way their buffer is going, over the shortest run of their reports
-   * that spans `spanSec`, and the interval between their last two reports.
-   * Readings older than that run are let go: the run only ever moves forward.
-   *
-   * @param {number} spanSec - The segment duration of the output they watch.
-   * @returns {{ slope: number, reportGapSec: number } | null}
-   */
-  bufferTrend(spanSec) {
-    this.trendSpanSec = spanSec;
-    const start = trendRunStart(this.bufferReadings, spanSec);
-    if (start > 0) {
-      this.bufferReadings = this.bufferReadings.slice(start);
-    }
-    return bufferTrend(this.bufferReadings, spanSec);
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Everything a viewer says about itself, in one statement.
-   *
-   * The page sends four things together — how fast its link measured, how much
-   * film it holds, where the picture is, and whether the picture is moving —
-   * and all four are facts about this viewer. Taking them apart and assigning
-   * them one by one somewhere else is how they came to be spread over five
-   * places, two of them on a session shared with other people.
-   *
-   * @param {object} report
-   * @param {number} [report.linkMbps] - What their link last measured. Absent
-   *   until something measurable has crossed it, and then the rest of the
-   *   report still stands: this is a statement about a viewer, not about a link.
-   * @param {number} report.bufferedAheadSec
-   * @param {number | null} [report.positionSeconds] - Null from a page that
-   *   does not say; then the position stands as it was.
-   * @param {boolean} [report.playing] - Whether the picture is advancing.
-   *   Absent means it was not stated, and nothing may be assumed about somebody
-   *   else's machine: the rate is then zero.
-   * @param {boolean} [report.waiting] - Whether this viewer is blocked on
-   *   material we owe them. Absent from a page one release behind; then it is
-   *   derived from the two facts that page does state.
-   * @param {boolean} [report.onScreen] - Whether the page is visible, or the
-   *   picture is in picture-in-picture. Absent means on screen.
-   * @param {boolean} [report.inPictureInPicture] - Whether the picture has been
-   *   pulled out of the page, which is watching it with the tab hidden.
-   * @param {number} [now]
-   */
-  report(
-    {
-      linkMbps,
-      bufferedAheadSec,
-      positionSeconds = null,
-      playing,
-      waiting,
-      onScreen,
-      inPictureInPicture,
-      qualityMode,
-      visiblePicture
-    },
-    now = Date.now()
-  ) {
-    this.noteVisiblePicture(visiblePicture);
-    // Whether the size on their screen was picked by hand or is the automatic
-    // choice. Kept only when stated: a page one release behind says nothing,
-    // and is taken as picking, which is what every page was before.
-    if (qualityMode === "auto" || qualityMode === "manual") {
-      this.qualityMode = qualityMode;
-    }
-    const held = Number.isFinite(bufferedAheadSec) && bufferedAheadSec > 0 ? bufferedAheadSec : 0;
-    // A LINK FIGURE IS ONE FIELD OF THIS REPORT AND NOT ITS TICKET. A page that
-    // has transferred nothing measurable has nothing to say about its link and
-    // everything to say about its viewer, and that is the cold open exactly —
-    // the moment the position matters most. Held as a precondition, in three
-    // places at once, it silenced every statement of the session of 2026-09-14.
-    if (Number.isFinite(linkMbps) && linkMbps > 0) {
-      this.netReport = {
-        linkMbps,
-        bufferedAheadSec: held,
-        positionSeconds:
-          Number.isFinite(positionSeconds) && positionSeconds >= 0 ? positionSeconds : null,
-        at: now
-      };
-    }
-    // Where the picture is now. A report states a place the viewer has played
-    // to, not a place they moved to: their buffer's history stands.
-    if (Number.isFinite(positionSeconds) && positionSeconds >= 0) {
-      this.#place(/** @type {number} */ (positionSeconds), now);
-    }
-    this.bufferedSeconds = held;
-    this.bufferReadings.push({ at: now, seconds: held });
-    // Kept only as far back as the last trend asked needs: its run only moves
-    // forward. Before a trend has been asked for, nothing is let go.
-    if (this.trendSpanSec > 0) {
-      const start = trendRunStart(this.bufferReadings, this.trendSpanSec);
-      if (start > 0) {
-        this.bufferReadings = this.bufferReadings.slice(start);
-      }
-    }
-    this.playing = playing === true;
-    // A page that states `playing` and not `waiting` is one release behind this
-    // proxy, which is the ordinary state of a rolling pool — the proxy ships
-    // first by rule. It says `false` for both a viewer who stopped the picture
-    // and a viewer starved of material, so the two are told apart by the one
-    // quantity it does state: a stopped viewer holding film chose to stop, a
-    // stopped viewer holding nothing is waiting on us. It errs toward making
-    // material, which is the direction that costs an encoder rather than a
-    // viewer.
-    this.waiting = waiting === undefined ? this.playing === false && held === 0 : waiting === true;
-    this.inPictureInPicture = inPictureInPicture === undefined ? false : Boolean(inPictureInPicture);
-    this.onScreen = onScreen === undefined ? true : Boolean(onScreen);
-    this.seen(now);
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Whether this viewer is here.
-   *
-   * PRESENCE IS THE CONNECTION, AND ONLY THE CONNECTION. They are here from the
-   * moment they are known until something SAYS they are gone: the browser
-   * releasing the session, or their connection closing. Nothing else, and in
-   * particular not silence.
-   *
-   * Silence used to end it, after an interval longer than "any silence a
-   * watching viewer can produce" — and there is no such interval. A viewer who
-   * has paused, whose tab is hidden and whose timers the browser has throttled,
-   * or who holds two minutes of cushion, all say nothing for as long as they
-   * like and are all still watching. Deciding presence from that made it a
-   * guess with a threshold; deciding it from the connection makes it a fact
-   * with an owner.
-   *
-   * @returns {boolean}
-   */
-  /**
-   * What this viewer's link was last measured to carry, or null when it has
-   * never been measured.
-   *
-   * IT DOES NOT EXPIRE, and the reasoning is the correction of 2026-09-14. A
-   * reading older than a chosen thirty seconds used to be discarded here, which
-   * put two facts under one number: how fast the link is, and whether we are
-   * still hearing from this page.
-   *
-   * The speed persists. A link does not stop being what it was measured to be
-   * because nobody measured it for a minute, and the page says as much by
-   * keeping its own last figure for ever rather than reporting nothing. It is
-   * measured once when the connection comes up and corrected by every transfer
-   * afterwards — one estimate, continuously refined, never a fact with a
-   * deadline.
-   *
-   * Whether the reading is still somebody's is PRESENCE, which has its own
-   * owner: a viewer who has gone is removed from the output, and the readings
-   * walked for a decision are only those of people still there. Answering both
-   * questions in one place is what stopped a soundtrack's encoder on
-   * 2026-09-05.
-   *
-   * @returns {{ linkMbps: number, bufferedAheadSec: number, positionSeconds: number | null, at: number } | null}
-   */
-  linkReading() {
-    return this.netReport;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Whether this viewer wants film NOW — either watching it or waiting for it.
-   *
-   * The one predicate every reading about urgency asks, and it is a union of
-   * two states rather than the negation of a pause:
-   *
-   *   playing        consuming, and will run dry when their cushion does;
-   *   waiting        consuming nothing only because we have delivered nothing;
-   *   neither        they stopped the picture themselves.
-   *
-   * A viewer who has stopped it keeps their place in the priority map — they
-   * are still there and will want the film in front of them again — but nothing
-   * of theirs falls due, so the work goes to whoever is watching or waiting.
-   *
-   * A page that is not on screen is not consuming: its timers are throttled and
-   * it asks for nothing, which is indistinguishable from a full cushion.
-   * Picture-in-picture is watching with the tab hidden, and the page folds that
-   * into `onScreen` before saying it, so it needs no case of its own here.
-   *
-   * @returns {boolean}
-   */
-  wantsFilmNow() {
-    return (this.playing === true || this.waiting === true) && this.onScreen !== false;
-  }
-
-  isPresent() {
-    return this.gone !== true;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * This viewer has gone, and everything that means.
-   *
-   * ONE STATEMENT rather than a field three callers set, because it is no
-   * longer only a field: the outputs their assignments were holding must stop
-   * being held, and a caller that set `gone` alone would leave an output alive
-   * with nobody left to serve. A response still in flight goes with them —
-   * the connection it was being sent over is what went.
-   *
-   * @returns {void}
-   */
-  markGone() {
-    this.gone = true;
-    this.assignments.clear();
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Ask this viewer's player to move to another height.
-   *
-   * Refused outside AUTO, and that refusal is the rule itself rather than a
-   * check at each caller: a height picked by hand is never moved by the budget,
-   * and a page that has not said its mode is treated as a manual one.
-   *
-   * @param {number} height
-   * @param {string} reason
-   * @param {number} now
-   * @param {boolean} [urgent] - Their buffer would run dry before anything else
-   *   could arrive.
-   * @returns {boolean} Whether a request now stands.
-   */
-  askQuality(height, reason, now, urgent = false) {
-    if (this.qualityMode !== "auto") {
-      this.qualityAsk = null;
-      return false;
-    }
-    this.qualityAsk = { height, at: now, reason, urgent: urgent === true };
-    return true;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Take the picture as their page measured it. A size that is not a positive
-   * width and height leaves the one they had.
-   *
-   * @param {unknown} value
-   * @returns {boolean} Whether it changed.
-   */
-  noteVisiblePicture(value) {
-    const width = Math.round(Number(/** @type {{ width?: unknown }} */ (value)?.width));
-    const height = Math.round(Number(/** @type {{ height?: unknown }} */ (value)?.height));
-    if (!(width > 0 && height > 0)) {
-      return false;
-    }
-    if (this.visiblePicture && this.visiblePicture.width === width && this.visiblePicture.height === height) {
-      return false;
-    }
-    this.visiblePicture = { width, height };
-    return true;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Let the standing request go.
-   *
-   * @returns {void}
-   */
-  dropQualityAsk() {
-    this.qualityAsk = null;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Note that this viewer has been heard from.
-   *
-   * @param {number} [now]
-   * @returns {void}
-   */
-  seen(now = Date.now()) {
-    this.lastSeenAt = now;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Where this viewer is NOW, in seconds of film.
-   *
-   * A FUNCTION OF TIME, not a stored number. A viewer whose picture is moving
-   * covers a second of film every second, so between the moments they speak
-   * their position is known exactly — it is where they last were plus the time
-   * since. A viewer whose picture is stopped covers nothing and stays where
-   * they are, which is the same formula with the rate at zero.
-   *
-   *   position(now) = stated + rate * min(now - statedAt, held),
-   *                                              rate = playing ? 1 : 0
-   *
-   * **THE SECOND TERM IS BOUNDED BY WHAT THEY HELD**, and the bound is stated
-   * by the viewer rather than chosen here: nobody can play past the end of what
-   * they have. A viewer who said "I hold thirty seconds" and has said nothing
-   * for two minutes has played at most thirty of those seconds; the rest of the
-   * silence is a viewer who ran dry, or one we are no longer hearing from, and
-   * in both cases they are not where the clock alone would put them.
-   *
-   * Unbounded, it walks a viewer off the end of a film they never started. On
-   * 2026-09-14 the tab was hidden for 145 seconds while the page deliberately
-   * held start-up until it was shown, the rate was assumed to be one, and this
-   * end placed the viewer at 145.979 s — the exact `-ss` the soundtrack's
-   * encoder was given, while the browser was asking for segment #0 and getting
-   * 503 for sixty seconds. Their cushion was 0.0 s throughout, so this bound
-   * alone would have held them at zero whatever the rate said.
-   *
-   * The bound binds only where the clock has outrun the cushion — a report lost,
-   * or a viewer starving — and there it under-states the position. That is the
-   * safe direction and deliberately so: under-stating makes material a viewer
-   * has already passed, which costs an encoder; over-stating skips material
-   * they are about to need, which costs the viewer the picture.
-   *
-   * Held as a stored number instead, it was a staircase: flat for the ten
-   * seconds between reports and then a jump, so everything derived from it —
-   * the priority map, and through the map every encoder — changed in steps for
-   * a viewer who was moving smoothly. And because two writers were filling that
-   * number in turn, the steps went backwards as often as forwards.
-   *
-   * There is nothing to tune here and no state to keep: one reading, one clock,
-   * one rate the page itself states.
-   *
-   * @param {number} [now]
-   * @returns {number | null} Null only for a viewer never placed, which for one
-   *   created through `Viewers.of` cannot happen.
-   */
-  positionSeconds(now = Date.now()) {
-    if (this.position === null) {
-      return null;
-    }
-    const rate = this.playing === true ? 1 : 0;
-    const elapsedSec = Math.max(0, (now - this.position.at) / 1000);
-    const held = Number.isFinite(this.bufferedSeconds) ? Math.max(0, this.bufferedSeconds) : 0;
-    return this.position.seconds + rate * Math.min(elapsedSec, held);
-  }
-}
+/**
+ * @file One person watching, and everything that is true of them alone.
+ *
+ * A viewer is not a property of the material. What they are listening to, which
+ * quality step they have on screen, what is being prepared for them, where they
+ * are and what their link can carry — none of it changes a byte of what any
+ * encoder produces, and none of it belongs to a session, which is a description
+ * of an OUTPUT.
+ *
+ * It was six parallel maps hung on the session, each keyed by consumer id:
+ * `audioChoiceByConsumer`, `activeVariantByConsumer`,
+ * `warmingVariantByConsumer`, `warmingAudioByConsumer`, `consumerHeads`,
+ * `netReports`. Six places to remember to update and six to remember to forget,
+ * and the forgetting was already wrong — releasing a consumer emptied none of
+ * them, so a viewer who had left went on counting as wanting their soundtrack
+ * until their head expired, and their entries stayed for the life of the
+ * session.
+ *
+ * One object, one map, one thing to remove.
+ *
+ * **TWO INDEPENDENT FACTS, NOT ONE.** A viewer is somewhere, and a viewer is
+ * either still here or gone. Until 2026-09-05 both were answered by one field —
+ * the position, which is written only when a segment is requested — so a viewer
+ * who had just arrived counted as absent, and an output all of whose viewers
+ * count as absent has every encoder on it stopped. That is exactly what
+ * happened on 2026-09-05: a soundtrack's encoder was stopped 1.25 s after it
+ * started, having produced nothing, its `init.mp4` was therefore never made,
+ * and the picture could not be played without it. The browser could not rescue
+ * itself either, because the only thing that would have marked the viewer
+ * present was a request for a segment — which needs the `init.mp4` that the
+ * stopped encoder was going to make.
+ *
+ * So: **position is known from the moment a viewer arrives** — it is in the
+ * request that created the output, as a time on the source, and it is either
+ * zero or what the address bar carried. And **presence is a fact of the
+ * connection**, not of the last file asked for.
+ *
+ * **Nothing here knows about ffmpeg, the disk or the torrent.** A viewer states
+ * what they want and where they are; what to make of that is the orchestrator's
+ * question, and it reads a union of viewers rather than any one of them.
+ */
+
+import { Assignments } from "./Assignments.js";
+import { bufferTrend, trendRunStart } from "./buffer-trend.js";
+
+/**
+ * How long a generation this viewer has left behind goes on accepting NEW
+ * requests.
+ *
+ * A CHOSEN NUMBER, and it is named here rather than buried so that it reads as
+ * one. It cannot be derived today: it should come from the player's own retry
+ * policy, and this product overrides that policy on its own page while the
+ * native path in Safari has none at all that can be read. Until the retries a
+ * real player actually makes are measured, the value is given and the checks
+ * are written against what is given.
+ *
+ * What it protects: a request made just before a seek, still in flight when the
+ * seek lands, is answered by the output it was made against instead of being
+ * decided again against a position the viewer has already left.
+ */
+export const ACCEPT_WINDOW_MS = 30_000;
+
+export class Viewer {
+  /**
+   * @param {string} id - The consumer id the browser sends with every request
+   *   that means "this viewer".
+   * @param {number} [now] - When they arrived. Presence starts here, so a
+   *   viewer counts as watching from the instant they are known.
+   */
+  constructor(id, now = Date.now()) {
+    this.id = String(id ?? "");
+    /**
+     * Which soundtrack this viewer is listening to and whether their browser
+     * needs it re-encoded. Theirs alone: two viewers of one picture may have
+     * chosen different languages, and one browser may decode a track another
+     * cannot.
+     * @type {{ trackIndex: number, transcode: boolean }}
+     */
+    this.audio = { trackIndex: 0, transcode: false };
+    /** The quality step on their screen. Null means the base session. @type {string | null} */
+    this.activeVariantId = null;
+    /** A step being prepared for a switch they have not made yet. @type {string | null} */
+    this.warmingVariantId = null;
+    /**
+     * When the warming of that step began, so the time a move takes to be
+     * ready can be kept (roadmap item 97, step 14). @type {number | null}
+     */
+    this.warmingSince = null;
+    /** A soundtrack being prepared for the same reason. @type {string | null} */
+    this.warmingAudioId = null;
+    /**
+     * An output of the height on their screen, at another bitrate limit, being
+     * prepared so that their NEXT segments come from it (roadmap item 97, step
+     * 12). Not `warmingVariantId`: that is a step their player will switch to,
+     * and the page says when it has. Here the address does not change, the
+     * player is never told, and the switch is made on this side once the
+     * segment they will ask for next is closed on the new output.
+     *
+     * `askedHeights` are the heights their player asks for under which the
+     * output on screen is chosen — a step is chosen under the height asked and
+     * named after the height produced, so there can be more than one — and the
+     * move replaces the choice under each; `direction` is why it was started.
+     *
+     * @type {{ askedHeights: number[], outputId: string, outputKey: string, direction: "down" | "up", reason: string, since: number } | null}
+     */
+    this.sameHeightSwitch = null;
+    /**
+     * Where their picture stood when they last said so, and when they said it.
+     *
+     * ONE FACT WITH ONE WRITER: the viewer. It is set when they arrive — from
+     * the position their own create request named — and moved only by what they
+     * state afterwards, a seek or a report carrying their playhead. Never null
+     * for a viewer this process has met, because a viewer arrives by asking for
+     * a position.
+     *
+     * A REQUEST FOR A SEGMENT IS NOT A POSITION and never writes here. It says
+     * how far their buffer has reached, which is a different quantity and one
+     * nothing in the plan needs: a segment either exists and is served, or does
+     * not and is waited for.
+     *
+     * Two writers is what this replaced, and the cost is measured. Until
+     * 2026-09-13 a seek wrote `seeked` while a request wrote `seconds`, and
+     * `positionSeconds` preferred whichever was set — so the two took turns and
+     * the priority map jumped back and forth by one or two segments several
+     * times a second. Field that day, one output over one second:
+     * `p100:#9..#10`, `p100:#18..#20`, `p100:#16..#18`, `p100:#18..#20`, with
+     * the second viewer stopped dead at 1673.6 s throughout. The encoder
+     * placement followed the map, as it must, and the machine spent six minutes
+     * on 77 starts and 141 stops against one normal end.
+     *
+     * @type {{ seconds: number, at: number } | null}
+     */
+    this.position = null;
+    /**
+     * When this viewer was last known to be there.
+     *
+     * Every piece of evidence refreshes it: a request of any kind, a link
+     * report, an echo of a delivery probe. It is NOT the position's timestamp —
+     * a viewer with a full buffer legitimately asks for nothing for a minute
+     * and is no less present for it.
+     *
+     * @type {number}
+     */
+    this.lastSeenAt = now;
+    /**
+     * Set when something has SAID this viewer is gone — the browser released
+     * the session, or their connection closed. Silence never sets it: a
+     * paused viewer, a viewer whose tab is hidden and whose timers the browser
+     * has throttled, and a viewer holding two minutes of buffer are all silent
+     * and all still watching.
+     *
+     * @type {boolean}
+     */
+    this.gone = false;
+    /** What their link was last measured to carry. @type {object | null} */
+    this.netReport = null;
+    /**
+     * "manual" while the size on their screen was picked by hand, "auto" while
+     * it is the automatic choice, null until their page has said.
+     *
+     * @type {"auto" | "manual" | null}
+     */
+    this.qualityMode = null;
+    /**
+     * The height the quality budget last asked THIS viewer's player to move
+     * to, while the request stands. Created only in AUTO (`askQuality`), read
+     * back only by this viewer's own progress poll, and let go once they are
+     * there, once it has run out, or once they are no longer in AUTO.
+     *
+     * `urgent` when their buffer would run dry before anything else could
+     * arrive: their page then switches without waiting for a cushion.
+     *
+     * @type {{ height: number, at: number, reason: string, urgent: boolean } | null}
+     */
+    this.qualityAsk = null;
+    /**
+     * Every output this viewer is watching, by session id: the picture, the
+     * quality step on their screen, the soundtrack they chose.
+     *
+     * THE ONLY STORED FORM of the relation "this person watches this output".
+     * The question from the other end — who watches this output — is answered
+     * by `Viewers.forOutput`, which derives it from these sets. It used to be a
+     * second index kept beside this one, and two stored copies of one relation
+     * are two answers that can disagree. The registry is small, so deriving is
+     * cheaper than keeping the copies in step.
+     *
+     * This is what replaced a film object. There is no "film" anywhere in this
+     * proxy — its parts are born at different times, die at different times and
+     * are addressed separately — and the three link fields that stood in for one
+     * could not say how many people were listening to a soundtrack.
+     *
+     * @type {Set<string>}
+     */
+    this.outputs = new Set();
+    /**
+     * Which output answers THIS viewer, and for how long that stands.
+     *
+     * Their own, which is the whole of roadmap item 97: the record it replaces
+     * — one entry per file and height, read by everybody — meant a viewer on a
+     * thin link decided for a viewer on a thick one. What it holds and why each
+     * fact is there is in `Assignments.js`.
+     *
+     * @type {Assignments}
+     */
+    this.assignments = new Assignments({ acceptWindowMs: ACCEPT_WINDOW_MS });
+    /**
+     * On what the output this viewer was last given was judged: the verdict of
+     * their own link against its whole load, and the figures. `estimated to
+     * fit` is admitted and NOT confirmed — the figure is an average, not a
+     * bound — and the page is told so rather than left to assume it.
+     * @type {object | null}
+     */
+    this.servingVerdict = null;
+    /**
+     * The files this viewer has subtitles switched on for, as
+     * `sourceKey:fileIndex`.
+     *
+     * A subscription is a fact about a PERSON, not about a channel. Held on the
+     * channel — as it was until now — it dies with the channel, so a seamless
+     * reconnect silently lost subtitles for the rest of the session, and a
+     * transport that rotates its association on purpose would lose them every
+     * time it rotated. Held here it survives both by construction: whatever
+     * channel this viewer is reachable on next, they are still subscribed.
+     *
+     * @type {Set<string>}
+     */
+    this.wantsCuesFor = new Set();
+    // WHETHER THE PICTURE IS MOVING, and separately WHETHER THIS VIEWER IS
+    // BLOCKED ON US. Two booleans, because there are three states and one
+    // boolean cannot hold them:
+    //
+    //   playing        the picture advances, a second of film per second;
+    //   waiting        it does not advance because we have not delivered;
+    //   neither        the viewer stopped it themselves.
+    //
+    // Collapsed into one, the middle state read as the third: a viewer frozen
+    // for want of a segment counted as somebody who had chosen to stop, so
+    // nothing in front of them fell due and the work went to whoever was
+    // playing. That is backwards — a viewer waiting on us is the most urgent
+    // there is. The page tells the two apart exactly (its element says whether
+    // the picture advances, and the component owns the viewer's own pause) and
+    // states both.
+    //
+    // `playing` STARTS FALSE, and that is the whole of the fault of
+    // 2026-09-14. It used to start true, and the position is carried forward by
+    // the clock at that rate, so a viewer who had never said anything walked
+    // 146 seconds into a film they had not begun: the tab was hidden, the page
+    // deliberately held start-up until it was shown, and this end assumed the
+    // film was running the entire time. A statement about somebody else's
+    // machine is theirs to make. Until they make it the rate is zero.
+    //
+    // `waiting` STARTS TRUE, which is what a viewer arriving is: they have
+    // asked for a film and hold none of it. So their work is made first from
+    // the instant they arrive, without the position ever being invented.
+    this.playing = false;
+    this.waiting = true;
+    // Whether the page carrying this viewer is ON SCREEN, and whether the
+    // picture has been pulled out of it.
+    //
+    // Two facts, not one, and the second is why the first is not enough: a
+    // hidden tab has its timers throttled by the browser — 800 ms of event-loop
+    // lag measured in the field — so it asks for nothing and looks exactly like
+    // a viewer holding a full cushion. Delivery stood still for the last six
+    // minutes of the session of 2026-09-08 and nothing anywhere said the tab had
+    // gone away. But a picture in picture-in-picture is watched WHILE the tab is
+    // hidden, so hiding alone cannot mean "not watching".
+    //
+    // A page that says nothing is on screen, which is what every page meant
+    // before it could say otherwise.
+    this.onScreen = true;
+    this.inPictureInPicture = false;
+    // Seconds of film held ahead of the picture, as the page last said. It is
+    // measured at the moment the position beside it was, which is what makes it
+    // the bound on carrying that position forward — see `positionSeconds`.
+    this.bufferedSeconds = null;
+    /**
+     * What the page said it held, and when, since this viewer last moved to
+     * another place in the film — what the buffer's trend is read from
+     * (`buffer-trend.js`). A seek empties the buffer, so what came before it
+     * says nothing about what comes after.
+     *
+     * @type {Array<{ at: number, seconds: number }>}
+     */
+    this.bufferReadings = [];
+    /** The span the trend was last asked over; readings older than its run are let go. @type {number} */
+    this.trendSpanSec = 0;
+    /**
+     * The picture as this viewer sees it, in physical pixels: the frame that
+     * would be shown without being enlarged, as their page measured it. The
+     * upper bound of the height of a re-encoded output made for them (roadmap
+     * item 98). Null until their page has said.
+     *
+     * @type {{ width: number, height: number } | null}
+     */
+    this.visiblePicture = null;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Where they are, in SECONDS of film, and nothing else.
+   *
+   * A segment number cannot live here: the picture and the soundtrack of one
+   * film are cut independently and into different numbers of pieces — 454
+   * against 401 on the field file of 2026-09-05 — so piece 48 of one is not the
+   * same moment as piece 48 of the other. Whoever holds a cut grid turns these
+   * seconds into their own numbers.
+   *
+   * @param {number} seconds
+   * @param {number} [now]
+   */
+  moveTo(seconds, now = Date.now()) {
+    if (!Number.isFinite(seconds) || seconds < 0) {
+      return;
+    }
+    this.#place(seconds, now);
+    // The buffer's history belongs to the place they left.
+    this.bufferReadings = [];
+    // WHAT THEY HELD AT THE PLACE THEY LEFT SAYS NOTHING ABOUT THE PLACE THEY
+    // ARRIVED AT. A seek empties the buffer by construction — the player
+    // discards what it holds and fetches from the new position — so carrying
+    // the old cushion over would license the position to run forward again from
+    // material that no longer exists. Zero is the truthful floor until they say
+    // otherwise, and a viewer who has just seeked says so within a tick.
+    this.bufferedSeconds = 0;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Where they are, stated — without anything a move to another place means.
+   *
+   * @param {number} seconds
+   * @param {number} now
+   * @returns {void}
+   */
+  #place(seconds, now) {
+    this.position = { seconds, at: now };
+    this.lastSeenAt = now;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Which way their buffer is going, over the shortest run of their reports
+   * that spans `spanSec`, and the interval between their last two reports.
+   * Readings older than that run are let go: the run only ever moves forward.
+   *
+   * @param {number} spanSec - The segment duration of the output they watch.
+   * @returns {{ slope: number, reportGapSec: number } | null}
+   */
+  bufferTrend(spanSec) {
+    this.trendSpanSec = spanSec;
+    const start = trendRunStart(this.bufferReadings, spanSec);
+    if (start > 0) {
+      this.bufferReadings = this.bufferReadings.slice(start);
+    }
+    return bufferTrend(this.bufferReadings, spanSec);
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Everything a viewer says about itself, in one statement.
+   *
+   * The page sends four things together — how fast its link measured, how much
+   * film it holds, where the picture is, and whether the picture is moving —
+   * and all four are facts about this viewer. Taking them apart and assigning
+   * them one by one somewhere else is how they came to be spread over five
+   * places, two of them on a session shared with other people.
+   *
+   * @param {object} report
+   * @param {number} [report.linkMbps] - What their link last measured. Absent
+   *   until something measurable has crossed it, and then the rest of the
+   *   report still stands: this is a statement about a viewer, not about a link.
+   * @param {number} report.bufferedAheadSec
+   * @param {number | null} [report.positionSeconds] - Null from a page that
+   *   does not say; then the position stands as it was.
+   * @param {boolean} [report.playing] - Whether the picture is advancing.
+   *   Absent means it was not stated, and nothing may be assumed about somebody
+   *   else's machine: the rate is then zero.
+   * @param {boolean} [report.waiting] - Whether this viewer is blocked on
+   *   material we owe them. Absent from a page one release behind; then it is
+   *   derived from the two facts that page does state.
+   * @param {boolean} [report.onScreen] - Whether the page is visible, or the
+   *   picture is in picture-in-picture. Absent means on screen.
+   * @param {boolean} [report.inPictureInPicture] - Whether the picture has been
+   *   pulled out of the page, which is watching it with the tab hidden.
+   * @param {number} [now]
+   */
+  report(
+    {
+      linkMbps,
+      bufferedAheadSec,
+      positionSeconds = null,
+      playing,
+      waiting,
+      onScreen,
+      inPictureInPicture,
+      qualityMode,
+      visiblePicture
+    },
+    now = Date.now()
+  ) {
+    this.noteVisiblePicture(visiblePicture);
+    // Whether the size on their screen was picked by hand or is the automatic
+    // choice. Kept only when stated: a page one release behind says nothing,
+    // and is taken as picking, which is what every page was before.
+    if (qualityMode === "auto" || qualityMode === "manual") {
+      this.qualityMode = qualityMode;
+    }
+    const held = Number.isFinite(bufferedAheadSec) && bufferedAheadSec > 0 ? bufferedAheadSec : 0;
+    // A LINK FIGURE IS ONE FIELD OF THIS REPORT AND NOT ITS TICKET. A page that
+    // has transferred nothing measurable has nothing to say about its link and
+    // everything to say about its viewer, and that is the cold open exactly —
+    // the moment the position matters most. Held as a precondition, in three
+    // places at once, it silenced every statement of the session of 2026-09-14.
+    if (Number.isFinite(linkMbps) && linkMbps > 0) {
+      this.netReport = {
+        linkMbps,
+        bufferedAheadSec: held,
+        positionSeconds:
+          Number.isFinite(positionSeconds) && positionSeconds >= 0 ? positionSeconds : null,
+        at: now
+      };
+    }
+    // Where the picture is now. A report states a place the viewer has played
+    // to, not a place they moved to: their buffer's history stands.
+    if (Number.isFinite(positionSeconds) && positionSeconds >= 0) {
+      this.#place(/** @type {number} */ (positionSeconds), now);
+    }
+    this.bufferedSeconds = held;
+    this.bufferReadings.push({ at: now, seconds: held });
+    // Kept only as far back as the last trend asked needs: its run only moves
+    // forward. Before a trend has been asked for, nothing is let go.
+    if (this.trendSpanSec > 0) {
+      const start = trendRunStart(this.bufferReadings, this.trendSpanSec);
+      if (start > 0) {
+        this.bufferReadings = this.bufferReadings.slice(start);
+      }
+    }
+    this.playing = playing === true;
+    // A page that states `playing` and not `waiting` is one release behind this
+    // proxy, which is the ordinary state of a rolling pool — the proxy ships
+    // first by rule. It says `false` for both a viewer who stopped the picture
+    // and a viewer starved of material, so the two are told apart by the one
+    // quantity it does state: a stopped viewer holding film chose to stop, a
+    // stopped viewer holding nothing is waiting on us. It errs toward making
+    // material, which is the direction that costs an encoder rather than a
+    // viewer.
+    this.waiting = waiting === undefined ? this.playing === false && held === 0 : waiting === true;
+    this.inPictureInPicture = inPictureInPicture === undefined ? false : Boolean(inPictureInPicture);
+    this.onScreen = onScreen === undefined ? true : Boolean(onScreen);
+    this.seen(now);
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Whether this viewer is here.
+   *
+   * PRESENCE IS THE CONNECTION, AND ONLY THE CONNECTION. They are here from the
+   * moment they are known until something SAYS they are gone: the browser
+   * releasing the session, or their connection closing. Nothing else, and in
+   * particular not silence.
+   *
+   * Silence used to end it, after an interval longer than "any silence a
+   * watching viewer can produce" — and there is no such interval. A viewer who
+   * has paused, whose tab is hidden and whose timers the browser has throttled,
+   * or who holds two minutes of cushion, all say nothing for as long as they
+   * like and are all still watching. Deciding presence from that made it a
+   * guess with a threshold; deciding it from the connection makes it a fact
+   * with an owner.
+   *
+   * @returns {boolean}
+   */
+  /**
+   * What this viewer's link was last measured to carry, or null when it has
+   * never been measured.
+   *
+   * IT DOES NOT EXPIRE, and the reasoning is the correction of 2026-09-14. A
+   * reading older than a chosen thirty seconds used to be discarded here, which
+   * put two facts under one number: how fast the link is, and whether we are
+   * still hearing from this page.
+   *
+   * The speed persists. A link does not stop being what it was measured to be
+   * because nobody measured it for a minute, and the page says as much by
+   * keeping its own last figure for ever rather than reporting nothing. It is
+   * measured once when the connection comes up and corrected by every transfer
+   * afterwards — one estimate, continuously refined, never a fact with a
+   * deadline.
+   *
+   * Whether the reading is still somebody's is PRESENCE, which has its own
+   * owner: a viewer who has gone is removed from the output, and the readings
+   * walked for a decision are only those of people still there. Answering both
+   * questions in one place is what stopped a soundtrack's encoder on
+   * 2026-09-05.
+   *
+   * @returns {{ linkMbps: number, bufferedAheadSec: number, positionSeconds: number | null, at: number } | null}
+   */
+  linkReading() {
+    return this.netReport;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Whether this viewer wants film NOW — either watching it or waiting for it.
+   *
+   * The one predicate every reading about urgency asks, and it is a union of
+   * two states rather than the negation of a pause:
+   *
+   *   playing        consuming, and will run dry when their cushion does;
+   *   waiting        consuming nothing only because we have delivered nothing;
+   *   neither        they stopped the picture themselves.
+   *
+   * A viewer who has stopped it keeps their place in the priority map — they
+   * are still there and will want the film in front of them again — but nothing
+   * of theirs falls due, so the work goes to whoever is watching or waiting.
+   *
+   * A page that is not on screen is not consuming: its timers are throttled and
+   * it asks for nothing, which is indistinguishable from a full cushion.
+   * Picture-in-picture is watching with the tab hidden, and the page folds that
+   * into `onScreen` before saying it, so it needs no case of its own here.
+   *
+   * @returns {boolean}
+   */
+  wantsFilmNow() {
+    return (this.playing === true || this.waiting === true) && this.onScreen !== false;
+  }
+
+  isPresent() {
+    return this.gone !== true;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * This viewer has gone, and everything that means.
+   *
+   * ONE STATEMENT rather than a field three callers set, because it is no
+   * longer only a field: the outputs their assignments were holding must stop
+   * being held, and a caller that set `gone` alone would leave an output alive
+   * with nobody left to serve. A response still in flight goes with them —
+   * the connection it was being sent over is what went.
+   *
+   * @returns {void}
+   */
+  markGone() {
+    this.gone = true;
+    this.assignments.clear();
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Ask this viewer's player to move to another height.
+   *
+   * Refused outside AUTO, and that refusal is the rule itself rather than a
+   * check at each caller: a height picked by hand is never moved by the budget,
+   * and a page that has not said its mode is treated as a manual one.
+   *
+   * @param {number} height
+   * @param {string} reason
+   * @param {number} now
+   * @param {boolean} [urgent] - Their buffer would run dry before anything else
+   *   could arrive.
+   * @returns {boolean} Whether a request now stands.
+   */
+  askQuality(height, reason, now, urgent = false) {
+    if (this.qualityMode !== "auto") {
+      this.qualityAsk = null;
+      return false;
+    }
+    this.qualityAsk = { height, at: now, reason, urgent: urgent === true };
+    return true;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Take the picture as their page measured it. A size that is not a positive
+   * width and height leaves the one they had.
+   *
+   * @param {unknown} value
+   * @returns {boolean} Whether it changed.
+   */
+  noteVisiblePicture(value) {
+    const width = Math.round(Number(/** @type {{ width?: unknown }} */ (value)?.width));
+    const height = Math.round(Number(/** @type {{ height?: unknown }} */ (value)?.height));
+    if (!(width > 0 && height > 0)) {
+      return false;
+    }
+    if (this.visiblePicture && this.visiblePicture.width === width && this.visiblePicture.height === height) {
+      return false;
+    }
+    this.visiblePicture = { width, height };
+    return true;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Let the standing request go.
+   *
+   * @returns {void}
+   */
+  dropQualityAsk() {
+    this.qualityAsk = null;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Note that this viewer has been heard from.
+   *
+   * @param {number} [now]
+   * @returns {void}
+   */
+  seen(now = Date.now()) {
+    this.lastSeenAt = now;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Where this viewer is NOW, in seconds of film.
+   *
+   * A FUNCTION OF TIME, not a stored number. A viewer whose picture is moving
+   * covers a second of film every second, so between the moments they speak
+   * their position is known exactly — it is where they last were plus the time
+   * since. A viewer whose picture is stopped covers nothing and stays where
+   * they are, which is the same formula with the rate at zero.
+   *
+   *   position(now) = stated + rate * min(now - statedAt, held),
+   *                                              rate = playing ? 1 : 0
+   *
+   * **THE SECOND TERM IS BOUNDED BY WHAT THEY HELD**, and the bound is stated
+   * by the viewer rather than chosen here: nobody can play past the end of what
+   * they have. A viewer who said "I hold thirty seconds" and has said nothing
+   * for two minutes has played at most thirty of those seconds; the rest of the
+   * silence is a viewer who ran dry, or one we are no longer hearing from, and
+   * in both cases they are not where the clock alone would put them.
+   *
+   * Unbounded, it walks a viewer off the end of a film they never started. On
+   * 2026-09-14 the tab was hidden for 145 seconds while the page deliberately
+   * held start-up until it was shown, the rate was assumed to be one, and this
+   * end placed the viewer at 145.979 s — the exact `-ss` the soundtrack's
+   * encoder was given, while the browser was asking for segment #0 and getting
+   * 503 for sixty seconds. Their cushion was 0.0 s throughout, so this bound
+   * alone would have held them at zero whatever the rate said.
+   *
+   * The bound binds only where the clock has outrun the cushion — a report lost,
+   * or a viewer starving — and there it under-states the position. That is the
+   * safe direction and deliberately so: under-stating makes material a viewer
+   * has already passed, which costs an encoder; over-stating skips material
+   * they are about to need, which costs the viewer the picture.
+   *
+   * Held as a stored number instead, it was a staircase: flat for the ten
+   * seconds between reports and then a jump, so everything derived from it —
+   * the priority map, and through the map every encoder — changed in steps for
+   * a viewer who was moving smoothly. And because two writers were filling that
+   * number in turn, the steps went backwards as often as forwards.
+   *
+   * There is nothing to tune here and no state to keep: one reading, one clock,
+   * one rate the page itself states.
+   *
+   * @param {number} [now]
+   * @returns {number | null} Null only for a viewer never placed, which for one
+   *   created through `Viewers.of` cannot happen.
+   */
+  positionSeconds(now = Date.now()) {
+    if (this.position === null) {
+      return null;
+    }
+    const rate = this.playing === true ? 1 : 0;
+    const elapsedSec = Math.max(0, (now - this.position.at) / 1000);
+    const held = Number.isFinite(this.bufferedSeconds) ? Math.max(0, this.bufferedSeconds) : 0;
+    return this.position.seconds + rate * Math.min(elapsedSec, held);
+  }
+}