@torrent-tv/proxy 2.87.8 → 2.87.10

package/services/encode/run-command.js

@@ -1,747 +1,747 @@
-/**
- * @file The full argument list for one encoder run.
- *
- * What a run is given is a fact about WHAT is being produced and WHERE it
- * begins, and about nothing else — not the session it belongs to, not who is
- * watching, not how many viewers there are. It was a 377-line method of the
- * session manager reading fifteen of its fields, which is why a run could only
- * ever be built by that class, for the one session it holds.
- *
- * Stated here, over the material and the stretch alone, a run can be built by
- * whoever needs one. That is what lets an output have more than a single
- * encoder.
- *
- * **Nothing in this file runs anything.** It returns an argument list; spawning,
- * killing and resuming belong to whoever owns the process.
- */
-
-import { PLAYLIST_FILE_NAME } from "./output/playlists.js";
-import { AUDIO_TRANSCODE_KBPS } from "./args.js";
-
-/**
- * What ffmpeg's own CLI subtracts from an input seek, and therefore what has to
- * be added back to land where we asked.
- *
- * `fftools/ffmpeg_demux.c`, in `ifile_open`: when the container does not
- * declare `AVFMT_SEEK_TO_PTS` — Matroska does not — and any stream carries
- * B-frames, the seek target is moved back by `3*AV_TIME_BASE / 23` before
- * `avformat_seek_file` is called. Its purpose is sound: such containers seek in
- * decode order while the caller asks in presentation order, and with B-frames
- * the two differ, so it backs off far enough to be sure of reaching the frame
- * asked for.
- *
- * The consequence for a COPY is that asking for a keyframe lands on the one
- * BEFORE it — deterministically, every time. Measured 2026-08-21 on a Matroska
- * file with keyframes every 2 s: `-ss 10` produced a first segment starting at
- * 8.000; `-ss 10.130435` produced one starting at 10.000. On MP4, where the
- * heuristic does not fire, all of 10, 10.130435 and 10.2 produced 10.000 — so
- * adding this is right in one case and harmless in the other.
- *
- * That landing is what `-segment_times` is measured from, while this code
- * computes those offsets from the time it ASKED for. One keyframe interval
- * apart, inherited by every cut of the run: 119 of 125 segments arriving a
- * uniform 2.002 s early in the field, four times what a player bridges.
- *
- * Not applied when the picture is re-encoded: a re-encode decodes from the
- * keyframe and discards frames up to the requested time, so its output already
- * begins exactly where asked (measured the same day: `-ss 11` copied starts at
- * 10.000, re-encoded at 11.000).
- */
-export const SEEK_LANDING_OFFSET_SEC = 3 / 23;
-
-/**
- * A number of seconds as ffmpeg will accept it.
- *
- * `String(n)` switches to exponential notation below 1e-6, and ffmpeg's
- * duration parser rejects that outright: a field session died on
- * `Invalid duration for option ss: 3.3333333249174757e-7`, after which the
- * transcode was in state `failed` and every segment request answered 500 for
- * as long as the viewer kept trying. Anything under a millisecond is also not a
- * real offset — it is the residue of subtracting two nearly equal floats — so
- * it is dropped rather than passed on.
- *
- * @param {number} value
- * @returns {string}
- */
-export function ffmpegSeconds(value) {
-  if (!Number.isFinite(value) || Math.abs(value) < 0.001) {
-    return "0";
-  }
-  // Microsecond resolution, fixed notation, no trailing zero noise.
-  return value.toFixed(6).replace(/\.?0+$/, "");
-}
-
-/**
- * Which timeline an output's own ffmpeg works on.
- *
- * True — the COPY branch: the source's timestamps are kept (`-copyts`) and the
- * output is re-labelled 0-based. Everything handed to the muxer is therefore
- * stated in the source's terms, and everything read back out of a produced
- * piece is 0-based.
- *
- * False — the re-encode branch: the output is labelled from the run's start on
- * the 0-based timeline, and the muxer is addressed in those same terms.
- *
- * One predicate for both callers, because the two used to answer it separately
- * and a disagreement between them is exactly what desynced picture from sound.
- *
- * @param {{ audioOnly?: boolean, timeline?: { cutGrid?: string }, transcodeVideo?: boolean }} material
- * @returns {boolean}
- */
-export function onKeyframeGridFor(material) {
-  return material?.audioOnly === true
-    ? material?.timeline?.cutGrid === "keyframe"
-    : material?.transcodeVideo !== true;
-}
-
-/**
- * The boundary table the player is working from: the one its playlist was
- * written from, falling back to the live table when no playlist was built from
- * a table at all (no duration, so no synthetic playlist — and then nothing the
- * player holds contradicts it).
- *
- * @param {{ published?: number[], boundaries?: number[] }} timeline
- * @returns {number[]}
- */
-export function publishedGridFor(timeline) {
-  return Array.isArray(timeline?.published) && timeline.published.length > 0
-    ? timeline.published
-    : (timeline?.boundaries ?? []);
-}
-
-/**
- * Where a run beginning at `index` must be positioned: the time the PLAYER was
- * told that segment starts at.
- *
- * Two tables, deliberately: the live one is corrected as produced segments
- * reveal where the file's cuts truly are, and those corrections are what let a
- * re-encoded rung be forced onto a copied stream's real grid. But the playlist
- * a player is holding was written once and never changes, so a position taken
- * from the corrected table describes a timeline nobody sent the player. That is
- * not a subtlety: it cost ten minutes of a dead film on 2026-08-17, the browser
- * asking for two segments 1908 times each.
- *
- * @param {{ published?: number[], boundaries?: number[] }} timeline
- * @param {number} index
- * @param {number} segmentDurationSec - Used only when the file has no table at
- *   all, where a segment is a plain multiple of the nominal length.
- * @returns {number}
- */
-export function publishedStartTime(timeline, index, segmentDurationSec) {
-  const published = Array.isArray(timeline?.published) && timeline.published.length > 0 ? timeline.published : null;
-  const table = published ?? (Array.isArray(timeline?.boundaries) ? timeline.boundaries : []);
-  if (table.length === 0) {
-    return index * segmentDurationSec;
-  }
-  const clamped = Math.max(0, Math.min(index, table.length - 1));
-  return table[clamped];
-}
-
-/**
- * Where a segment REALLY begins, when a produced piece has said so.
- *
- * The live table is corrected as produced pieces reveal where a file's cuts
- * truly are; the published one is what the player was told and may never move.
- * Where the two disagree, the live table is a measurement and the published one
- * a prediction — and this answers with the measurement, or with nothing when
- * they agree or nothing has been measured.
- *
- * @param {object} timeline
- * @param {number} index
- * @returns {number | undefined}
- */
-export function trueStartOf(timeline, index) {
-  const live = Array.isArray(timeline?.boundaries) ? timeline.boundaries : null;
-  const published = Array.isArray(timeline?.published) ? timeline.published : null;
-  if (!live || !published || index < 0 || index >= live.length || index >= published.length) {
-    return undefined;
-  }
-  return live[index] === published[index] ? undefined : live[index];
-}
-
-/**
- * The cut times to hand ffmpeg for a run that starts at `startIndex`.
- *
- * Two adjustments, both of which cost a broken session to learn:
- *
- *  - **Rebased.** `-segment_times` is measured from the start of the run, not
- *    of the file. Measured: starting at 12 s and asking for a cut at 18 s put
- *    it at 29.4 s — 12 + 18. So every boundary has the run's own start
- *    subtracted.
- *  - **Interior only.** The first boundary is where the run begins and the last
- *    is where the file ends; neither is a cut. Sending them would produce an
- *    empty leading segment and a spurious trailing one.
- *
- * @param {number[]} boundaries
- * @param {number} startIndex
- * @returns {number[] | null}
- */
-export function segmentCutTimesFrom(boundaries, startIndex) {
-  if (!Array.isArray(boundaries) || boundaries.length < 2) {
-    return null;
-  }
-  const index = Number.isInteger(startIndex) && startIndex > 0 ? startIndex : 0;
-  if (index >= boundaries.length - 1) {
-    return null;
-  }
-  const base = boundaries[index];
-  const times = [];
-  for (let at = index + 1; at < boundaries.length - 1; at += 1) {
-    times.push(Number((boundaries[at] - base).toFixed(6)));
-  }
-  return times;
-}
-
-/**
- * The largest keyframe time that does not exceed `target`, from a SORTED
- * (ascending) array of keyframe times. Null when `target` is before the first
- * keyframe or the array is empty — the caller then falls back to its unsnapped
- * target.
- *
- * @param {number[]} keyframeTimes - Sorted ascending.
- * @param {number} target
- * @returns {number | null}
- */
-export function nearestKeyframeAtOrBefore(keyframeTimes, target) {
-  let result = null;
-  for (const time of keyframeTimes) {
-    if (time > target) {
-      break;
-    }
-    result = time;
-  }
-  return result;
-}
-
-/**
- * How much later than a keyframe to ASK, so that ffmpeg lands on that keyframe.
- *
- * Bounded by half the distance to the next keyframe, which matters only where
- * keyframes stand closer together than twice the offset. There no single value
- * can satisfy both worlds — asking too little lands a keyframe early when the
- * heuristic fires, asking too much lands a keyframe late when it does not — and
- * the bound picks the smaller error, which is then under one keyframe interval
- * and therefore under what a player bridges.
- *
- * @param {{ transcodeVideo?: boolean, audioOnly?: boolean, keyframes?: { times?: number[] | null, tolerance?: number } }} material
- * @param {number} keyframe - A real keyframe time the run is to begin at.
- * @returns {number} Seconds to add to the request.
- */
-export function seekLandingOffsetFor(material, keyframe) {
-  // A re-encode trims to the requested time itself, so it needs no help and
-  // must not be pushed past what it was asked for.
-  //
-  // AN OUTPUT CARRYING ONLY SOUND IS SUCH A RE-ENCODE, and asking about the
-  // picture missed it: the flag says whether the PICTURE is re-encoded, and an
-  // output with no picture answers no. So the whole offset was added to the
-  // soundtrack's own seek, and the sound then played 130 ms ahead of the picture
-  // from every restart onward — reported by the viewer 2026-09-06 as lips out of
-  // step with the voice from two minutes in, and measured: both outputs were
-  // repositioned to the same boundary and both given `-ss 166.963435`, after
-  // which the copied picture landed on the keyframe at 166.833 while the
-  // re-encoded sound began where it was asked.
-  if (material?.transcodeVideo === true || material?.audioOnly === true) {
-    return 0;
-  }
-  // A grid whose times are approximate needs that error added on top, or a name
-  // sitting just below its real keyframe seeks to before it and lands on the
-  // one before that. Only AVI declares one.
-  const tolerance = Number.isFinite(material?.keyframes?.tolerance)
-    ? Math.max(0, material.keyframes.tolerance)
-    : 0;
-  const wanted = SEEK_LANDING_OFFSET_SEC + tolerance;
-  const times = Array.isArray(material?.keyframes?.times) ? material.keyframes.times : [];
-  const next = times.find((time) => time > keyframe + 0.001);
-  if (next === undefined) {
-    return wanted;
-  }
-  return Math.min(wanted, (next - keyframe) / 2);
-}
-
-/**
- * Everything ffmpeg is told for one run.
- *
- * @param {object} params
- * @param {{ times?: number[] | null, tolerance?: number }} params.keyframes - Where
- *   the PICTURE's file has its keyframes: what a seek snaps to. Plain values,
- *   so this can be asked without a container, a torrent or a session.
- * @param {{ startTime: number }} params.inputFile - The file this run reads.
- * @param {{ startTime: number }} params.audioFile - The file the chosen
- *   soundtrack lives in, which for a dub shipped beside the picture is not the
- *   picture's own.
- * @param {string} params.inputUrl
- * @param {string} params.audioInputUrl - Empty unless a browser that takes its
- *   audio muxed is watching a release whose soundtrack is a file of its own.
- * @param {{ published?: number[], boundaries?: number[], cutGrid?: string }} params.timeline
- * @param {{ encodeWidth: number, encodeHeight: number, outputFps: number, softwarePreset: string | null, applyTonemap: boolean }} params.output
- * @param {object} params.segmentFormat
- * @param {boolean} params.transcodeVideo
- * @param {boolean} params.transcodeAudio
- * @param {boolean} params.audioOnly - An audio rendition: one track, no picture.
- * @param {boolean} params.audioSeparate - The picture's sound is published as a
- *   rendition, so this output carries none.
- * @param {number} params.audioSourceTrackIndex - `0:a:N` within its own file.
- * @param {{ maxrateKbps: number, bufsizeKbps: number, level: string | null } | null} params.rateControl
- *   The output's own, as its key names it; null where nothing bounds the rate.
- * @param {number} params.startIndex - First segment number this run makes.
- * @param {number} params.endIndex - Last it makes, inclusive; below the start
- *   means it has no end.
- * @param {number | undefined} params.positionSecondsOverride - Where to begin,
- *   when the caller knows better than the table.
- * @param {object} params.videoEncoder
- * @param {number} params.segmentDurationSec
- * @returns {{ args: string[], safeIndex: number, startSeconds: number, cutTimes: number[] | null }}
- */
-export function buildRunCommand({
-  keyframes,
-  inputFile,
-  audioFile,
-  inputUrl,
-  audioInputUrl: audioInputUrlGiven,
-  timeline,
-  output,
-  segmentFormat,
-  transcodeVideo,
-  transcodeAudio,
-  audioOnly,
-  audioSeparate,
-  audioSourceTrackIndex,
-  rateControl,
-  startIndex,
-  endIndex,
-  positionSecondsOverride,
-  videoEncoder,
-  segmentDurationSec
-}) {
-  const safeIndex = Number.isInteger(startIndex) && startIndex > 0 ? startIndex : 0;
-  // 0-based output time of this segment, from the table the PLAYER holds —
-  // the same one the cut list below is taken from.
-  //
-  // These two were read from different tables until 2026-08-21, and that is
-  // one fault, not two: `-segment_times` are measured from wherever the run
-  // really began, so any distance between the position and the cut list moves
-  // EVERY cut of that run by it. The live table keeps being corrected as
-  // produced segments reveal where the file's cuts truly are, and those
-  // corrections run backwards, so each restart began a little earlier than
-  // the grid the cuts were stated on — and since the corrections accumulate,
-  // so did the distance. Measured on `JUFD665.mp4`: after one seek restart a
-  // produced segment held the boundary two places before its own number
-  // (16.684 s, exactly 2.0000 segments), after the next it held the one four
-  // places before (33.5 s). The player's buffer then stops extending at all,
-  // because the content of every fragment lands before the time its playlist
-  // entry names: `bufferEnd` stood still at 4571.1 s through four `frag-far`
-  // warnings until hls.js gave up and jumped the viewer 16.8 s forward.
-  //
-  // 2.45.0 moved the CUT LIST onto the published table for this same reason
-  // and left the position on the live one. Both belong on the published
-  // table: a run must begin where the player was told the segment begins.
-  const startSeconds = Number.isFinite(positionSecondsOverride)
-    ? positionSecondsOverride
-    : publishedStartTime(timeline, safeIndex, segmentDurationSec);
-  // Where each of the two timelines begins, asked of the files themselves.
-  // Fresh by construction: the session may have been created before the
-  // soundtrack file's header could be read, and the reading lands on the file
-  // object this session holds — so there is nothing to re-read and nothing
-  // that can be stale. Same property as the keyframe table, which is one
-  // object shared by every session of the file.
-  // Which timeline this run works on. Asked once, because the closure that
-  // adds the second input reads it too, and two readings of one predicate is
-  // how the picture and the sound came apart before.
-  const keyframeGrid = onKeyframeGridFor({ audioOnly, timeline, transcodeVideo });
-  const servesAudioSeparately = audioOnly !== true && audioSeparate === true;
-  const audioFileStartTime = audioFile.startTime;
-  // The start time of the file this run READS, which is the picture's own for
-  // every session except one whose soundtrack is a separate file.
-  const sourceStartTime = inputFile.startTime;
-  // Cut where this session's grid says, whoever is producing the frames. The
-  // times are measured from the start of THIS run; the same list serves as
-  // the cut points and, when re-encoding, as the keyframes to force — one
-  // list, so the two cannot drift apart.
-  const explicitTimes = segmentFormat.explicitTimesMuxerArgs?.() ?? null;
-  // A COPY is cut by this list whatever grid it ended up on. Even when no
-  // keyframe index could be read and the boundaries are a plain grid, saying
-  // them outright is what keeps the playlist and the muxer agreeing — ffmpeg
-  // moves each cut forward to the first real keyframe, and serving reads back
-  // where the piece truly begins. Requiring a keyframe grid here dropped a
-  // copy with no index onto the `hls` muxer, which takes no cut list and
-  // writes no self-contained pieces, so nothing could read a true start and
-  // segments were stamped with times the file does not have — the 4.17 s
-  // speech-against-subtitles drift, back again.
-  //
-  // Cut on the grid the PLAYER WAS GIVEN, not on the corrected one. A player
-  // places a fragment by the playlist it holds, and that text was written
-  // once and never changes; the live table keeps moving as produced segments
-  // reveal where the file's cuts really are. Cutting on the moved table makes
-  // every run faithful to a timeline nobody sent the player — measured
-  // 2026-08-20, the picture's segments arriving a uniform 2.002 s before the
-  // times the playlist named for them, which is four times what hls.js will
-  // bridge, so the fragment does not land and is asked for again.
-  //
-  // The corrections keep their purpose: they describe the file, and a variant
-  // created later inherits the corrected table and PUBLISHES it, so its own
-  // playlist and its own cuts agree from the start. What they may not do is
-  // move the cuts of a session whose playlist is already being read.
-  const gridCutTimes = explicitTimes && (!transcodeVideo || timeline.cutGrid === "keyframe")
-    ? segmentCutTimesFrom(publishedGridFor(timeline), safeIndex)
-    : null;
-  // Cut times are stated on the grid, for both branches.
-  //
-  // 2.28.0 added `sourceStartTime` to them on the copy branch, reasoning that
-  // the muxer decides its cuts before the output is relabelled. The field
-  // measured it the next session and the reasoning was wrong: of 75 pieces
-  // the picture produced, only NINE began at a time the container's own
-  // keyframe table names (the soundtrack, untouched by the change, scored 70
-  // of 75). Before it, every piece began exactly on a named keyframe and it
-  // was the PLAYLIST that disagreed with them. So the shift moved the cuts
-  // OFF the keyframes rather than onto them, and it is gone.
-  //
-  // What remains true, and is what that measurement is really about: the
-  // picture cuts where the source's keyframes are, and the playlist must be
-  // built from those same times. That is the correction path's job, not the
-  // cut list's.
-  const cutTimes = gridCutTimes;
-
-  // Video: re-encode only when required, using the detected encoder
-  // (hardware-accelerated or software). The descriptor builds the filter +
-  // codec args (including keyframe alignment on segment boundaries).
-  const videoCodecArgs = transcodeVideo
-    ? videoEncoder.buildVideoArgs({
-        // Budget-selected encode box (may be below the client target on weak
-        // software hosts); falls back to the client target for hardware.
-        targetWidth: output.encodeWidth,
-        targetHeight: output.encodeHeight,
-        segmentDurationSec: segmentDurationSec,
-        // Source-inherited output rate (integer, capped); descriptors that
-        // use time-based keyframes just apply it as the frame rate.
-        fps: output.outputFps,
-        // Software-only; hardware descriptors ignore it.
-        preset: output.softwarePreset ?? undefined,
-        // HDR→SDR tone map (software path only; gated on filter availability).
-        tonemap: output.applyTonemap === true,
-        // On the source's grid the cuts are not evenly spaced, so no frame
-        // count can describe them: the encoder is told the times outright,
-        // the same ones the muxer will cut at.
-        forcedKeyframeTimes: cutTimes,
-        // The output's own rate control and level. Read off the output, whose
-        // key names them: two limits are two outputs, and nothing moves a
-        // limit under an output that already exists.
-        rateControl: rateControl ?? null
-      })
-    : ["-c:v", "copy"];
-  const audioCodecArgs = transcodeAudio
-    ? ["-c:a", "aac", "-ac", "2", "-b:a", `${AUDIO_TRANSCODE_KBPS}k`]
-    : ["-c:a", "copy"];
-
-  const args = ["-hide_banner", "-nostats", "-loglevel", "error", "-progress", "pipe:1"];
-  // Hardware decode/encode setup (e.g. VAAPI device) must precede -i, and
-  // only applies when we actually re-encode the video track.
-  if (transcodeVideo && Array.isArray(videoEncoder.inputArgs)) {
-    args.push(...videoEncoder.inputArgs);
-  }
-  // Seek position in SOURCE time. On the keyframe grid `startSeconds` is a
-  // real keyframe's offset from zero, so the container's own start time goes
-  // back on to reach it; on the uniform grid it is a plain offset. This
-  // follows the GRID, not whether the video is re-encoded — a variant cut on
-  // the source's keyframes has to seek to them like the copy it accompanies.
-  const seekSeconds = timeline.cutGrid === "keyframe"
-    ? startSeconds + sourceStartTime
-    : startSeconds;
-  // Two-step seek when we have a real keyframe map: jump to a KNOWN-valid
-  // keyframe (coarse, before -i — safe because WE sourced it from ffprobe,
-  // not the container's own on-the-fly seek/index) and trim the short
-  // residual (bounded by the keyframe interval) precisely AFTER -i, which is
-  // always frame-accurate regardless of -accurate_seek.
-  //
-  // Root cause this works around: `-accurate_seek -ss X` before -i trusts the
-  // CONTAINER's own seek to land near X. For some containers (observed: AVI
-  // with VBR MP3 audio) that on-the-fly seek can point at a position with no
-  // valid frame boundary at all — ffmpeg fails outright ("Seek failed" /
-  // "Header missing"), not just imprecisely, and repeatedly so since every
-  // retry re-tries the SAME bad container-computed position. A keyframe we
-  // read directly from the packet list is a position ffmpeg has already
-  // proven it can decode.
-  //
-  // The keyframe is CARRIED from the table that named this boundary, not looked
-  // up by value. A boundary is stored on the player's clock, rounded, and
-  // `seekSeconds` above puts the container's start time back on to reach the
-  // file's clock — a lossy round trip. A keyframe at 26.234 s in a container
-  // starting at 0.083 s comes back as 26.233999999999998, and "the keyframe at
-  // or before that" is then the PREVIOUS one, 8.717 s earlier: two parts in a
-  // quadrillion, one whole keyframe interval. That interval became a trim, the
-  // trim moved every cut of the run backwards by another interval, and the
-  // run's files were numbered from #36 while carrying film 17.4 s before what
-  // the playlist says #36 holds (field 2026-09-05: the picture covered the
-  // playhead, the sound had a 17.4 s hole across it, and the viewer waited two
-  // minutes for a buffer that could never fill).
-  //
-  // The search stays for a grid restored without its source clock, which is the
-  // only case that has nothing to carry.
-  const carriedKeyframe = timeline.cutGrid === "keyframe" && typeof timeline.sourceStartOf === "function"
-    ? timeline.sourceStartOf(safeIndex)
-    : null;
-  const snappedKeyframe = Number.isFinite(carriedKeyframe)
-    ? carriedKeyframe
-    : (Array.isArray(keyframes?.times) && keyframes.times.length > 0
-      ? nearestKeyframeAtOrBefore(keyframes.times, seekSeconds)
-      : null);
-  // A second input, and it exists for exactly one case: a browser that takes
-  // its audio muxed into the picture, watching a release whose soundtrack is a
-  // file of its own. An audio RENDITION reads that file as its only input and
-  // has none of this — which is why the ordinary path, and every browser that
-  // understands rendition groups, still runs on a single input.
-  const audioInputUrl =
-    typeof audioInputUrlGiven === "string" && audioInputUrlGiven.length > 0
-      ? audioInputUrlGiven
-      : "";
-  // Where the picture's own start sits on the soundtrack file's timeline. Both
-  // files begin at their own container start time, and those need not be the
-  // same number; the difference is what keeps the two aligned.
-  const audioTimelineShift = audioInputUrl
-    ? audioFileStartTime - sourceStartTime
-    : 0;
-  /**
-   * Add the second input, if there is one, with its own seek.
-   *
-   * Called between the first `-i` and any OUTPUT option, because ffmpeg reads
-   * these positionally: an option written after the last `-i` applies to the
-   * output, and the residual seek below is exactly such an option. Getting the
-   * order wrong would silently turn the audio file's seek into a trim of the
-   * finished stream.
-   *
-   * @param {number} inputSeekSeconds - Where to start, on the PICTURE's
-   *   timeline. Translated to the soundtrack file's own here.
-   */
-  const pushAudioInput = (inputSeekSeconds) => {
-    if (!audioInputUrl) {
-      return;
-    }
-    // `-itsoffset` states the soundtrack's timestamps on the picture's
-    // timeline, so everything after this point — `-copyts`, the output offset,
-    // the cut list — goes on treating the two as one timeline, unchanged.
-    //
-    // ONLY on the branch that keeps the source's own timestamps. Without
-    // `-copyts` ffmpeg rebases each input from its own seek point, and both
-    // inputs are seeked to the same instant just below — so the two are
-    // already aligned and adding the offset would pull them apart by exactly
-    // the amount it exists to remove.
-    if (audioTimelineShift !== 0 && keyframeGrid) {
-      args.push("-itsoffset", ffmpegSeconds(-audioTimelineShift));
-    }
-    const audioSeek = Math.max(0, inputSeekSeconds + audioTimelineShift);
-    if (audioSeek > 0) {
-      // No keyframe to snap to and none needed: every audio frame is a sync
-      // point, so the seek can be accurate outright.
-      args.push("-accurate_seek", "-ss", ffmpegSeconds(audioSeek));
-    }
-    args.push("-i", audioInputUrl);
-  };
-
-  if (snappedKeyframe !== null) {
-    const residualSeconds = Math.max(0, seekSeconds - snappedKeyframe);
-    if (snappedKeyframe > 0) {
-      args.push("-ss", ffmpegSeconds(snappedKeyframe + seekLandingOffsetFor({ audioOnly, transcodeVideo, keyframes }, snappedKeyframe)));
-    }
-    args.push("-i", inputUrl);
-    // The coarse landing, not the exact target: the residual below is discarded
-    // from the OUTPUT and so takes the same slice off every stream. Seeking the
-    // soundtrack to the exact target as well would take that slice twice and
-    // leave the sound running ahead of the picture by it.
-    pushAudioInput(snappedKeyframe);
-    // An output-side trim, and ONLY where the output is labelled from zero.
-    //
-    // Beside `-copyts` it does the opposite of what it says. Measured
-    // 2026-09-06 on a file with a 5 s keyframe interval: a run landed at 15 s
-    // and asked to trim to the cut at 20 s produced its first file starting at
-    // 10 s, and a run asked to trim to 17 s produced cuts at 13.129, 18.129,
-    // 23.129 — the whole grid moved back by the trim itself. The muxer's cut
-    // times are absolute under `-copyts` while the trim is not, so every cut of
-    // the run inherits the difference and the numbering, fixed at spawn, is
-    // wrong by however many cuts that is.
-    //
-    // On the keyframe grid the run begins AT a cut, so there is nothing to
-    // trim: the carried keyframe above makes this exactly zero rather than
-    // nearly zero.
-    if (residualSeconds > 0 && !keyframeGrid) {
-      args.push("-ss", ffmpegSeconds(residualSeconds));
-    }
-  } else {
-    if (seekSeconds > 0) {
-      // No keyframe map (probe failed/timed out) — fall back to the previous
-      // behaviour: trust the container's own accurate seek.
-      args.push("-accurate_seek", "-ss", ffmpegSeconds(seekSeconds));
-    }
-    args.push("-i", inputUrl);
-    pushAudioInput(seekSeconds);
-  }
-  // Which timeline the output is labelled on. An audio rendition has no
-  // picture of its own to follow, so it follows the grid it was given — the
-  // same one the video it plays with is on. Deciding by `transcodeVideo`, as
-  // everything else here does, would put the audio of a re-encoded stream on
-  // the copy branch: `-copyts` and a shift by the container's start time,
-  // against a picture labelled from zero. The two would be offset by
-  // `sourceStartTime` for the whole file.
-  if (!keyframeGrid) {
-    // Branch A (re-encode): fixed GOP makes keyframes land exactly on the
-    // segment grid; relabel output onto the original timeline so segment N
-    // carries PTS = N × segmentDuration.
-    if (startSeconds > 0) {
-      args.push("-output_ts_offset", ffmpegSeconds(startSeconds));
-    }
-  } else {
-    // Branch B (video copied — only audio is transcoded): we cannot insert
-    // keyframes, so segments are cut at the source's own keyframes (the
-    // playlist boundaries were built from those keyframes). Keep the source's
-    // real timestamps (`-copyts`) so copied frames stay continuous across
-    // boundaries/seeks, and shift by -startTime so the output timeline is
-    // 0-based (a non-zero container start otherwise puts a hole at the very
-    // beginning and desyncs audio/video). Audio is transcoded on this timeline.
-    args.push("-copyts");
-    if (sourceStartTime !== 0) {
-      args.push("-output_ts_offset", ffmpegSeconds(-sourceStartTime));
-    }
-  }
-  // Where this run STOPS. Until now a run had a start and no end — neither
-  // `-to` nor `-t` appeared anywhere in the arguments this proxy builds — so
-  // every stop was a kill from outside, and two runs on one output could only
-  // be kept apart by giving each its own directory. With an end they cannot
-  // reach each other's numbers at all, and a run that finishes its stretch
-  // exits by itself instead of having to be noticed and killed.
-  //
-  // WHICH argument states it is a property of the branch, and it is measured
-  // rather than reasoned (2026-09-04, `research/encoder-layer-2026-09-04.md`
-  // §11): `-t` is a duration on the output's own clock, and `-to` a point on
-  // the input's. The copy branch runs with `-copyts`, where the input's clock
-  // IS the source's, so `-to` takes the absolute time; the re-encode branch
-  // has no `-copyts` and takes the duration. Swapping them is not a near
-  // miss — on the copy branch `-t` produced one segment where five were
-  // wanted, because the time it names is already past when the run starts.
-  const runEnd = Number.isInteger(endIndex) ? endIndex : -1;
-  const publishedGrid = publishedGridFor(timeline);
-  if (runEnd >= safeIndex && Array.isArray(publishedGrid) && publishedGrid[runEnd + 1] > 0) {
-    const endsAt = publishedGrid[runEnd + 1];
-    if (transcodeVideo) {
-      args.push("-t", ffmpegSeconds(Math.max(0.1, endsAt - publishedGrid[safeIndex])));
-    } else {
-      args.push("-to", ffmpegSeconds(endsAt));
-    }
-  }
-  if (audioOnly === true) {
-    // An audio RENDITION: one track, no picture. Published as its own
-    // `#EXT-X-MEDIA` and shared by every video variant, so the track is
-    // encoded once for the file instead of once per rung, and changing it is
-    // the player switching rendition rather than this proxy rebuilding the
-    // session. Cut on the same grid as the video it accompanies, which is
-    // what lets the two be played together.
-    // `0:` because a rendition's only input IS the file its track lives in —
-    // the picture's own file, or the one beside it that carries this dub.
-    args.push("-vn", "-map", `0:a:${audioSourceTrackIndex}?`, ...audioCodecArgs);
-  } else if (servesAudioSeparately) {
-    // The other half of the same arrangement: the picture alone, because its
-    // audio is published as a rendition and would otherwise play twice.
-    args.push("-an", "-map", "0:v:0?", ...videoCodecArgs);
-  } else {
-    args.push(
-      "-map",
-      "0:v:0?",
-      "-map",
-      // The audio track the viewer chose: input 1 when their choice is a
-      // soundtrack shipped as its own file, input 0 when it is one of the
-      // picture's own. Type-relative within that input, which is what
-      // `audioSourceTrackIndex` holds — the number the browser sent is flat
-      // across both files and was resolved when the session was made.
-      `${audioInputUrl ? 1 : 0}:a:${audioSourceTrackIndex}?`,
-      ...videoCodecArgs,
-      ...audioCodecArgs
-    );
-  }
-
-  // Where the cuts come from. On the copy path they are the source's own
-  // keyframes, and until now they were only ever GUESSED: ffmpeg got a target
-  // duration and chose its own cut points, while the playlist was built from
-  // the container index — two independent calculations with nothing tying
-  // them together but the hope that they agree. They do not. The index is a
-  // navigation table and is not obliged to list every keyframe; for a field
-  // file it held 1902 while ffmpeg found roughly twice as many and cut twice
-  // as often. Segment #876 then meant 1:26:50 to the player and about minute
-  // 58 to ffmpeg, which is why a seek landed nowhere near where it was aimed
-  // and the reported duration drifted.
-  //
-  // So stop guessing and say it: the `segment` muxer takes the list of times
-  // outright. Passing the very boundaries the playlist was built from makes
-  // the two agree by construction. Only cut points already known to be real
-  // keyframes are sent, so ffmpeg never has to move one forward.
-  //
-  // The list is built above, before the encoder args, because a re-encoded
-  // variant of a copied stream needs the same times twice over: once as the
-  // cuts, once as the keyframes to force at them.
-  if (cutTimes && cutTimes.length > 0) {
-    args.push(
-      "-f",
-      "segment",
-      // Times are measured from the START OF THIS RUN, not from the start of
-      // the file — verified: starting at 12 s and asking for a cut at 18 s
-      // produced one at 29.4 s. `segmentCutTimesFrom` rebases them.
-      "-segment_times",
-      cutTimes.join(","),
-      // A cut lands on the first keyframe at or after its time, so a boundary
-      // recorded a hair late would skip to the next one and double the
-      // segment. The tolerance absorbs that rounding.
-      "-segment_time_delta",
-      "0.05",
-      "-segment_start_number",
-      String(safeIndex),
-      // THE ENCODER SAYS WHEN A PIECE IS FINISHED, on a channel of its own.
-      //
-      // Measured on the addon host 2026-09-05: a name appears in this list when
-      // the file is CLOSED, not when it is created — at the third sample
-      // `seg-000.mp4` was on disk and absent from the list, and it appeared at
-      // the fourth, in the same moment `seg-001.mp4` came into being. So a name
-      // here is the writer's own statement that the piece is whole.
-      //
-      // Without it, a finished file is indistinguishable from one still being
-      // written, and the only proof available was the existence of the NEXT
-      // one — which never comes for the last piece of every run.
-      "-segment_list",
-      "pipe:3",
-      "-segment_list_flags",
-      "+live",
-      ...explicitTimes,
-      // UNDER A WORKING NAME, not the one it is served as. A piece under its
-      // served name is complete by construction then, whoever else is writing
-      // into the same directory — and the name arrives on the channel above the
-      // instant ffmpeg closes it, which is what turns it into the served one.
-      //
-      // The other branch needs none of this: the HLS muxer writes through a
-      // temporary name of its own (`+temp_file`), so its files appear under
-      // their final name whole.
-      //
-      // TAGGED WITH THE STRETCH IT WAS GIVEN, which names the run without any
-      // counter to keep: intervals never overlap, so two live runs of one output
-      // begin at different numbers by construction. That is what makes clearing
-      // up after a dead run a well-formed question — its unfinished pieces are
-      // the ones carrying its own tag — where before it was answered by taking
-      // the highest SERVED name inside its stretch and judging the bytes.
-      segmentFormat.makingFileNameTemplate(String(safeIndex))
-    );
-  } else {
-    args.push(
-      "-f",
-      "hls",
-      "-hls_time",
-      String(segmentDurationSec),
-      "-hls_list_size",
-      "0",
-      "-hls_flags",
-      "independent_segments+temp_file",
-      // Container selection + segment naming, from the active format module.
-      ...segmentFormat.muxerArgs(),
-      "-start_number",
-      String(safeIndex),
-      // ffmpeg writes its own playlist here; we ignore it and serve the
-      // synthetic VOD playlist instead (see getFileStream).
-      PLAYLIST_FILE_NAME
-    );
-  }
-  return { args, safeIndex, startSeconds, cutTimes };
-
-}
+/**
+ * @file The full argument list for one encoder run.
+ *
+ * What a run is given is a fact about WHAT is being produced and WHERE it
+ * begins, and about nothing else — not the session it belongs to, not who is
+ * watching, not how many viewers there are. It was a 377-line method of the
+ * session manager reading fifteen of its fields, which is why a run could only
+ * ever be built by that class, for the one session it holds.
+ *
+ * Stated here, over the material and the stretch alone, a run can be built by
+ * whoever needs one. That is what lets an output have more than a single
+ * encoder.
+ *
+ * **Nothing in this file runs anything.** It returns an argument list; spawning,
+ * killing and resuming belong to whoever owns the process.
+ */
+
+import { PLAYLIST_FILE_NAME } from "./output/playlists.js";
+import { AUDIO_TRANSCODE_KBPS } from "./args.js";
+
+/**
+ * What ffmpeg's own CLI subtracts from an input seek, and therefore what has to
+ * be added back to land where we asked.
+ *
+ * `fftools/ffmpeg_demux.c`, in `ifile_open`: when the container does not
+ * declare `AVFMT_SEEK_TO_PTS` — Matroska does not — and any stream carries
+ * B-frames, the seek target is moved back by `3*AV_TIME_BASE / 23` before
+ * `avformat_seek_file` is called. Its purpose is sound: such containers seek in
+ * decode order while the caller asks in presentation order, and with B-frames
+ * the two differ, so it backs off far enough to be sure of reaching the frame
+ * asked for.
+ *
+ * The consequence for a COPY is that asking for a keyframe lands on the one
+ * BEFORE it — deterministically, every time. Measured 2026-08-21 on a Matroska
+ * file with keyframes every 2 s: `-ss 10` produced a first segment starting at
+ * 8.000; `-ss 10.130435` produced one starting at 10.000. On MP4, where the
+ * heuristic does not fire, all of 10, 10.130435 and 10.2 produced 10.000 — so
+ * adding this is right in one case and harmless in the other.
+ *
+ * That landing is what `-segment_times` is measured from, while this code
+ * computes those offsets from the time it ASKED for. One keyframe interval
+ * apart, inherited by every cut of the run: 119 of 125 segments arriving a
+ * uniform 2.002 s early in the field, four times what a player bridges.
+ *
+ * Not applied when the picture is re-encoded: a re-encode decodes from the
+ * keyframe and discards frames up to the requested time, so its output already
+ * begins exactly where asked (measured the same day: `-ss 11` copied starts at
+ * 10.000, re-encoded at 11.000).
+ */
+export const SEEK_LANDING_OFFSET_SEC = 3 / 23;
+
+/**
+ * A number of seconds as ffmpeg will accept it.
+ *
+ * `String(n)` switches to exponential notation below 1e-6, and ffmpeg's
+ * duration parser rejects that outright: a field session died on
+ * `Invalid duration for option ss: 3.3333333249174757e-7`, after which the
+ * transcode was in state `failed` and every segment request answered 500 for
+ * as long as the viewer kept trying. Anything under a millisecond is also not a
+ * real offset — it is the residue of subtracting two nearly equal floats — so
+ * it is dropped rather than passed on.
+ *
+ * @param {number} value
+ * @returns {string}
+ */
+export function ffmpegSeconds(value) {
+  if (!Number.isFinite(value) || Math.abs(value) < 0.001) {
+    return "0";
+  }
+  // Microsecond resolution, fixed notation, no trailing zero noise.
+  return value.toFixed(6).replace(/\.?0+$/, "");
+}
+
+/**
+ * Which timeline an output's own ffmpeg works on.
+ *
+ * True — the COPY branch: the source's timestamps are kept (`-copyts`) and the
+ * output is re-labelled 0-based. Everything handed to the muxer is therefore
+ * stated in the source's terms, and everything read back out of a produced
+ * piece is 0-based.
+ *
+ * False — the re-encode branch: the output is labelled from the run's start on
+ * the 0-based timeline, and the muxer is addressed in those same terms.
+ *
+ * One predicate for both callers, because the two used to answer it separately
+ * and a disagreement between them is exactly what desynced picture from sound.
+ *
+ * @param {{ audioOnly?: boolean, timeline?: { cutGrid?: string }, transcodeVideo?: boolean }} material
+ * @returns {boolean}
+ */
+export function onKeyframeGridFor(material) {
+  return material?.audioOnly === true
+    ? material?.timeline?.cutGrid === "keyframe"
+    : material?.transcodeVideo !== true;
+}
+
+/**
+ * The boundary table the player is working from: the one its playlist was
+ * written from, falling back to the live table when no playlist was built from
+ * a table at all (no duration, so no synthetic playlist — and then nothing the
+ * player holds contradicts it).
+ *
+ * @param {{ published?: number[], boundaries?: number[] }} timeline
+ * @returns {number[]}
+ */
+export function publishedGridFor(timeline) {
+  return Array.isArray(timeline?.published) && timeline.published.length > 0
+    ? timeline.published
+    : (timeline?.boundaries ?? []);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Where a run beginning at `index` must be positioned: the time the PLAYER was
+ * told that segment starts at.
+ *
+ * Two tables, deliberately: the live one is corrected as produced segments
+ * reveal where the file's cuts truly are, and those corrections are what let a
+ * re-encoded rung be forced onto a copied stream's real grid. But the playlist
+ * a player is holding was written once and never changes, so a position taken
+ * from the corrected table describes a timeline nobody sent the player. That is
+ * not a subtlety: it cost ten minutes of a dead film on 2026-08-17, the browser
+ * asking for two segments 1908 times each.
+ *
+ * @param {{ published?: number[], boundaries?: number[] }} timeline
+ * @param {number} index
+ * @param {number} segmentDurationSec - Used only when the file has no table at
+ *   all, where a segment is a plain multiple of the nominal length.
+ * @returns {number}
+ */
+export function publishedStartTime(timeline, index, segmentDurationSec) {
+  const published = Array.isArray(timeline?.published) && timeline.published.length > 0 ? timeline.published : null;
+  const table = published ?? (Array.isArray(timeline?.boundaries) ? timeline.boundaries : []);
+  if (table.length === 0) {
+    return index * segmentDurationSec;
+  }
+  const clamped = Math.max(0, Math.min(index, table.length - 1));
+  return table[clamped];
+}
+
+/**
+ * Where a segment REALLY begins, when a produced piece has said so.
+ *
+ * The live table is corrected as produced pieces reveal where a file's cuts
+ * truly are; the published one is what the player was told and may never move.
+ * Where the two disagree, the live table is a measurement and the published one
+ * a prediction — and this answers with the measurement, or with nothing when
+ * they agree or nothing has been measured.
+ *
+ * @param {object} timeline
+ * @param {number} index
+ * @returns {number | undefined}
+ */
+export function trueStartOf(timeline, index) {
+  const live = Array.isArray(timeline?.boundaries) ? timeline.boundaries : null;
+  const published = Array.isArray(timeline?.published) ? timeline.published : null;
+  if (!live || !published || index < 0 || index >= live.length || index >= published.length) {
+    return undefined;
+  }
+  return live[index] === published[index] ? undefined : live[index];
+}
+
+/**
+ * The cut times to hand ffmpeg for a run that starts at `startIndex`.
+ *
+ * Two adjustments, both of which cost a broken session to learn:
+ *
+ *  - **Rebased.** `-segment_times` is measured from the start of the run, not
+ *    of the file. Measured: starting at 12 s and asking for a cut at 18 s put
+ *    it at 29.4 s — 12 + 18. So every boundary has the run's own start
+ *    subtracted.
+ *  - **Interior only.** The first boundary is where the run begins and the last
+ *    is where the file ends; neither is a cut. Sending them would produce an
+ *    empty leading segment and a spurious trailing one.
+ *
+ * @param {number[]} boundaries
+ * @param {number} startIndex
+ * @returns {number[] | null}
+ */
+export function segmentCutTimesFrom(boundaries, startIndex) {
+  if (!Array.isArray(boundaries) || boundaries.length < 2) {
+    return null;
+  }
+  const index = Number.isInteger(startIndex) && startIndex > 0 ? startIndex : 0;
+  if (index >= boundaries.length - 1) {
+    return null;
+  }
+  const base = boundaries[index];
+  const times = [];
+  for (let at = index + 1; at < boundaries.length - 1; at += 1) {
+    times.push(Number((boundaries[at] - base).toFixed(6)));
+  }
+  return times;
+}
+
+/**
+ * The largest keyframe time that does not exceed `target`, from a SORTED
+ * (ascending) array of keyframe times. Null when `target` is before the first
+ * keyframe or the array is empty — the caller then falls back to its unsnapped
+ * target.
+ *
+ * @param {number[]} keyframeTimes - Sorted ascending.
+ * @param {number} target
+ * @returns {number | null}
+ */
+export function nearestKeyframeAtOrBefore(keyframeTimes, target) {
+  let result = null;
+  for (const time of keyframeTimes) {
+    if (time > target) {
+      break;
+    }
+    result = time;
+  }
+  return result;
+}
+
+/**
+ * How much later than a keyframe to ASK, so that ffmpeg lands on that keyframe.
+ *
+ * Bounded by half the distance to the next keyframe, which matters only where
+ * keyframes stand closer together than twice the offset. There no single value
+ * can satisfy both worlds — asking too little lands a keyframe early when the
+ * heuristic fires, asking too much lands a keyframe late when it does not — and
+ * the bound picks the smaller error, which is then under one keyframe interval
+ * and therefore under what a player bridges.
+ *
+ * @param {{ transcodeVideo?: boolean, audioOnly?: boolean, keyframes?: { times?: number[] | null, tolerance?: number } }} material
+ * @param {number} keyframe - A real keyframe time the run is to begin at.
+ * @returns {number} Seconds to add to the request.
+ */
+export function seekLandingOffsetFor(material, keyframe) {
+  // A re-encode trims to the requested time itself, so it needs no help and
+  // must not be pushed past what it was asked for.
+  //
+  // AN OUTPUT CARRYING ONLY SOUND IS SUCH A RE-ENCODE, and asking about the
+  // picture missed it: the flag says whether the PICTURE is re-encoded, and an
+  // output with no picture answers no. So the whole offset was added to the
+  // soundtrack's own seek, and the sound then played 130 ms ahead of the picture
+  // from every restart onward — reported by the viewer 2026-09-06 as lips out of
+  // step with the voice from two minutes in, and measured: both outputs were
+  // repositioned to the same boundary and both given `-ss 166.963435`, after
+  // which the copied picture landed on the keyframe at 166.833 while the
+  // re-encoded sound began where it was asked.
+  if (material?.transcodeVideo === true || material?.audioOnly === true) {
+    return 0;
+  }
+  // A grid whose times are approximate needs that error added on top, or a name
+  // sitting just below its real keyframe seeks to before it and lands on the
+  // one before that. Only AVI declares one.
+  const tolerance = Number.isFinite(material?.keyframes?.tolerance)
+    ? Math.max(0, material.keyframes.tolerance)
+    : 0;
+  const wanted = SEEK_LANDING_OFFSET_SEC + tolerance;
+  const times = Array.isArray(material?.keyframes?.times) ? material.keyframes.times : [];
+  const next = times.find((time) => time > keyframe + 0.001);
+  if (next === undefined) {
+    return wanted;
+  }
+  return Math.min(wanted, (next - keyframe) / 2);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Everything ffmpeg is told for one run.
+ *
+ * @param {object} params
+ * @param {{ times?: number[] | null, tolerance?: number }} params.keyframes - Where
+ *   the PICTURE's file has its keyframes: what a seek snaps to. Plain values,
+ *   so this can be asked without a container, a torrent or a session.
+ * @param {{ startTime: number }} params.inputFile - The file this run reads.
+ * @param {{ startTime: number }} params.audioFile - The file the chosen
+ *   soundtrack lives in, which for a dub shipped beside the picture is not the
+ *   picture's own.
+ * @param {string} params.inputUrl
+ * @param {string} params.audioInputUrl - Empty unless a browser that takes its
+ *   audio muxed is watching a release whose soundtrack is a file of its own.
+ * @param {{ published?: number[], boundaries?: number[], cutGrid?: string }} params.timeline
+ * @param {{ encodeWidth: number, encodeHeight: number, outputFps: number, softwarePreset: string | null, applyTonemap: boolean }} params.output
+ * @param {object} params.segmentFormat
+ * @param {boolean} params.transcodeVideo
+ * @param {boolean} params.transcodeAudio
+ * @param {boolean} params.audioOnly - An audio rendition: one track, no picture.
+ * @param {boolean} params.audioSeparate - The picture's sound is published as a
+ *   rendition, so this output carries none.
+ * @param {number} params.audioSourceTrackIndex - `0:a:N` within its own file.
+ * @param {{ maxrateKbps: number, bufsizeKbps: number, level: string | null } | null} params.rateControl
+ *   The output's own, as its key names it; null where nothing bounds the rate.
+ * @param {number} params.startIndex - First segment number this run makes.
+ * @param {number} params.endIndex - Last it makes, inclusive; below the start
+ *   means it has no end.
+ * @param {number | undefined} params.positionSecondsOverride - Where to begin,
+ *   when the caller knows better than the table.
+ * @param {object} params.videoEncoder
+ * @param {number} params.segmentDurationSec
+ * @returns {{ args: string[], safeIndex: number, startSeconds: number, cutTimes: number[] | null }}
+ */
+export function buildRunCommand({
+  keyframes,
+  inputFile,
+  audioFile,
+  inputUrl,
+  audioInputUrl: audioInputUrlGiven,
+  timeline,
+  output,
+  segmentFormat,
+  transcodeVideo,
+  transcodeAudio,
+  audioOnly,
+  audioSeparate,
+  audioSourceTrackIndex,
+  rateControl,
+  startIndex,
+  endIndex,
+  positionSecondsOverride,
+  videoEncoder,
+  segmentDurationSec
+}) {
+  const safeIndex = Number.isInteger(startIndex) && startIndex > 0 ? startIndex : 0;
+  // 0-based output time of this segment, from the table the PLAYER holds —
+  // the same one the cut list below is taken from.
+  //
+  // These two were read from different tables until 2026-08-21, and that is
+  // one fault, not two: `-segment_times` are measured from wherever the run
+  // really began, so any distance between the position and the cut list moves
+  // EVERY cut of that run by it. The live table keeps being corrected as
+  // produced segments reveal where the file's cuts truly are, and those
+  // corrections run backwards, so each restart began a little earlier than
+  // the grid the cuts were stated on — and since the corrections accumulate,
+  // so did the distance. Measured on `JUFD665.mp4`: after one seek restart a
+  // produced segment held the boundary two places before its own number
+  // (16.684 s, exactly 2.0000 segments), after the next it held the one four
+  // places before (33.5 s). The player's buffer then stops extending at all,
+  // because the content of every fragment lands before the time its playlist
+  // entry names: `bufferEnd` stood still at 4571.1 s through four `frag-far`
+  // warnings until hls.js gave up and jumped the viewer 16.8 s forward.
+  //
+  // 2.45.0 moved the CUT LIST onto the published table for this same reason
+  // and left the position on the live one. Both belong on the published
+  // table: a run must begin where the player was told the segment begins.
+  const startSeconds = Number.isFinite(positionSecondsOverride)
+    ? positionSecondsOverride
+    : publishedStartTime(timeline, safeIndex, segmentDurationSec);
+  // Where each of the two timelines begins, asked of the files themselves.
+  // Fresh by construction: the session may have been created before the
+  // soundtrack file's header could be read, and the reading lands on the file
+  // object this session holds — so there is nothing to re-read and nothing
+  // that can be stale. Same property as the keyframe table, which is one
+  // object shared by every session of the file.
+  // Which timeline this run works on. Asked once, because the closure that
+  // adds the second input reads it too, and two readings of one predicate is
+  // how the picture and the sound came apart before.
+  const keyframeGrid = onKeyframeGridFor({ audioOnly, timeline, transcodeVideo });
+  const servesAudioSeparately = audioOnly !== true && audioSeparate === true;
+  const audioFileStartTime = audioFile.startTime;
+  // The start time of the file this run READS, which is the picture's own for
+  // every session except one whose soundtrack is a separate file.
+  const sourceStartTime = inputFile.startTime;
+  // Cut where this session's grid says, whoever is producing the frames. The
+  // times are measured from the start of THIS run; the same list serves as
+  // the cut points and, when re-encoding, as the keyframes to force — one
+  // list, so the two cannot drift apart.
+  const explicitTimes = segmentFormat.explicitTimesMuxerArgs?.() ?? null;
+  // A COPY is cut by this list whatever grid it ended up on. Even when no
+  // keyframe index could be read and the boundaries are a plain grid, saying
+  // them outright is what keeps the playlist and the muxer agreeing — ffmpeg
+  // moves each cut forward to the first real keyframe, and serving reads back
+  // where the piece truly begins. Requiring a keyframe grid here dropped a
+  // copy with no index onto the `hls` muxer, which takes no cut list and
+  // writes no self-contained pieces, so nothing could read a true start and
+  // segments were stamped with times the file does not have — the 4.17 s
+  // speech-against-subtitles drift, back again.
+  //
+  // Cut on the grid the PLAYER WAS GIVEN, not on the corrected one. A player
+  // places a fragment by the playlist it holds, and that text was written
+  // once and never changes; the live table keeps moving as produced segments
+  // reveal where the file's cuts really are. Cutting on the moved table makes
+  // every run faithful to a timeline nobody sent the player — measured
+  // 2026-08-20, the picture's segments arriving a uniform 2.002 s before the
+  // times the playlist named for them, which is four times what hls.js will
+  // bridge, so the fragment does not land and is asked for again.
+  //
+  // The corrections keep their purpose: they describe the file, and a variant
+  // created later inherits the corrected table and PUBLISHES it, so its own
+  // playlist and its own cuts agree from the start. What they may not do is
+  // move the cuts of a session whose playlist is already being read.
+  const gridCutTimes = explicitTimes && (!transcodeVideo || timeline.cutGrid === "keyframe")
+    ? segmentCutTimesFrom(publishedGridFor(timeline), safeIndex)
+    : null;
+  // Cut times are stated on the grid, for both branches.
+  //
+  // 2.28.0 added `sourceStartTime` to them on the copy branch, reasoning that
+  // the muxer decides its cuts before the output is relabelled. The field
+  // measured it the next session and the reasoning was wrong: of 75 pieces
+  // the picture produced, only NINE began at a time the container's own
+  // keyframe table names (the soundtrack, untouched by the change, scored 70
+  // of 75). Before it, every piece began exactly on a named keyframe and it
+  // was the PLAYLIST that disagreed with them. So the shift moved the cuts
+  // OFF the keyframes rather than onto them, and it is gone.
+  //
+  // What remains true, and is what that measurement is really about: the
+  // picture cuts where the source's keyframes are, and the playlist must be
+  // built from those same times. That is the correction path's job, not the
+  // cut list's.
+  const cutTimes = gridCutTimes;
+
+  // Video: re-encode only when required, using the detected encoder
+  // (hardware-accelerated or software). The descriptor builds the filter +
+  // codec args (including keyframe alignment on segment boundaries).
+  const videoCodecArgs = transcodeVideo
+    ? videoEncoder.buildVideoArgs({
+        // Budget-selected encode box (may be below the client target on weak
+        // software hosts); falls back to the client target for hardware.
+        targetWidth: output.encodeWidth,
+        targetHeight: output.encodeHeight,
+        segmentDurationSec: segmentDurationSec,
+        // Source-inherited output rate (integer, capped); descriptors that
+        // use time-based keyframes just apply it as the frame rate.
+        fps: output.outputFps,
+        // Software-only; hardware descriptors ignore it.
+        preset: output.softwarePreset ?? undefined,
+        // HDR→SDR tone map (software path only; gated on filter availability).
+        tonemap: output.applyTonemap === true,
+        // On the source's grid the cuts are not evenly spaced, so no frame
+        // count can describe them: the encoder is told the times outright,
+        // the same ones the muxer will cut at.
+        forcedKeyframeTimes: cutTimes,
+        // The output's own rate control and level. Read off the output, whose
+        // key names them: two limits are two outputs, and nothing moves a
+        // limit under an output that already exists.
+        rateControl: rateControl ?? null
+      })
+    : ["-c:v", "copy"];
+  const audioCodecArgs = transcodeAudio
+    ? ["-c:a", "aac", "-ac", "2", "-b:a", `${AUDIO_TRANSCODE_KBPS}k`]
+    : ["-c:a", "copy"];
+
+  const args = ["-hide_banner", "-nostats", "-loglevel", "error", "-progress", "pipe:1"];
+  // Hardware decode/encode setup (e.g. VAAPI device) must precede -i, and
+  // only applies when we actually re-encode the video track.
+  if (transcodeVideo && Array.isArray(videoEncoder.inputArgs)) {
+    args.push(...videoEncoder.inputArgs);
+  }
+  // Seek position in SOURCE time. On the keyframe grid `startSeconds` is a
+  // real keyframe's offset from zero, so the container's own start time goes
+  // back on to reach it; on the uniform grid it is a plain offset. This
+  // follows the GRID, not whether the video is re-encoded — a variant cut on
+  // the source's keyframes has to seek to them like the copy it accompanies.
+  const seekSeconds = timeline.cutGrid === "keyframe"
+    ? startSeconds + sourceStartTime
+    : startSeconds;
+  // Two-step seek when we have a real keyframe map: jump to a KNOWN-valid
+  // keyframe (coarse, before -i — safe because WE sourced it from ffprobe,
+  // not the container's own on-the-fly seek/index) and trim the short
+  // residual (bounded by the keyframe interval) precisely AFTER -i, which is
+  // always frame-accurate regardless of -accurate_seek.
+  //
+  // Root cause this works around: `-accurate_seek -ss X` before -i trusts the
+  // CONTAINER's own seek to land near X. For some containers (observed: AVI
+  // with VBR MP3 audio) that on-the-fly seek can point at a position with no
+  // valid frame boundary at all — ffmpeg fails outright ("Seek failed" /
+  // "Header missing"), not just imprecisely, and repeatedly so since every
+  // retry re-tries the SAME bad container-computed position. A keyframe we
+  // read directly from the packet list is a position ffmpeg has already
+  // proven it can decode.
+  //
+  // The keyframe is CARRIED from the table that named this boundary, not looked
+  // up by value. A boundary is stored on the player's clock, rounded, and
+  // `seekSeconds` above puts the container's start time back on to reach the
+  // file's clock — a lossy round trip. A keyframe at 26.234 s in a container
+  // starting at 0.083 s comes back as 26.233999999999998, and "the keyframe at
+  // or before that" is then the PREVIOUS one, 8.717 s earlier: two parts in a
+  // quadrillion, one whole keyframe interval. That interval became a trim, the
+  // trim moved every cut of the run backwards by another interval, and the
+  // run's files were numbered from #36 while carrying film 17.4 s before what
+  // the playlist says #36 holds (field 2026-09-05: the picture covered the
+  // playhead, the sound had a 17.4 s hole across it, and the viewer waited two
+  // minutes for a buffer that could never fill).
+  //
+  // The search stays for a grid restored without its source clock, which is the
+  // only case that has nothing to carry.
+  const carriedKeyframe = timeline.cutGrid === "keyframe" && typeof timeline.sourceStartOf === "function"
+    ? timeline.sourceStartOf(safeIndex)
+    : null;
+  const snappedKeyframe = Number.isFinite(carriedKeyframe)
+    ? carriedKeyframe
+    : (Array.isArray(keyframes?.times) && keyframes.times.length > 0
+      ? nearestKeyframeAtOrBefore(keyframes.times, seekSeconds)
+      : null);
+  // A second input, and it exists for exactly one case: a browser that takes
+  // its audio muxed into the picture, watching a release whose soundtrack is a
+  // file of its own. An audio RENDITION reads that file as its only input and
+  // has none of this — which is why the ordinary path, and every browser that
+  // understands rendition groups, still runs on a single input.
+  const audioInputUrl =
+    typeof audioInputUrlGiven === "string" && audioInputUrlGiven.length > 0
+      ? audioInputUrlGiven
+      : "";
+  // Where the picture's own start sits on the soundtrack file's timeline. Both
+  // files begin at their own container start time, and those need not be the
+  // same number; the difference is what keeps the two aligned.
+  const audioTimelineShift = audioInputUrl
+    ? audioFileStartTime - sourceStartTime
+    : 0;
+  /**
+   * Add the second input, if there is one, with its own seek.
+   *
+   * Called between the first `-i` and any OUTPUT option, because ffmpeg reads
+   * these positionally: an option written after the last `-i` applies to the
+   * output, and the residual seek below is exactly such an option. Getting the
+   * order wrong would silently turn the audio file's seek into a trim of the
+   * finished stream.
+   *
+   * @param {number} inputSeekSeconds - Where to start, on the PICTURE's
+   *   timeline. Translated to the soundtrack file's own here.
+   */
+  const pushAudioInput = (inputSeekSeconds) => {
+    if (!audioInputUrl) {
+      return;
+    }
+    // `-itsoffset` states the soundtrack's timestamps on the picture's
+    // timeline, so everything after this point — `-copyts`, the output offset,
+    // the cut list — goes on treating the two as one timeline, unchanged.
+    //
+    // ONLY on the branch that keeps the source's own timestamps. Without
+    // `-copyts` ffmpeg rebases each input from its own seek point, and both
+    // inputs are seeked to the same instant just below — so the two are
+    // already aligned and adding the offset would pull them apart by exactly
+    // the amount it exists to remove.
+    if (audioTimelineShift !== 0 && keyframeGrid) {
+      args.push("-itsoffset", ffmpegSeconds(-audioTimelineShift));
+    }
+    const audioSeek = Math.max(0, inputSeekSeconds + audioTimelineShift);
+    if (audioSeek > 0) {
+      // No keyframe to snap to and none needed: every audio frame is a sync
+      // point, so the seek can be accurate outright.
+      args.push("-accurate_seek", "-ss", ffmpegSeconds(audioSeek));
+    }
+    args.push("-i", audioInputUrl);
+  };
+
+  if (snappedKeyframe !== null) {
+    const residualSeconds = Math.max(0, seekSeconds - snappedKeyframe);
+    if (snappedKeyframe > 0) {
+      args.push("-ss", ffmpegSeconds(snappedKeyframe + seekLandingOffsetFor({ audioOnly, transcodeVideo, keyframes }, snappedKeyframe)));
+    }
+    args.push("-i", inputUrl);
+    // The coarse landing, not the exact target: the residual below is discarded
+    // from the OUTPUT and so takes the same slice off every stream. Seeking the
+    // soundtrack to the exact target as well would take that slice twice and
+    // leave the sound running ahead of the picture by it.
+    pushAudioInput(snappedKeyframe);
+    // An output-side trim, and ONLY where the output is labelled from zero.
+    //
+    // Beside `-copyts` it does the opposite of what it says. Measured
+    // 2026-09-06 on a file with a 5 s keyframe interval: a run landed at 15 s
+    // and asked to trim to the cut at 20 s produced its first file starting at
+    // 10 s, and a run asked to trim to 17 s produced cuts at 13.129, 18.129,
+    // 23.129 — the whole grid moved back by the trim itself. The muxer's cut
+    // times are absolute under `-copyts` while the trim is not, so every cut of
+    // the run inherits the difference and the numbering, fixed at spawn, is
+    // wrong by however many cuts that is.
+    //
+    // On the keyframe grid the run begins AT a cut, so there is nothing to
+    // trim: the carried keyframe above makes this exactly zero rather than
+    // nearly zero.
+    if (residualSeconds > 0 && !keyframeGrid) {
+      args.push("-ss", ffmpegSeconds(residualSeconds));
+    }
+  } else {
+    if (seekSeconds > 0) {
+      // No keyframe map (probe failed/timed out) — fall back to the previous
+      // behaviour: trust the container's own accurate seek.
+      args.push("-accurate_seek", "-ss", ffmpegSeconds(seekSeconds));
+    }
+    args.push("-i", inputUrl);
+    pushAudioInput(seekSeconds);
+  }
+  // Which timeline the output is labelled on. An audio rendition has no
+  // picture of its own to follow, so it follows the grid it was given — the
+  // same one the video it plays with is on. Deciding by `transcodeVideo`, as
+  // everything else here does, would put the audio of a re-encoded stream on
+  // the copy branch: `-copyts` and a shift by the container's start time,
+  // against a picture labelled from zero. The two would be offset by
+  // `sourceStartTime` for the whole file.
+  if (!keyframeGrid) {
+    // Branch A (re-encode): fixed GOP makes keyframes land exactly on the
+    // segment grid; relabel output onto the original timeline so segment N
+    // carries PTS = N × segmentDuration.
+    if (startSeconds > 0) {
+      args.push("-output_ts_offset", ffmpegSeconds(startSeconds));
+    }
+  } else {
+    // Branch B (video copied — only audio is transcoded): we cannot insert
+    // keyframes, so segments are cut at the source's own keyframes (the
+    // playlist boundaries were built from those keyframes). Keep the source's
+    // real timestamps (`-copyts`) so copied frames stay continuous across
+    // boundaries/seeks, and shift by -startTime so the output timeline is
+    // 0-based (a non-zero container start otherwise puts a hole at the very
+    // beginning and desyncs audio/video). Audio is transcoded on this timeline.
+    args.push("-copyts");
+    if (sourceStartTime !== 0) {
+      args.push("-output_ts_offset", ffmpegSeconds(-sourceStartTime));
+    }
+  }
+  // Where this run STOPS. Until now a run had a start and no end — neither
+  // `-to` nor `-t` appeared anywhere in the arguments this proxy builds — so
+  // every stop was a kill from outside, and two runs on one output could only
+  // be kept apart by giving each its own directory. With an end they cannot
+  // reach each other's numbers at all, and a run that finishes its stretch
+  // exits by itself instead of having to be noticed and killed.
+  //
+  // WHICH argument states it is a property of the branch, and it is measured
+  // rather than reasoned (2026-09-04, `research/encoder-layer-2026-09-04.md`
+  // §11): `-t` is a duration on the output's own clock, and `-to` a point on
+  // the input's. The copy branch runs with `-copyts`, where the input's clock
+  // IS the source's, so `-to` takes the absolute time; the re-encode branch
+  // has no `-copyts` and takes the duration. Swapping them is not a near
+  // miss — on the copy branch `-t` produced one segment where five were
+  // wanted, because the time it names is already past when the run starts.
+  const runEnd = Number.isInteger(endIndex) ? endIndex : -1;
+  const publishedGrid = publishedGridFor(timeline);
+  if (runEnd >= safeIndex && Array.isArray(publishedGrid) && publishedGrid[runEnd + 1] > 0) {
+    const endsAt = publishedGrid[runEnd + 1];
+    if (transcodeVideo) {
+      args.push("-t", ffmpegSeconds(Math.max(0.1, endsAt - publishedGrid[safeIndex])));
+    } else {
+      args.push("-to", ffmpegSeconds(endsAt));
+    }
+  }
+  if (audioOnly === true) {
+    // An audio RENDITION: one track, no picture. Published as its own
+    // `#EXT-X-MEDIA` and shared by every video variant, so the track is
+    // encoded once for the file instead of once per rung, and changing it is
+    // the player switching rendition rather than this proxy rebuilding the
+    // session. Cut on the same grid as the video it accompanies, which is
+    // what lets the two be played together.
+    // `0:` because a rendition's only input IS the file its track lives in —
+    // the picture's own file, or the one beside it that carries this dub.
+    args.push("-vn", "-map", `0:a:${audioSourceTrackIndex}?`, ...audioCodecArgs);
+  } else if (servesAudioSeparately) {
+    // The other half of the same arrangement: the picture alone, because its
+    // audio is published as a rendition and would otherwise play twice.
+    args.push("-an", "-map", "0:v:0?", ...videoCodecArgs);
+  } else {
+    args.push(
+      "-map",
+      "0:v:0?",
+      "-map",
+      // The audio track the viewer chose: input 1 when their choice is a
+      // soundtrack shipped as its own file, input 0 when it is one of the
+      // picture's own. Type-relative within that input, which is what
+      // `audioSourceTrackIndex` holds — the number the browser sent is flat
+      // across both files and was resolved when the session was made.
+      `${audioInputUrl ? 1 : 0}:a:${audioSourceTrackIndex}?`,
+      ...videoCodecArgs,
+      ...audioCodecArgs
+    );
+  }
+
+  // Where the cuts come from. On the copy path they are the source's own
+  // keyframes, and until now they were only ever GUESSED: ffmpeg got a target
+  // duration and chose its own cut points, while the playlist was built from
+  // the container index — two independent calculations with nothing tying
+  // them together but the hope that they agree. They do not. The index is a
+  // navigation table and is not obliged to list every keyframe; for a field
+  // file it held 1902 while ffmpeg found roughly twice as many and cut twice
+  // as often. Segment #876 then meant 1:26:50 to the player and about minute
+  // 58 to ffmpeg, which is why a seek landed nowhere near where it was aimed
+  // and the reported duration drifted.
+  //
+  // So stop guessing and say it: the `segment` muxer takes the list of times
+  // outright. Passing the very boundaries the playlist was built from makes
+  // the two agree by construction. Only cut points already known to be real
+  // keyframes are sent, so ffmpeg never has to move one forward.
+  //
+  // The list is built above, before the encoder args, because a re-encoded
+  // variant of a copied stream needs the same times twice over: once as the
+  // cuts, once as the keyframes to force at them.
+  if (cutTimes && cutTimes.length > 0) {
+    args.push(
+      "-f",
+      "segment",
+      // Times are measured from the START OF THIS RUN, not from the start of
+      // the file — verified: starting at 12 s and asking for a cut at 18 s
+      // produced one at 29.4 s. `segmentCutTimesFrom` rebases them.
+      "-segment_times",
+      cutTimes.join(","),
+      // A cut lands on the first keyframe at or after its time, so a boundary
+      // recorded a hair late would skip to the next one and double the
+      // segment. The tolerance absorbs that rounding.
+      "-segment_time_delta",
+      "0.05",
+      "-segment_start_number",
+      String(safeIndex),
+      // THE ENCODER SAYS WHEN A PIECE IS FINISHED, on a channel of its own.
+      //
+      // Measured on the addon host 2026-09-05: a name appears in this list when
+      // the file is CLOSED, not when it is created — at the third sample
+      // `seg-000.mp4` was on disk and absent from the list, and it appeared at
+      // the fourth, in the same moment `seg-001.mp4` came into being. So a name
+      // here is the writer's own statement that the piece is whole.
+      //
+      // Without it, a finished file is indistinguishable from one still being
+      // written, and the only proof available was the existence of the NEXT
+      // one — which never comes for the last piece of every run.
+      "-segment_list",
+      "pipe:3",
+      "-segment_list_flags",
+      "+live",
+      ...explicitTimes,
+      // UNDER A WORKING NAME, not the one it is served as. A piece under its
+      // served name is complete by construction then, whoever else is writing
+      // into the same directory — and the name arrives on the channel above the
+      // instant ffmpeg closes it, which is what turns it into the served one.
+      //
+      // The other branch needs none of this: the HLS muxer writes through a
+      // temporary name of its own (`+temp_file`), so its files appear under
+      // their final name whole.
+      //
+      // TAGGED WITH THE STRETCH IT WAS GIVEN, which names the run without any
+      // counter to keep: intervals never overlap, so two live runs of one output
+      // begin at different numbers by construction. That is what makes clearing
+      // up after a dead run a well-formed question — its unfinished pieces are
+      // the ones carrying its own tag — where before it was answered by taking
+      // the highest SERVED name inside its stretch and judging the bytes.
+      segmentFormat.makingFileNameTemplate(String(safeIndex))
+    );
+  } else {
+    args.push(
+      "-f",
+      "hls",
+      "-hls_time",
+      String(segmentDurationSec),
+      "-hls_list_size",
+      "0",
+      "-hls_flags",
+      "independent_segments+temp_file",
+      // Container selection + segment naming, from the active format module.
+      ...segmentFormat.muxerArgs(),
+      "-start_number",
+      String(safeIndex),
+      // ffmpeg writes its own playlist here; we ignore it and serve the
+      // synthetic VOD playlist instead (see getFileStream).
+      PLAYLIST_FILE_NAME
+    );
+  }
+  return { args, safeIndex, startSeconds, cutTimes };
+
+}