@torrent-tv/proxy 2.88.4 → 2.88.6

package/services/encode/quality/EncodeCost.js

@@ -1,1150 +1,1167 @@
-/**
- * @file What encoding this file costs THIS machine, and which heights follow.
- *
- * One subject: seconds of work per second of video. Everything here is that
- * question asked about something — a picture being re-encoded, a soundtrack, a
- * copy, everything running beside the rung being judged — and the last method
- * turns the answers into the list of heights the machine can hold.
- *
- * It decides what a viewer is offered, so being wrong in either direction costs
- * them: too generous and they are given a rung that runs below realtime, which
- * is a slideshow; too mean and they are refused quality the host could hold.
- *
- * Nothing here is chosen. Every figure is a measurement — the startup
- * benchmarks, what an encoder has since been seen doing on this very file, what
- * a second job costs on this host, what share of the machine is free — and where
- * a term has not been measured it contributes nothing rather than a guess.
- *
- * What it is given, and why each is passed rather than reached for: which
- * sessions belong to one file (`outputs`), the host's own readings, how many
- * encoders are running, what the file costs merely by being fetched, and whether
- * a slow run is short of the machine or short of the swarm. The learned costs it
- * holds itself: they are what an encoder taught it, and it is their only writer
- * and their only reader.
- *
- * **Learning them lives here too, and it did not until 2026-09-15.** The three
- * methods that turn a reading off a running encoder into a price were methods of
- * the session manager, writing into these maps from outside — so a fact had one
- * keeper and a different author, and the maps had to be public for it. They are
- * private now, and what leaves this class is an answer rather than a store.
- */
-
-/**
- * Which cost a speed reading from this session is a measurement OF.
- *
- * Three encodes share one reading path and price three different things: a
- * soundtrack published on its own, a picture being re-encoded (whose reading
- * prices this source's DECODING, the encode half being known from the startup
- * benchmark), and a picture being copied (which prices copying).
- *
- * Exported because the routing is where the fault was: a rendition was refused
- * a reading by one guard while the call that would have priced it sat behind
- * another, so the soundtrack was charged at nothing no matter how long it ran.
- * A pure function makes that a test rather than a field session.
- *
- * @param {{ audioOnly?: boolean, transcodeVideo?: boolean }} session
- * @returns {"audio" | "decode" | "copy"}
- */
-export function costKindForSession(session) {
-  if (session?.spec?.carries === "audio-only") {
-    return "audio";
-  }
-  return session?.spec?.transcodesVideo === true ? "decode" : "copy";
-}
-
-/** The narrowest stretch of uninterrupted encoding a speed may be read from. */
-const LEARN_WINDOW_MIN_SEC = 3;
-
-import { correctForAvailability } from "../available-share.js";
-import { medianOf, movedBeyondScatter, READINGS_KEPT } from "../learned-median.js";
-import { speedFromReadings } from "../encoder-readings.js";
-import { contentionPenalty } from "../contention.js";
-import { ENCODE_RUN_STATE, liveRunsOf, processCanBeSignalled } from "../encode-run-state.js";
-import { canSustainOutput, chooseSoftwareEncodeSettings, speedBar } from "../hwaccel.js";
-import { throughputAt } from "../throughput.js";
-import { computeOutputDimensions, TRANSCODE_FPS } from "../args.js";
-import { logger } from "../../../utils/logger.js";
-import { qualityStateOf } from "./OutputQualityState.js";
-
-export class EncodeCost {
-  /**
-   * What a soundtrack encoder has been seen to cost, by the key naming that
-   * track. Written and read here and nowhere else.
-   *
-   * @type {Map<string, { costSec: number, readings: number[], version: number }>}
-   */
-  #audioCost = new Map();
-
-  /** What copying a file's picture has been seen to cost. @type {Map<string, { costSec: number, readings: number[], version: number }>} */
-  #copyCost = new Map();
-
-  /** What decoding a file has been seen to cost. @type {Map<string, { costSec: number, readings: number[], version: number }>} */
-  #decodeCost = new Map();
-
-  /**
-   * What each height was last predicted to do, kept so a session started at
-   * that height can be compared against the prediction once it runs.
-   *
-   * @type {Map<number, number | null> | null}
-   */
-  lastPredictedByHeight = null;
-
-  notePredictionFor(session, height) {
-    qualityStateOf(session).predictedSpeedWhenOffered = this.lastPredictedByHeight?.get(height) ?? null;
-  }
-
-  // The last refusal printed. The offer is recomputed on the path that serves
-  // every playlist, init and segment, and the figures behind it move every few
-  // seconds — so the line is written when the ANSWER changes, not when it is
-  // asked again.
-  #lastOfferLine = "";
-
-  #outputs;
-  #host;
-  #runningEncoders;
-  #encodersRunningNow;
-  #torrentCostSecFor;
-  #boundBy;
-  #runsFor;
-  #stateFor;
-  #progressFor;
-
-  /**
-   * @param {{
-   *   outputs: import("../output/OutputCatalog.js").OutputCatalog,
-   *   host: () => { benchmark: object[] | null, decodeModel: object | null, contentionPenalties: object | null, copySpeedX: number | null, availability: { known: boolean, share: number } | null, encoderKind: string | null },
-   *   runningEncoders: () => number,
-   *   encodersRunningNow: () => number,
-   *   torrentCostSecFor: (session: object) => number,
-   *   boundBy: (session: object) => Promise<"cpu" | "download" | "unknown">,
-   *   runsFor: (output: object) => object[],
-   *   stateFor: (output: object) => string,
-   *   progressFor: (output: object, run: object | null) => object | null - The progress of that one run.
-   * }} deps
-   */
-  constructor({ outputs, host, runningEncoders, encodersRunningNow, torrentCostSecFor, boundBy, runsFor, stateFor, progressFor }) {
-    this.#outputs = outputs;
-    // Asked at the moment of the question, not copied: the share of the machine
-    // that is free is re-read every few seconds, and a copy taken when this was
-    // built would price every later rung against a machine that has gone.
-    this.#host = host;
-    this.#runningEncoders = runningEncoders;
-    this.#encodersRunningNow = encodersRunningNow;
-    this.#torrentCostSecFor = torrentCostSecFor;
-    // WHETHER A SLOW RUN IS SHORT OF THE MACHINE OR SHORT OF THE SWARM, which
-    // this cannot answer and must not guess at: a run starved of torrent data
-    // reports a speed that measures the swarm, and filed as a price it refuses
-    // every quality step on the download's account. Asked of whoever holds the
-    // torrent's readings; passed in, so this can still be exercised with plain
-    // values and no swarm.
-    this.#boundBy = boundBy;
-    if (typeof runsFor !== "function") {
-      throw new TypeError("EncodeCost requires runsFor");
-    }
-    if (typeof stateFor !== "function") {
-      throw new TypeError("EncodeCost requires stateFor");
-    }
-    if (typeof progressFor !== "function") {
-      throw new TypeError("EncodeCost requires progressFor");
-    }
-    this.#runsFor = runsFor;
-    this.#stateFor = stateFor;
-    this.#progressFor = progressFor;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * The key naming one soundtrack of one file.
-   *
-   * Static because it is the NAME of a thing this class stores, not a reading
-   * about the machine — and because the offer's cache key needs it too, so a
-   * caller that has a session can ask without holding an instance.
-   *
-   * Named by everything that changes what producing it costs: the file the
-   * sound is read from, the track inside that file, and whether it is copied
-   * or re-encoded. One track may be copied for one viewer and re-encoded for
-   * another, and a copy's speed priced an encode it says nothing about; and a
-   * soundtrack shipped as its own file is track 0 of THAT file, which without
-   * the file in the name shared a price with the picture's own track 0.
-   *
-   * @param {{ file: { key: string }, spec?: { audioFileIndex?: number, audioSourceTrackIndex?: number, transcodesAudio?: boolean } }} session
-   * @returns {string}
-   */
-  static audioKeyOf(session) {
-    const spec = session.spec ?? {};
-    return `${session.file.key}:a${spec.audioFileIndex ?? ""}:${spec.audioSourceTrackIndex ?? 0}:` +
-      `${spec.transcodesAudio === true ? "aac" : "copy"}`;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * What decoding this file has been measured to cost, and how many times that
-   * answer has changed.
-   *
-   * @param {string} fileKey
-   * @returns {{ costSec: number, version: number } | null}
-   */
-  decodeCostFor(fileKey) {
-    const entry = this.#decodeCost.get(fileKey);
-    return entry ? { costSec: entry.costSec, version: entry.version } : null;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * How many times the price of COPYING this file has changed.
-   *
-   * Asked by the offer's cache key: everything the answer is derived from has
-   * to be in what identifies it, or the menu keeps an answer computed before
-   * anything was measured.
-   *
-   * @param {string} fileKey
-   * @returns {number}
-   */
-  copyVersionFor(fileKey) {
-    return this.#copyCost.get(fileKey)?.version ?? 0;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * How many times the price of this session's soundtrack has changed.
-   *
-   * @param {object} session
-   * @returns {number}
-   */
-  audioVersionFor(session) {
-    return this.#audioCost.get(EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(session))?.version ?? 0;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * What a running re-encode of the picture costs, in seconds of work per
-   * second of video.
-   *
-   * Measured first: `lastAloneSpeed` is what this very rung did with the
-   * machine to itself. Failing that, the encode model that decides every rung —
-   * the same benchmark, the same decode term — applied to this rung's own pixel
-   * rate. There is no third answer: a rung whose cost cannot be derived at all
-   * contributes nothing rather than a number somebody invented.
-   *
-   * @param {HlsSession} session
-   * @returns {number}
-   */
-  #pictureCostOf(session) {
-    const state = qualityStateOf(session);
-    if (Number.isFinite(state.lastAloneSpeed) && state.lastAloneSpeed > 0) {
-      return 1 / state.lastAloneSpeed;
-    }
-    // WHAT AN ENCODE OF THIS MODE WAS SEEN DOING HERE BEFORE, alone, on
-    // material no easier than this (roadmap item 97, step 14): the slowest
-    // such reading, on this configuration only. It refines the startup
-    // prediction; with nothing seen, the prediction stands.
-    const seen = Number(this.#host().observedAloneSpeed?.(session));
-    if (Number.isFinite(seen) && seen > 0) {
-      return 1 / seen;
-    }
-    const benchmark = this.#host().benchmark;
-    const width = Number(session.output.encodeWidth) || 0;
-    const height = Number(session.output.encodeHeight) || 0;
-    const fps = Number(session.output.outputFps) || TRANSCODE_FPS;
-    if (!Array.isArray(benchmark) || benchmark.length === 0 || width <= 0 || height <= 0) {
-      return 0;
-    }
-    const { speed } = canSustainOutput({
-      benchmark,
-      decodeModel: this.#host().decodeModel,
-      source: session.file.decode ?? null,
-      outputPixelsPerSec: width * height * fps,
-      observedDecodeCostSec: null,
-      concurrentCostSec: 0,
-      frame: { width, height }
-    });
-    return Number.isFinite(speed) && speed > 0 ? 1 / speed : 0;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * How fast this machine produces ONE output, in seconds of film per second.
-   *
-   * THERE IS ALWAYS AN ANSWER, and that is the point of this method. Every
-   * decision in the encoding layer is made from arrivals — when would this
-   * encoder reach that piece — and an arrival cannot be computed without a
-   * speed. A speed that is missing is therefore not a smaller answer, it is no
-   * answer at all: the plan then cannot tell a viewer who will be served from
-   * one who will be left waiting, and the moment it happens is the cold start,
-   * which is when the question matters most.
-   *
-   * Three sources, most specific first, and every one of them measured:
-   *
-   * 1. what a run on THIS output has been seen doing. It is this machine, this
-   *    material and these settings, so nothing beats it;
-   * 2. the startup benchmark, for an output whose picture is re-encoded: the
-   *    preset readings and the decode model, applied to this output's own pixel
-   *    rate. It exists before any viewer;
-   * 3. the startup copy measurement, for an output whose picture is copied.
-   *    Copying neither decodes nor encodes, so neither of the above describes
-   *    it, and until it was measured this branch had no figure at all.
-   *
-   * @param {string} address - The output, as the encoding layer names it.
-   * @returns {number} Seconds of film per second. Zero only where the host
-   *   measured nothing at all, which is a broken startup rather than a state to
-   *   plan around.
-   */
-  speedForOutput(address) {
-    const outputs = this.#outputs.outputsOn(address);
-    let measured = 0;
-    for (const session of outputs) {
-      const speed = Number(qualityStateOf(session).lastAloneSpeed);
-      if (Number.isFinite(speed) && speed > measured) {
-        measured = speed;
-      }
-    }
-    if (measured > 0) {
-      return measured;
-    }
-    for (const session of outputs) {
-      if (session.spec.transcodesVideo) {
-        const cost = this.#pictureCostOf(session);
-        if (cost > 0) {
-          return 1 / cost;
-        }
-        continue;
-      }
-      const copying = Number(this.#host().copySpeedX);
-      if (Number.isFinite(copying) && copying > 0) {
-        return copying;
-      }
-    }
-    return 0;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * What one encoder on this output costs the machine, in seconds of work per
-   * second of film, and what its file costs simply by being fetched.
-   *
-   * The unit the quality offer already judges every step in, so that "may one
-   * more encoder run" and "may this height be offered" are the same arithmetic
-   * and cannot disagree. Three kinds, priced from what each was seen doing:
-   *
-   * 1. a soundtrack, from its own measured speed;
-   * 2. a copied picture, from its own measured speed, and otherwise from the
-   *    startup copy measurement;
-   * 3. a re-encoded picture, from what it did alone, and otherwise from the
-   *    encode model applied to its own pixel rate.
-   *
-   * NULL WHEN NOTHING HAS PRICED IT, and never a guess: a soundtrack nobody has
-   * measured yet contributes nothing, as it does to the offer. The caller says
-   * so rather than inventing a figure.
-   *
-   * @param {string} address - The output, as the encoding layer names it.
-   * @returns {{ costSec: number | null, fileKey: string, fileCostSec: number } | null}
-   *   Null when no output of that address is here.
-   */
-  loadOfOutput(address) {
-    const session = this.#outputs.outputsOn(address)[0] ?? null;
-    if (!session) {
-      return null;
-    }
-    return this.#loadOfSession(session);
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * What a not-yet-opened output would cost, priced by the same readings and
-   * rules as an output already in the catalogue. This lets the machine-wide
-   * admission answer before the format is committed, so AUTO can select a
-   * lower rung that the whole host can sustain.
-   *
-   * @param {object} spec
-   * @param {object} file
-   * @returns {{ costSec: number | null, fileKey: string, fileCostSec: number } | null}
-   */
-  loadForCandidate(spec, file) {
-    if (!spec || !file) {
-      return null;
-    }
-    const encode = spec.video?.encode ?? null;
-    const candidate = {
-      spec,
-      file,
-      output: {
-        encodeWidth: Number(encode?.width) || 0,
-        encodeHeight: Number(encode?.height) || 0,
-        outputFps: Number(encode?.fps) || TRANSCODE_FPS
-      }
-    };
-    return this.#loadOfSession(candidate);
-  }
-
-  #loadOfSession(session) {
-    const fileKey = session.file?.key ?? "";
-    const fileCost = Number(this.#torrentCostSecFor(session));
-    const fileCostSec = Number.isFinite(fileCost) && fileCost > 0 ? fileCost : 0;
-    const measured = Number(qualityStateOf(session).lastAloneSpeed);
-    if (Number.isFinite(measured) && measured > 0) {
-      return { costSec: 1 / measured, fileKey, fileCostSec };
-    }
-    if (session.spec.carries === "audio-only") {
-      const audio = this.#audioCost.get(EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(session));
-      return { costSec: audio && audio.costSec > 0 ? audio.costSec : null, fileKey, fileCostSec };
-    }
-    if (!session.spec.transcodesVideo) {
-      const copy = this.#copyCost.get(session.file.key);
-      if (copy && copy.costSec > 0) {
-        return { costSec: copy.costSec, fileKey, fileCostSec };
-      }
-      const copying = Number(this.#host().copySpeedX);
-      return { costSec: Number.isFinite(copying) && copying > 0 ? 1 / copying : null, fileKey, fileCostSec };
-    }
-    const picture = this.#pictureCostOf(session);
-    return { costSec: picture > 0 ? picture : null, fileKey, fileCostSec };
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * What everything OTHER than this session is costing right now, or null when
-   * any of it is unpriced.
-   *
-   * Used to recover a soundtrack's own share from a reading taken beside the
-   * picture — the only kind of reading a rendition ever gives, since it runs
-   * exactly as long as the picture does. Refusing to answer when something
-   * running has no price is the point: unpriced work would otherwise be
-   * attributed to the soundtrack, and an overpriced soundtrack refuses quality
-   * steps the host could actually hold.
-   *
-   * @param {HlsSession} session
-   * @returns {number | null}
-   */
-  pricedConcurrentCost(session) {
-    let cost = 0;
-    for (const member of this.#outputs.familyOf(session)) {
-      if (member === session || !processCanBeSignalled(this.#stateFor(member))) {
-        continue;
-      }
-      if (member.spec.carries === "audio-only") {
-        const audio = this.#audioCost.get(EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(member));
-        if (!audio || !(audio.costSec > 0)) {
-          return null;
-        }
-        cost += audio.costSec;
-        continue;
-      }
-      if (!member.spec.transcodesVideo) {
-        const copy = this.#copyCost.get(member.file.key);
-        if (!copy || !(copy.costSec > 0)) {
-          return null;
-        }
-        cost += copy.costSec;
-        continue;
-      }
-      const picture = this.#pictureCostOf(member);
-      if (!(picture > 0)) {
-        return null;
-      }
-      cost += picture;
-    }
-    // Encoders outside this family are counted by number only — there is no
-    // price to look up for another film's session — so a reading taken while
-    // one is running cannot be attributed either.
-    return this.#runningEncoders() > this.#outputs.familyOf(session).filter(
-      (member) => processCanBeSignalled(this.#stateFor(member))
-    ).length
-      ? null
-      : cost;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * What each height of this family is costing RIGHT NOW, for the heights an
-   * encoder is actually running at.
-   *
-   * Exists so a height can be judged against what the machine spends on
-   * everything else — a step being warmed is running while it is judged, and
-   * charged its own cost it refuses itself.
-   *
-   * @param {HlsSession} session
-   * @returns {Map<number, number>}
-   */
-  runningCostByHeight(session) {
-    /** @type {Map<number, number>} */
-    const byHeight = new Map();
-    for (const member of this.#outputs.familyOf(session)) {
-      if (member.spec.carries === "audio-only" || !member.spec.transcodesVideo) {
-        continue;
-      }
-      if (!processCanBeSignalled(this.#stateFor(member))) {
-        continue;
-      }
-      const height = this.#outputs.variantHeightOf(member);
-      if (height > 0) {
-        byHeight.set(height, (byHeight.get(height) ?? 0) + this.#pictureCostOf(member));
-      }
-    }
-    return byHeight;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Seconds of work per second of video this family is ALREADY committed to,
-   * beside any rung being considered.
-   *
-   * Every encoder of the family that is actually running: the picture, whether
-   * it is copied or re-encoded, and each audio rendition. The rung the viewer
-   * is watching and the source's own copied height are never withdrawn by the
-   * caller, so charging for the encoder that serves them cannot strand anyone —
-   * what it does is stop the NEXT rung being offered as though the machine were
-   * idle, which is what the field disproved on 2026-08-15.
-   *
-   * Anything whose cost is neither measured nor derivable contributes nothing.
-   * A guess here would refuse rungs on arithmetic nobody performed.
-   *
-   * @param {HlsSession} session
-   * @returns {number}
-   */
-  committedCostOf(session) {
-    let cost = 0;
-    for (const member of this.#outputs.familyOf(session)) {
-      // Only what still HAS an encoder. A quality step the viewer left keeps
-      // its session and its segments but not a process, and it produces nothing
-      // for anybody — charging the machine for it would refuse steps on work
-      // nobody is doing.
-      //
-      // A SUSPENDED encoder is charged, deliberately, and this is not the same
-      // question. The unit here is seconds of work per second of VIDEO, not per
-      // second of wall clock: a copy running at 8x costs 0.125 s/s whether it
-      // is producing right now or parked by the look-ahead cap, because over an
-      // hour of watching it still produces an hour of video. Suspension is how
-      // that cost is spread, not a discount on it — and pricing a parked
-      // encoder at zero would offer a step on the strength of a pause that ends
-      // the moment the viewer catches up.
-      if (!processCanBeSignalled(this.#stateFor(member))) {
-        continue;
-      }
-      if (member.spec.carries === "audio-only") {
-        // A soundtrack encoder, priced from its own measured speed. Nothing is
-        // charged for a track nobody has measured: a guess here refuses rungs
-        // on arithmetic no one performed.
-        const audio = this.#audioCost.get(EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(member));
-        cost += audio && audio.costSec > 0 ? audio.costSec : 0;
-        continue;
-      }
-      if (!member.spec.transcodesVideo) {
-        const observed = this.#copyCost.get(member.file.key);
-        cost += observed && observed.costSec > 0 ? observed.costSec : 0;
-        continue;
-      }
-      // A picture being RE-ENCODED beside the rung being judged — the warm-up
-      // that makes a quality switch seamless is two encoders by design, and
-      // that overlap is exactly where the field measured 0.504x on a rung
-      // predicted at 1.58x (2026-08-15). Priced by what it has been SEEN doing
-      // when it had the machine to itself, and otherwise by the same model that
-      // judges every rung — which is a prediction, not a guess.
-      cost += this.#pictureCostOf(member);
-    }
-    // And what the FILE costs simply by being fetched and delivered while it is
-    // watched: a viewer consumes it at its own byte rate, and every one of
-    // those bytes is downloaded, verified and pushed by this process. Priced
-    // per megabyte from readings taken while nothing was encoding, so the two
-    // measurements do not contain each other.
-    cost += this.#torrentCostSecFor(session);
-    return cost;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * The speed each rung of this family was last seen running at, when it was
-   * running alone.
-   *
-   * A rung that has been watched failing is refused on that evidence; a rung
-   * nobody has run says nothing about itself and is judged by the startup
-   * measurement like any other.
-   *
-   * @param {HlsSession} base
-   * @returns {Map<number, number>}
-   */
-  measuredRungSpeeds(base) {
-    /** @type {Map<number, number>} */
-    const speeds = new Map();
-    for (const session of this.#outputs.familyOf(base)) {
-      const speed = qualityStateOf(session).lastAloneSpeed;
-      if (!session.spec.transcodesVideo || !Number.isFinite(speed)) {
-        continue;
-      }
-      const height = this.#outputs.variantHeightOf(session);
-      if (height > 0) {
-        speeds.set(height, speed);
-      }
-    }
-    return speeds;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Drop the rungs this host cannot hold at realtime.
-   *
-   * Every rung below the source height is a full re-encode — decode the whole
-   * source, encode a smaller picture — and on a weak host that is dearer than
-   * the copy it replaces. Measured 2026-08-14: 1080p was copied at 7.8-8.9x
-   * while the offered 240p rung ran at 0.388-0.947x, its first segment took
-   * 30 s and later ones were held 22 s, so choosing a LOWER quality is what
-   * broke playback. A rung that cannot be produced faster than it is watched
-   * must not be offered at all.
-   *
-   * The session's OWN height always stays: an encoder is already producing it,
-   * and removing it would point the player at a rung nobody is encoding.
-   *
-   * @param {{ heights: number[], ownHeight: number, sourceWidth: number, sourceHeight: number, fps: number, source: { megapixelsPerSecond: number, megabitsPerSecond: number } | null, transcodeVideo: boolean }} params
-   * @returns {number[]}
-   */
-  sustainableHeights({
-    heights,
-    ownHeight,
-    // Every height a viewer has on screen, not one: two viewers of one picture
-    // can be on two rungs, and a rung is never withdrawn while somebody is
-    // watching it — their next segment would 404 on a stream that is playing.
-    playingHeights = new Set(),
-    sourceWidth,
-    sourceHeight,
-    fps,
-    source,
-    transcodeVideo,
-    observedDecodeCostSec = null,
-    concurrentCostSec = 0,
-    runningCostByHeight = null,
-    measuredHeights = null,
-    requiredSpeed = null
-  }) {
-    // What this file's own supply demands, measured by its reader — and
-    // realtime while it has not been measured. Read once here so the line that
-    // reports a refusal names the figure it refused against.
-    const bar = speedBar(requiredSpeed);
-    const benchmark = this.#host().benchmark;
-    // CALIBRATED WITH NOTHING QUALIFIED is not the same as not calibrated at
-    // all (roadmap item 97, step 14): with no mode of this encoder shown to
-    // work, nothing re-encoded is offered.
-    const nothingQualified = Array.isArray(benchmark) && benchmark.length === 0;
-    if (!Array.isArray(benchmark) || benchmark.length === 0 || sourceHeight <= 0 || sourceWidth <= 0) {
-      // Nothing to predict WITH, so nothing is predicted. What has been SEEN
-      // still counts: a rung measured running below realtime is withdrawn here
-      // too, because the evidence for it does not come from the benchmark. This
-      // return used to hand back every height including one measured at 0.4x —
-      // found by a check written when this moved out of the session manager,
-      // 2026-09-05.
-      // The rung on screen is not exempt, for the same reason it is not exempt
-      // below: keeping one measured at 0.007x stalls the viewer with no path to
-      // a faster rung, which is what the field showed on 2026-08-31.
-      //
-      // What nothing has priced is not offered either (roadmap item 97, step
-      // 14): with no mode of this encoder qualified at startup, only a height
-      // that needs no encoder — the copied source — or one an encoder is
-      // already seen holding stays.
-      return heights.filter((height) => {
-        const measured = measuredHeights?.get(height) ?? null;
-        if (measured !== null) {
-          return measured >= 1;
-        }
-        return !nothingQualified || (!transcodeVideo && (height === sourceHeight || height === ownHeight));
-      });
-    }
-    /** @type {number[]} */
-    const kept = [];
-    /** @type {string[]} */
-    const dropped = [];
-    // What each height was predicted to do on THIS machine, kept so a session
-    // started at that height can be compared against it once it runs. The
-    // manager holds the last answer, because the offer is computed on the path
-    // that serves every request while a session is created elsewhere.
-    /** @type {Map<number, number | null>} */
-    const predictedByHeight = new Map();
-    for (const height of heights) {
-      // A rung this session has actually been seen running below realtime is
-      // withdrawn on that evidence, whatever the prediction says. This is the
-      // one thing a live reading is authority on: itself. It is asked before
-      // any exemption so a rung measured failing while on screen does not stay
-      // offered because it was on screen when measured — otherwise a step
-      // would ask for the one rung this machine has been measured failing at,
-      // then fail again, then step down, for ever. A copied source height
-      // cannot reach this: `#measuredRungSpeeds` records only sessions that
-      // re-encode, so a copy has no reading to be withdrawn on, which is right
-      // — it costs no encoder.
-      const measured = measuredHeights?.get(height) ?? null;
-      if (measured !== null && measured < 1) {
-        // Even the rung on screen is withdrawn on measured failure: keeping it
-        // would 404 the next segment, but keeping a rung measured at 0.007x
-        // (field 2026-08-31, 4K HEVC on CM4) stalls the viewer for minutes with
-        // 0.04s buffered and no way to downgrade because every other rung is
-        // also dropped. Withdrawing it lets the offer become empty, which the
-        // caller turns into an error the viewer can act on (try another proxy
-        // or a lower source) instead of an endless spinner.
-        dropped.push(`${height}p=${measured.toFixed(2)}x measured`);
-        continue;
-      }
-      // The rung ON SCREEN is kept only when it has not been measured failing
-      // above. Keeping a rung measured at 0.007x would stall the viewer with
-      // no path to a faster rung, which is what the field showed.
-      if (playingHeights.has(height)) {
-        kept.push(height);
-        continue;
-      }
-      // The height an encoder is ALREADY producing, and the source's own height
-      // when the FAMILY serves it by copy — neither has to be predicted,
-      // because it is happening. A copied rung costs no encoder at all, so no
-      // measurement of this host can ever be a reason to withdraw it, and the
-      // whole point of it is that it is where a viewer on a rung the machine
-      // cannot hold goes back to. `transcodeVideo` here is the base's, not the
-      // asking session's: a 240p rung re-encodes, and reading its own flag is
-      // what withdrew a copied 1080p in the field on 2026-08-15.
-      //
-      // A source height that would have to be RE-ENCODED is a prediction like
-      // any other: on a session whose budget stepped down to 480p, the source's
-      // 1080p is neither copied nor being produced, and keeping it unpriced
-      // would offer exactly the kind of rung this refuses. Likewise, a rung
-      // this session is already producing at 0.007x (field 2026-08-31, 4K HEVC
-      // on CM4, 0.1x at 23:45 and 0.007x at 06:57) is not sustainable just
-      // because it is running — keeping it offered no path to a faster rung
-      // and left the viewer at 0.04s buffered with no downgrade.
-      if (
-        (height === ownHeight && !transcodeVideo) ||
-        (height === sourceHeight && !transcodeVideo)
-      ) {
-        kept.push(height);
-        continue;
-      }
-      const width = Math.round(((sourceWidth / sourceHeight) * height) / 2) * 2;
-      // What the machine is spending on everything EXCEPT this height. A step
-      // being warmed for a switch is already running while it is judged, so its
-      // own cost is inside the committed total — and charged against itself it
-      // is counted twice. Measured against the field figures of 2026-08-15
-      // that is 1.83x against 1.03x: below the margin, so the step the viewer
-      // had just asked for was dropped from the offer by the act of warming it,
-      // and its next segment answered 404 on a stream that was playing.
-      const concurrentBesideThis = Math.max(
-        0,
-        concurrentCostSec - (runningCostByHeight?.get(height) ?? 0)
-      );
-      const { speed } = canSustainOutput({
-        benchmark,
-        decodeModel: this.#host().decodeModel,
-        source,
-        outputPixelsPerSec: width * height * fps,
-        observedDecodeCostSec,
-        concurrentCostSec: concurrentBesideThis,
-        frame: { width, height }
-      });
-      // The benchmark behind that figure was taken on a QUIET host — one
-      // ffmpeg and nothing else. The machine a step will actually run on is
-      // also running the kernel, the container and whatever else its owner
-      // does, and on the addon host that was measured at 99 % busy with a
-      // quarter of it unattributed. Only the unattributed part is charged
-      // here: our own encoders are already in `concurrentBesideThis` and the
-      // proxy's own work is already priced per megabyte moved.
-      // Two corrections, and they are different facts about the machine. The
-      // availability share removes work nobody has been charged for; the
-      // contention penalty says what OUR OWN second job costs, because the
-      // budget adds independent prices and this host does not behave that way
-      // — the same work measured 2.6× dearer beside one encoder and 3.7×
-      // beside two (2026-08-18). `concurrentBesideThis` already counts what is
-      // committed; this multiplies by how badly running at all together goes.
-      const othersRunning = concurrentBesideThis > 0 ? this.#encodersRunningNow() : 0;
-      const { penalty } = contentionPenalty(othersRunning, this.#host().contentionPenalties);
-      const onThisMachine = correctForAvailability(
-        speed === null ? null : speed / penalty,
-        this.#host().availability
-      );
-      // Kept against the step's own session, so that when it runs the field
-      // says what the prediction was worth. Without this the only comparison
-      // available is between two figures written minutes apart in different
-      // lines of the log.
-      predictedByHeight.set(height, onThisMachine);
-      if (onThisMachine !== null && onThisMachine >= bar) {
-        kept.push(height);
-        continue;
-      }
-      dropped.push(`${height}p=${onThisMachine === null ? "n/a" : `${onThisMachine.toFixed(2)}x`}`);
-    }
-    // Written when the ANSWER changes, not when the answer is recomputed. This
-    // is asked on the path that serves every playlist, init and segment, and
-    // the figures behind it move every five seconds — so an unconditional line
-    // here is roughly seven hundred identical lines an hour into a forwarder
-    // that holds five hundred, which buries whatever is worth reading.
-    if (dropped.length > 0) {
-      const line =
-        `transcode: not offering ${dropped.join(" ")} — below ${bar.toFixed(2)}x ` +
-        (Number.isFinite(requiredSpeed) && requiredSpeed > 1
-          ? "(the speed this file's own interruptions demand) "
-          : "(realtime, this file's supply not measured yet) ") +
-        // Said with the figures, because a step refused on a busy machine and
-        // one refused on an idle machine are different facts about the host.
-        (this.#host().availability?.known
-          ? `on a machine with ${Math.round(this.#host().availability.share * 100)}% to spare `
-          : "") +
-        `(offering ${kept.map((height) => `${height}p`).join(" ")})`;
-      if (line !== this.#lastOfferLine) {
-        this.#lastOfferLine = line;
-        logger.info(line);
-      }
-      this.lastPredictedByHeight = predictedByHeight;
-    } else {
-      this.lastPredictedByHeight = predictedByHeight;
-      this.#lastOfferLine = "";
-    }
-    return kept;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Take one reading off an encoder that is running, and file it as the price of
-   * whatever that encoder is doing.
-   *
-   * Separate from the realtime budget, which asks a different question — should
-   * the quality step down — and answers it only where it CAN step down. Most of
-   * what is worth measuring is excluded by that: a rung at the foot of its
-   * ladder, a step whose ladder is one rung long, a picture that is copied.
-   * Measuring has no such preconditions.
-   *
-   * What it does refuse: a suspended encoder (ffmpeg reports a CUMULATIVE
-   * speed, so a look-ahead pause is divided into it and the figure decays while
-   * nothing is being encoded), a reading that has not moved since the last one,
-   * and a run short of input, where what is short is the swarm rather than the
-   * machine.
-   *
-   * @param {HlsSession} session
-   * @returns {Promise<void>}
-   */
-  async learnFrom(session) {
-    if (!session) {
-      return;
-    }
-    if (
-      this.#stateFor(session) === ENCODE_RUN_STATE.ENDED_FAILED ||
-      liveRunsOf(this.#runsFor(session)).length === 0 ||
-      this.#stateFor(session) === ENCODE_RUN_STATE.SUSPENDED
-    ) {
-      qualityStateOf(session).learnSample = null;
-      return;
-    }
-    // Measured as a DELTA between two readings of a run that was going for the
-    // whole interval, not from ffmpeg's cumulative `speed=`. The cumulative
-    // figure counts every second the encoder spent SIGSTOPped by the look-ahead
-    // cap in its denominator, and a copy spends most of its life there — it
-    // reaches the cap in about fifteen seconds and then waits a minute. Read
-    // that way a copy running at 8x reports 1.6x and falling, which would be
-    // filed as the price of copying and refuse rungs on arithmetic that
-    // measured a pause.
-    const run = liveRunsOf(this.#runsFor(session))[0] ?? null;
-    // The position is THAT run's own, read from the same process the sample is
-    // stamped with. It used to be the output's progress, which is whichever
-    // live run covers the viewer and updated last — so with two encoders on
-    // one output a pair of readings could be two processes' positions filed
-    // under one run, and the difference between them read as a speed.
-    const processedSeconds = Number(this.#progressFor(session, run)?.processedSeconds);
-    const takenAt = Date.now();
-    const state = qualityStateOf(session);
-    const previous = state.learnSample ?? null;
-    // Stamped with the run it was taken from. A restart clears this sample, but
-    // it then spends up to a second and a half making its directory and burying
-    // its predecessor, and through that window the session still carries the
-    // OLD process and the OLD position — so a sample taken there, paired with
-    // the new run's first position, reads a twenty-minute seek as twenty
-    // minutes of video produced in five seconds. Filed as this file's price it
-    // admits every quality step there is. Comparing the serials is what the
-    // twenty-second wait used to stand in for, and unlike the wait it costs no
-    // readings on a short run.
-    state.learnSample = { takenAt, processedSeconds, run };
-    if (previous === null || !Number.isFinite(processedSeconds) || !Number.isFinite(previous.processedSeconds)) {
-      return;
-    }
-    if (previous.run !== run) {
-      return; // the pair straddles a restart and measures the seek, not the host
-    }
-    const speed = speedFromReadings(previous, { takenAt, processedSeconds }, LEARN_WINDOW_MIN_SEC);
-    if (speed === null) {
-      return;
-    }
-    // Recorded HERE, before any of the conditions below can discard the
-    // reading, because the budget and the learning ask different questions of
-    // it. Learning refuses a reading taken beside another encoder, since it
-    // would file that encoder's work as this file's price; the budget wants
-    // exactly what this run is doing right now, whatever else the machine is
-    // doing beside it. Sharing the figure and not the conditions is what lets
-    // the budget stop reading ffmpeg's cumulative average.
-    state.recentSpeed = { speed, at: takenAt, run };
-    const kind = costKindForSession(session);
-    // A reading taken beside another encoder contains that other encoder's
-    // work, and the budget ADDS the same work again when it predicts — so filed
-    // as it stands the price is counted twice and grows with every reading.
-    // Measured 2026-08-15 in the field: copying, whose truth is 7.9x, was
-    // learned as 2.03x, and decoding, whose clips say 2.6x, as 0.87x. Every
-    // step was then refused, the offer collapsed to the one copied height, and
-    // the viewer lost the quality menu altogether.
-    //
-    // For a picture the answer is to wait for a moment alone, which comes often
-    // enough. For a SOUNDTRACK it never comes: a rendition runs for exactly as
-    // long as the picture it accompanies, so "alone" is a state it is never in,
-    // and the price stayed unmeasured for ever — the hole this was meant to
-    // close. Its share is instead recovered by subtracting what the machine is
-    // already known to be spending, which is the same arithmetic that recovers
-    // this source's decoding from a running encoder, and it is only done when
-    // every other running encode HAS a price. Otherwise the unpriced work would
-    // land in the soundtrack's account and refuse steps on it.
-    let othersCostSec = 0;
-    if (this.#runningEncoders() > 1) {
-      if (kind !== "audio") {
-        return;
-      }
-      const others = this.pricedConcurrentCost(session);
-      if (others === null) {
-        return; // something running has no price; nothing can be attributed
-      }
-      othersCostSec = others;
-    }
-    if (speed < 1 && await this.#boundBy(session) === "download") {
-      return; // the torrent is what is short; this says nothing about the host
-    }
-    // What this encode did with the machine to itself — the one figure a live
-    // reading is authority on, and what withdraws a quality step that has been
-    // seen failing without letting it speak for steps nobody has run.
-    //
-    // Recorded only AFTER the download-bound check, and that order is the whole
-    // point: a run starved of torrent data reports a speed that measures the
-    // swarm. Stored first, as it was, that figure became this encode's price —
-    // 0.3x reads as 3.33 s of work per second of video, more than the machine
-    // has — and every other quality step was refused on the download's account.
-    state.lastAloneSpeed = speed;
-    // What the offer predicted for this very step, against what it then did
-    // with the machine to itself. The prediction is corrected for the share of
-    // the machine that was free at the time, so this ratio is the error that
-    // remains AFTER that correction — which is the only way to tell whether a
-    // stage of roadmap item 3 moved anything. Written when it changes by more
-    // than a tenth, so a steady step says it once rather than every five
-    // seconds.
-    if (Number.isFinite(state.predictedSpeedWhenOffered) && state.predictedSpeedWhenOffered > 0) {
-      const ratio = speed / state.predictedSpeedWhenOffered;
-      const lastSaid = state.lastPredictionRatio;
-      if (!Number.isFinite(lastSaid) || Math.abs(ratio - lastSaid) > 0.1) {
-        state.lastPredictionRatio = ratio;
-        logger.info(
-          `prediction ${session.id.slice(0, 8)} ${session.output.encodeHeight || "source"}p: ` +
-          `predicted ${state.predictedSpeedWhenOffered.toFixed(2)}x, measured ${speed.toFixed(2)}x ` +
-          `(ratio ${ratio.toFixed(2)}; 1.00 would mean the arithmetic describes this machine)`
-        );
-      }
-    }
-    if (kind === "audio") {
-      // What is left after the work that was already accounted for. `null` when
-      // the subtraction leaves nothing positive, which means the reading says
-      // less than the noise in it.
-      const ownCostSec = 1 / speed - othersCostSec;
-      if (!(ownCostSec > 0) || !Number.isFinite(ownCostSec)) {
-        return;
-      }
-      await this.#learnAudioCost(session, 1 / ownCostSec);
-      return;
-    }
-    if (kind === "decode") {
-      this.#learnDecodeCost(session, speed);
-      return;
-    }
-    await this.#learnCopyCost(session, speed);
-  }
-
-  async #learnCopyCost(session, speed) {
-    if (this.#stateFor(session) === ENCODE_RUN_STATE.SUSPENDED) {
-      return; // a suspended run reports a cumulative figure that is decaying
-    }
-    // Always asked, not only below realtime. A re-encode near 1x may be the
-    // host; a COPY near 1x is a copy waiting for the torrent, because copying
-    // is what a machine does at eight times realtime — and a starved reading
-    // filed as the price of copying would refuse rungs on the download's
-    // account.
-    if (await this.#boundBy(session) === "download") {
-      return;
-    }
-    const costSec = 1 / speed;
-    if (!(costSec > 0) || !Number.isFinite(costSec)) {
-      return;
-    }
-    const key = session.file.key;
-    const known = this.#copyCost.get(key);
-    const readings = [...(known?.readings ?? []), costSec].slice(-READINGS_KEPT);
-    const median = medianOf(readings);
-    if (!movedBeyondScatter(known?.costSec ?? null, median, readings)) {
-      this.#copyCost.set(key, { ...known, readings });
-      return;
-    }
-    this.#copyCost.set(key, { costSec: median, readings, version: (known?.version ?? 0) + 1 });
-    logger.info(
-      `transcode: ${session.file.name} copies at ${(1 / median).toFixed(2)}x on this host ` +
-        `(median of ${readings.length}, latest ${speed.toFixed(2)}x)`
-    );
-  }
-
-  async #learnAudioCost(session, speed) {
-    if (this.#stateFor(session) === ENCODE_RUN_STATE.SUSPENDED) {
-      return;
-    }
-    if (await this.#boundBy(session) === "download") {
-      return;
-    }
-    const costSec = 1 / speed;
-    if (!(costSec > 0) || !Number.isFinite(costSec)) {
-      return;
-    }
-    const key = EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(session);
-    const known = this.#audioCost.get(key);
-    const readings = [...(known?.readings ?? []), costSec].slice(-READINGS_KEPT);
-    const median = medianOf(readings);
-    if (!movedBeyondScatter(known?.costSec ?? null, median, readings)) {
-      this.#audioCost.set(key, { ...known, readings });
-      return;
-    }
-    this.#audioCost.set(key, { costSec: median, readings, version: (known?.version ?? 0) + 1 });
-    logger.info(
-      `transcode: ${session.file.name} encodes audio track ${session.spec.audioSourceTrackIndex} at ` +
-        `${(1 / median).toFixed(2)}x on this host (median of ${readings.length}, latest ${speed.toFixed(2)}x)`
-    );
-  }
-
-  #learnDecodeCost(session, speed) {
-    if (!(speed > 0)) {
-      return;
-    }
-    if (!session.spec.transcodesVideo) {
-      // Nothing to learn about decoding here, and nothing else either: the
-      // caller routes a copy to #learnCopyCost and a rendition to
-      // #learnAudioCost before this is ever reached. Routing them from here as
-      // well put both calls behind a guard the caller had already made
-      // (`transcodeVideo === true`), so neither could run.
-      return;
-    }
-    if (this.#host().encoderKind !== "software") {
-      return; // the benchmark that prices the encode half is libx264 only
-    }
-    const benchmark = this.#host().benchmark;
-    if (!Array.isArray(benchmark) || benchmark.length === 0) {
-      return;
-    }
-    const entry = benchmark.find((item) => item.preset === session.output.softwarePreset);
-    const height = Number(session.output.encodeHeight) || 0;
-    const width = Number(session.output.encodeWidth) || 0;
-    const fps = Number(session.output.outputFps) || TRANSCODE_FPS;
-    if (!entry || height <= 0 || width <= 0) {
-      return;
-    }
-    // The preset's throughput AT THIS SIZE, as the startup calibration read it.
-    const pixelsPerSec = throughputAt(entry, { width, height });
-    if (!(pixelsPerSec > 0)) {
-      return;
-    }
-    const encodeCostSec = (width * height * fps) / pixelsPerSec;
-    const decodeCostSec = 1 / speed - encodeCostSec;
-    if (!(decodeCostSec > 0)) {
-      // The encode half already accounts for everything measured. Nothing is
-      // left to attribute to decoding, and a zero or negative cost would say
-      // decoding is free, which is a claim this reading cannot support.
-      return;
-    }
-    const key = session.file.key;
-    const known = this.#decodeCost.get(key);
-    const readings = [...(known?.readings ?? []), decodeCostSec].slice(-READINGS_KEPT);
-    const costSec = medianOf(readings);
-    if (!movedBeyondScatter(known?.costSec ?? null, costSec, readings)) {
-      // The same answer as before, by the readings' own scatter. Storing it
-      // would bump the version and make every session recompute its offer,
-      // which is asked for on the path that serves every playlist, init and
-      // segment.
-      this.#decodeCost.set(key, { ...known, readings });
-      return;
-    }
-    this.#decodeCost.set(key, { costSec, readings, version: (known?.version ?? 0) + 1 });
-    logger.info(
-      `transcode: ${session.file.name} decodes at ${(1 / costSec).toFixed(2)}x on this host ` +
-        `(median of ${readings.length}, latest ${(1 / decodeCostSec).toFixed(2)}x from ${height}p ` +
-        `at ${speed.toFixed(2)}x, preset ${session.output.softwarePreset})`
-    );
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * The speed this run is making RIGHT NOW, or null when nothing recent enough
-   * says.
-   *
-   * Read as the slope between two progress reports, never as ffmpeg's own
-   * `speed=`. That figure is cumulative — output time over wall time since the
-   * run began — so a run starved of torrent data early carries the average of
-   * that starvation for the rest of its life. Measured 2026-08-21: a run whose
-   * progress lines showed 1.30x at that moment (13 s of video in 10.02 s of
-   * clock) still reported a cumulative 0.39x from four minutes on a ~100 KB/s
-   * swarm, and the budget stepped the picture down on it. The same mistake was
-   * found and solved once already — the startup decode benchmark reads the
-   * slope between two progress reports for exactly this reason.
-   *
-   * @param {HlsSession} session
-   * @param {number} now
-   * @returns {number | null}
-   */
-  recentSpeedOf(session, now, withinMs) {
-    return this.recentSpeedReadingOf(session, now, withinMs)?.speed ?? null;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * The newest measured speed from the output's current or most recent run.
-   * Its measurement time lets the playback model project the observed trend
-   * without imposing a separate freshness window.
-   *
-   * @param {HlsSession} session
-   * @returns {{ speed: number, at: number } | null}
-   */
-  latestSpeedReadingOf(session) {
-    const reading = qualityStateOf(session).recentSpeed;
-    if (!reading || !this.#runsFor(session).includes(reading.run)) {
-      return null;
-    }
-    return { speed: reading.speed, at: reading.at };
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * The current output's measured production speed, with the time it was
-   * measured. The caller can use the same observation in a trend without
-   * treating repeated progress polls as new samples.
-   *
-   * @param {HlsSession} session
-   * @param {number} now
-   * @param {number} withinMs
-   * @returns {{ speed: number, at: number } | null}
-   */
-  recentSpeedReadingOf(session, now, withinMs) {
-    const reading = this.latestSpeedReadingOf(session);
-    // Stale by whatever the asker calls stale — two of its own ticks, for the
-    // budget loop, which takes a fresh reading every pass anyway. A reading
-    // older than that is not about the machine as it stands.
-    if (!reading || now - reading.at > withinMs) {
-      return null;
-    }
-    return reading;
-  }
-
-  /**
-   * Realtime budget (software encoder only): choose the output resolution AND
-   * libx264 preset this host can encode faster than realtime, from the startup
-   * benchmark. The ceiling is the client-requested box capped to the source
-   * (never upscaled); the budget picks the highest resolution rung at or below
-   * that ceiling that clears realtime × margin, then the best preset at that
-   * resolution. On a weak host this downscales below the client target instead
-   * of dropping into sub-realtime playback. Returns null when not applicable
-   * (no video transcode, hardware encoder, or missing benchmark/source size) —
-   * the encode then keeps the ceiling resolution and the default preset.
-   *
-   * @param {{ transcodeVideo: boolean, targetWidth: number, targetHeight: number, sourceWidth: number | null, sourceHeight: number | null, outputFps: number, source?: { megapixelsPerSecond: number, megabitsPerSecond: number } | null }} params
-   * @returns {{ width: number, height: number, preset: string } | null}
-   */
-  chooseEncodeBudget({
-    transcodeVideo,
-    targetWidth,
-    targetHeight,
-    sourceWidth,
-    sourceHeight,
-    outputFps,
-    source = null,
-    requiredSpeed = null
-  }) {
-    if (!transcodeVideo || this.#host().encoderKind !== "software" || !this.#host().benchmark) {
-      return null;
-    }
-    const ceiling = computeOutputDimensions(targetWidth, targetHeight, sourceWidth, sourceHeight);
-    if (!ceiling) {
-      return null;
-    }
-    return chooseSoftwareEncodeSettings(
-      this.#host().benchmark,
-      { width: ceiling.w, height: ceiling.h },
-      outputFps,
-      { decodeModel: this.#host().decodeModel, source, requiredSpeed }
-    );
-  }
-}
+/**
+ * @file What encoding this file costs THIS machine, and which heights follow.
+ *
+ * One subject: seconds of work per second of video. Everything here is that
+ * question asked about something — a picture being re-encoded, a soundtrack, a
+ * copy, everything running beside the rung being judged — and the last method
+ * turns the answers into the list of heights the machine can hold.
+ *
+ * It decides what a viewer is offered, so being wrong in either direction costs
+ * them: too generous and they are given a rung that runs below realtime, which
+ * is a slideshow; too mean and they are refused quality the host could hold.
+ *
+ * Nothing here is chosen. Every figure is a measurement — the startup
+ * benchmarks, what an encoder has since been seen doing on this very file, what
+ * a second job costs on this host, what share of the machine is free — and where
+ * a term has not been measured it contributes nothing rather than a guess.
+ *
+ * What it is given, and why each is passed rather than reached for: which
+ * sessions belong to one file (`outputs`), the host's own readings, how many
+ * encoders are running, what the file costs merely by being fetched, and whether
+ * a slow run is short of the machine or short of the swarm. The learned costs it
+ * holds itself: they are what an encoder taught it, and it is their only writer
+ * and their only reader.
+ *
+ * **Learning them lives here too, and it did not until 2026-09-15.** The three
+ * methods that turn a reading off a running encoder into a price were methods of
+ * the session manager, writing into these maps from outside — so a fact had one
+ * keeper and a different author, and the maps had to be public for it. They are
+ * private now, and what leaves this class is an answer rather than a store.
+ */
+
+/**
+ * Which cost a speed reading from this session is a measurement OF.
+ *
+ * Three encodes share one reading path and price three different things: a
+ * soundtrack published on its own, a picture being re-encoded (whose reading
+ * prices this source's DECODING, the encode half being known from the startup
+ * benchmark), and a picture being copied (which prices copying).
+ *
+ * Exported because the routing is where the fault was: a rendition was refused
+ * a reading by one guard while the call that would have priced it sat behind
+ * another, so the soundtrack was charged at nothing no matter how long it ran.
+ * A pure function makes that a test rather than a field session.
+ *
+ * @param {{ audioOnly?: boolean, transcodeVideo?: boolean }} session
+ * @returns {"audio" | "decode" | "copy"}
+ */
+export function costKindForSession(session) {
+  if (session?.spec?.carries === "audio-only") {
+    return "audio";
+  }
+  return session?.spec?.transcodesVideo === true ? "decode" : "copy";
+}
+
+/** The narrowest stretch of uninterrupted encoding a speed may be read from. */
+const LEARN_WINDOW_MIN_SEC = 3;
+
+import { correctForAvailability } from "../available-share.js";
+import { medianOf, movedBeyondScatter, READINGS_KEPT } from "../learned-median.js";
+import { speedFromReadings } from "../encoder-readings.js";
+import { contentionPenalty } from "../contention.js";
+import { ENCODE_RUN_STATE, liveRunsOf, processCanBeSignalled } from "../encode-run-state.js";
+import { canSustainOutput, chooseSoftwareEncodeSettings, speedBar } from "../hwaccel.js";
+import { throughputAt } from "../throughput.js";
+import { computeOutputDimensions, TRANSCODE_FPS } from "../args.js";
+import { logger } from "../../../utils/logger.js";
+import { qualityStateOf } from "./OutputQualityState.js";
+import { audioReadingFor } from "../audio-work-rate.js";
+
+export class EncodeCost {
+  /**
+   * What a soundtrack encoder has been seen to cost, by the key naming that
+   * track. Written and read here and nowhere else.
+   *
+   * @type {Map<string, { costSec: number, readings: number[], version: number }>}
+   */
+  #audioCost = new Map();
+
+  /** What copying a file's picture has been seen to cost. @type {Map<string, { costSec: number, readings: number[], version: number }>} */
+  #copyCost = new Map();
+
+  /** What decoding a file has been seen to cost. @type {Map<string, { costSec: number, readings: number[], version: number }>} */
+  #decodeCost = new Map();
+
+  /**
+   * What each height was last predicted to do, kept so a session started at
+   * that height can be compared against the prediction once it runs.
+   *
+   * @type {Map<number, number | null> | null}
+   */
+  lastPredictedByHeight = null;
+
+  notePredictionFor(session, height) {
+    qualityStateOf(session).predictedSpeedWhenOffered = this.lastPredictedByHeight?.get(height) ?? null;
+  }
+
+  // The last refusal printed. The offer is recomputed on the path that serves
+  // every playlist, init and segment, and the figures behind it move every few
+  // seconds — so the line is written when the ANSWER changes, not when it is
+  // asked again.
+  #lastOfferLine = "";
+
+  #outputs;
+  #host;
+  #runningEncoders;
+  #encodersRunningNow;
+  #torrentCostSecFor;
+  #boundBy;
+  #runsFor;
+  #stateFor;
+  #progressFor;
+
+  /**
+   * @param {{
+   *   outputs: import("../output/OutputCatalog.js").OutputCatalog,
+   *   host: () => { benchmark: object[] | null, decodeModel: object | null, contentionPenalties: object | null, copySpeedX: number | null, availability: { known: boolean, share: number } | null, encoderKind: string | null },
+   *   runningEncoders: () => number,
+   *   encodersRunningNow: () => number,
+   *   torrentCostSecFor: (session: object) => number,
+   *   boundBy: (session: object) => Promise<"cpu" | "download" | "unknown">,
+   *   runsFor: (output: object) => object[],
+   *   stateFor: (output: object) => string,
+   *   progressFor: (output: object, run: object | null) => object | null - The progress of that one run.
+   * }} deps
+   */
+  constructor({ outputs, host, runningEncoders, encodersRunningNow, torrentCostSecFor, boundBy, runsFor, stateFor, progressFor }) {
+    this.#outputs = outputs;
+    // Asked at the moment of the question, not copied: the share of the machine
+    // that is free is re-read every few seconds, and a copy taken when this was
+    // built would price every later rung against a machine that has gone.
+    this.#host = host;
+    this.#runningEncoders = runningEncoders;
+    this.#encodersRunningNow = encodersRunningNow;
+    this.#torrentCostSecFor = torrentCostSecFor;
+    // WHETHER A SLOW RUN IS SHORT OF THE MACHINE OR SHORT OF THE SWARM, which
+    // this cannot answer and must not guess at: a run starved of torrent data
+    // reports a speed that measures the swarm, and filed as a price it refuses
+    // every quality step on the download's account. Asked of whoever holds the
+    // torrent's readings; passed in, so this can still be exercised with plain
+    // values and no swarm.
+    this.#boundBy = boundBy;
+    if (typeof runsFor !== "function") {
+      throw new TypeError("EncodeCost requires runsFor");
+    }
+    if (typeof stateFor !== "function") {
+      throw new TypeError("EncodeCost requires stateFor");
+    }
+    if (typeof progressFor !== "function") {
+      throw new TypeError("EncodeCost requires progressFor");
+    }
+    this.#runsFor = runsFor;
+    this.#stateFor = stateFor;
+    this.#progressFor = progressFor;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The key naming one soundtrack of one file.
+   *
+   * Static because it is the NAME of a thing this class stores, not a reading
+   * about the machine — and because the offer's cache key needs it too, so a
+   * caller that has a session can ask without holding an instance.
+   *
+   * Named by everything that changes what producing it costs: the file the
+   * sound is read from, the track inside that file, and whether it is copied
+   * or re-encoded. One track may be copied for one viewer and re-encoded for
+   * another, and a copy's speed priced an encode it says nothing about; and a
+   * soundtrack shipped as its own file is track 0 of THAT file, which without
+   * the file in the name shared a price with the picture's own track 0.
+   *
+   * @param {{ file: { key: string }, spec?: { audioFileIndex?: number, audioSourceTrackIndex?: number, transcodesAudio?: boolean } }} session
+   * @returns {string}
+   */
+  static audioKeyOf(session) {
+    const spec = session.spec ?? {};
+    return `${session.file.key}:a${spec.audioFileIndex ?? ""}:${spec.audioSourceTrackIndex ?? 0}:` +
+      `${spec.transcodesAudio === true ? "aac" : "copy"}`;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * What decoding this file has been measured to cost, and how many times that
+   * answer has changed.
+   *
+   * @param {string} fileKey
+   * @returns {{ costSec: number, version: number } | null}
+   */
+  decodeCostFor(fileKey) {
+    const entry = this.#decodeCost.get(fileKey);
+    return entry ? { costSec: entry.costSec, version: entry.version } : null;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * How many times the price of COPYING this file has changed.
+   *
+   * Asked by the offer's cache key: everything the answer is derived from has
+   * to be in what identifies it, or the menu keeps an answer computed before
+   * anything was measured.
+   *
+   * @param {string} fileKey
+   * @returns {number}
+   */
+  copyVersionFor(fileKey) {
+    return this.#copyCost.get(fileKey)?.version ?? 0;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * How many times the price of this session's soundtrack has changed.
+   *
+   * @param {object} session
+   * @returns {number}
+   */
+  audioVersionFor(session) {
+    return this.#audioCost.get(EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(session))?.version ?? 0;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * What a running re-encode of the picture costs, in seconds of work per
+   * second of video.
+   *
+   * Measured first: `lastAloneSpeed` is what this very rung did with the
+   * machine to itself. Failing that, the encode model that decides every rung —
+   * the same benchmark, the same decode term — applied to this rung's own pixel
+   * rate. There is no third answer: a rung whose cost cannot be derived at all
+   * contributes nothing rather than a number somebody invented.
+   *
+   * @param {HlsSession} session
+   * @returns {number}
+   */
+  #pictureCostOf(session) {
+    const state = qualityStateOf(session);
+    if (Number.isFinite(state.lastAloneSpeed) && state.lastAloneSpeed > 0) {
+      return 1 / state.lastAloneSpeed;
+    }
+    // WHAT AN ENCODE OF THIS MODE WAS SEEN DOING HERE BEFORE, alone, on
+    // material no easier than this (roadmap item 97, step 14): the slowest
+    // such reading, on this configuration only. It refines the startup
+    // prediction; with nothing seen, the prediction stands.
+    const seen = Number(this.#host().observedAloneSpeed?.(session));
+    if (Number.isFinite(seen) && seen > 0) {
+      return 1 / seen;
+    }
+    const benchmark = this.#host().benchmark;
+    const width = Number(session.output.encodeWidth) || 0;
+    const height = Number(session.output.encodeHeight) || 0;
+    const fps = Number(session.output.outputFps) || TRANSCODE_FPS;
+    if (!Array.isArray(benchmark) || benchmark.length === 0 || width <= 0 || height <= 0) {
+      return 0;
+    }
+    const { speed } = canSustainOutput({
+      benchmark,
+      decodeModel: this.#host().decodeModel,
+      source: session.file.decode ?? null,
+      outputPixelsPerSec: width * height * fps,
+      observedDecodeCostSec: null,
+      concurrentCostSec: 0,
+      frame: { width, height }
+    });
+    return Number.isFinite(speed) && speed > 0 ? 1 / speed : 0;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * How fast this machine produces ONE output, in seconds of film per second.
+   *
+   * THERE IS ALWAYS AN ANSWER, and that is the point of this method. Every
+   * decision in the encoding layer is made from arrivals — when would this
+   * encoder reach that piece — and an arrival cannot be computed without a
+   * speed. A speed that is missing is therefore not a smaller answer, it is no
+   * answer at all: the plan then cannot tell a viewer who will be served from
+   * one who will be left waiting, and the moment it happens is the cold start,
+   * which is when the question matters most.
+   *
+   * Three sources, most specific first, and every one of them measured:
+   *
+   * 1. what a run on THIS output has been seen doing. It is this machine, this
+   *    material and these settings, so nothing beats it;
+   * 2. the startup benchmark, for an output whose picture is re-encoded: the
+   *    preset readings and the decode model, applied to this output's own pixel
+   *    rate. It exists before any viewer;
+   * 3. the startup copy measurement, for an output whose picture is copied.
+   *    Copying neither decodes nor encodes, so neither of the above describes
+   *    it, and until it was measured this branch had no figure at all.
+   *
+   * @param {string} address - The output, as the encoding layer names it.
+   * @returns {number} Seconds of film per second. Zero only where the host
+   *   measured nothing at all, which is a broken startup rather than a state to
+   *   plan around.
+   */
+  speedForOutput(address) {
+    const outputs = this.#outputs.outputsOn(address);
+    let measured = 0;
+    for (const session of outputs) {
+      const speed = Number(qualityStateOf(session).lastAloneSpeed);
+      if (Number.isFinite(speed) && speed > measured) {
+        measured = speed;
+      }
+    }
+    if (measured > 0) {
+      return measured;
+    }
+    for (const session of outputs) {
+      if (session.spec.transcodesVideo) {
+        const cost = this.#pictureCostOf(session);
+        if (cost > 0) {
+          return 1 / cost;
+        }
+        continue;
+      }
+      const copying = Number(this.#host().copySpeedX);
+      if (Number.isFinite(copying) && copying > 0) {
+        return copying;
+      }
+    }
+    return 0;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * What one encoder on this output costs the machine, in seconds of work per
+   * second of film, and what its file costs simply by being fetched.
+   *
+   * The unit the quality offer already judges every step in, so that "may one
+   * more encoder run" and "may this height be offered" are the same arithmetic
+   * and cannot disagree. Three kinds, priced from what each was seen doing:
+   *
+   * 1. a soundtrack, from its own measured speed;
+   * 2. a copied picture, from its own measured speed, and otherwise from the
+   *    startup copy measurement;
+   * 3. a re-encoded picture, from what it did alone, and otherwise from the
+   *    encode model applied to its own pixel rate.
+   *
+   * NULL WHEN NOTHING HAS PRICED IT, and never a guess: a soundtrack nobody has
+   * measured yet contributes nothing, as it does to the offer. The caller says
+   * so rather than inventing a figure.
+   *
+   * @param {string} address - The output, as the encoding layer names it.
+   * @returns {{ costSec: number | null, fileKey: string, fileCostSec: number } | null}
+   *   Null when no output of that address is here.
+   */
+  loadOfOutput(address) {
+    const session = this.#outputs.outputsOn(address)[0] ?? null;
+    if (!session) {
+      return null;
+    }
+    return this.#loadOfSession(session);
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * What a not-yet-opened output would cost, priced by the same readings and
+   * rules as an output already in the catalogue. This lets the machine-wide
+   * admission answer before the format is committed, so AUTO can select a
+   * lower rung that the whole host can sustain.
+   *
+   * @param {object} spec
+   * @param {object} file
+   * @returns {{ costSec: number | null, fileKey: string, fileCostSec: number } | null}
+   */
+  loadForCandidate(spec, file) {
+    if (!spec || !file) {
+      return null;
+    }
+    const encode = spec.video?.encode ?? null;
+    const candidate = {
+      spec,
+      file,
+      output: {
+        encodeWidth: Number(encode?.width) || 0,
+        encodeHeight: Number(encode?.height) || 0,
+        outputFps: Number(encode?.fps) || TRANSCODE_FPS
+      }
+    };
+    return this.#loadOfSession(candidate);
+  }
+
+  #loadOfSession(session) {
+    const fileKey = session.file?.key ?? "";
+    const fileCost = Number(this.#torrentCostSecFor(session));
+    const fileCostSec = Number.isFinite(fileCost) && fileCost > 0 ? fileCost : 0;
+    const measured = Number(qualityStateOf(session).lastAloneSpeed);
+    if (Number.isFinite(measured) && measured > 0) {
+      return { costSec: 1 / measured, fileKey, fileCostSec };
+    }
+    if (session.spec.carries === "audio-only") {
+      const audio = this.#audioCost.get(EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(session));
+      const initial = audioReadingFor(this.#host().audioCalibration, {
+        ...this.#host().audioDescriptionOf?.(session),
+        codec: this.#host().audioDescriptionOf?.(session)?.codec ?? session.file.media?.audioCodec,
+        transcode: session.spec.audio?.transcode === true
+      });
+      const initialSpeed = initial?.speed;
+      return { costSec: audio && audio.costSec > 0 ? audio.costSec :
+        initialSpeed > 0 ? 1 / initialSpeed : null, fileKey, fileCostSec };
+    }
+    if (!session.spec.transcodesVideo) {
+      const copy = this.#copyCost.get(session.file.key);
+      if (copy && copy.costSec > 0) {
+        return { costSec: copy.costSec, fileKey, fileCostSec };
+      }
+      const copying = Number(this.#host().copySpeedX);
+      return { costSec: Number.isFinite(copying) && copying > 0 ? 1 / copying : null, fileKey, fileCostSec };
+    }
+    const picture = this.#pictureCostOf(session);
+    return { costSec: picture > 0 ? picture : null, fileKey, fileCostSec };
+  }
+
+  /** A prediction for this operation, using its measured cost and actual contention. */
+  projectedSpeedOf(session) {
+    const load = this.#loadOfSession(session);
+    const others = Math.max(0, this.#runningEncoders() - this.#runsFor(session).length);
+    const { penalty } = contentionPenalty(others, this.#host().contentionPenalties);
+    return load.costSec > 0 ? correctForAvailability(1 / (load.costSec * penalty),
+      this.#host().availability) : null;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * What everything OTHER than this session is costing right now, or null when
+   * any of it is unpriced.
+   *
+   * Used to recover a soundtrack's own share from a reading taken beside the
+   * picture — the only kind of reading a rendition ever gives, since it runs
+   * exactly as long as the picture does. Refusing to answer when something
+   * running has no price is the point: unpriced work would otherwise be
+   * attributed to the soundtrack, and an overpriced soundtrack refuses quality
+   * steps the host could actually hold.
+   *
+   * @param {HlsSession} session
+   * @returns {number | null}
+   */
+  pricedConcurrentCost(session) {
+    let cost = 0;
+    for (const member of this.#outputs.familyOf(session)) {
+      if (member === session || !processCanBeSignalled(this.#stateFor(member))) {
+        continue;
+      }
+      if (member.spec.carries === "audio-only") {
+        const audio = this.#audioCost.get(EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(member));
+        if (!audio || !(audio.costSec > 0)) {
+          return null;
+        }
+        cost += audio.costSec;
+        continue;
+      }
+      if (!member.spec.transcodesVideo) {
+        const copy = this.#copyCost.get(member.file.key);
+        if (!copy || !(copy.costSec > 0)) {
+          return null;
+        }
+        cost += copy.costSec;
+        continue;
+      }
+      const picture = this.#pictureCostOf(member);
+      if (!(picture > 0)) {
+        return null;
+      }
+      cost += picture;
+    }
+    // Encoders outside this family are counted by number only — there is no
+    // price to look up for another film's session — so a reading taken while
+    // one is running cannot be attributed either.
+    return this.#runningEncoders() > this.#outputs.familyOf(session).filter(
+      (member) => processCanBeSignalled(this.#stateFor(member))
+    ).length
+      ? null
+      : cost;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * What each height of this family is costing RIGHT NOW, for the heights an
+   * encoder is actually running at.
+   *
+   * Exists so a height can be judged against what the machine spends on
+   * everything else — a step being warmed is running while it is judged, and
+   * charged its own cost it refuses itself.
+   *
+   * @param {HlsSession} session
+   * @returns {Map<number, number>}
+   */
+  runningCostByHeight(session) {
+    /** @type {Map<number, number>} */
+    const byHeight = new Map();
+    for (const member of this.#outputs.familyOf(session)) {
+      if (member.spec.carries === "audio-only" || !member.spec.transcodesVideo) {
+        continue;
+      }
+      if (!processCanBeSignalled(this.#stateFor(member))) {
+        continue;
+      }
+      const height = this.#outputs.variantHeightOf(member);
+      if (height > 0) {
+        byHeight.set(height, (byHeight.get(height) ?? 0) + this.#pictureCostOf(member));
+      }
+    }
+    return byHeight;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Seconds of work per second of video this family is ALREADY committed to,
+   * beside any rung being considered.
+   *
+   * Every encoder of the family that is actually running: the picture, whether
+   * it is copied or re-encoded, and each audio rendition. The rung the viewer
+   * is watching and the source's own copied height are never withdrawn by the
+   * caller, so charging for the encoder that serves them cannot strand anyone —
+   * what it does is stop the NEXT rung being offered as though the machine were
+   * idle, which is what the field disproved on 2026-08-15.
+   *
+   * Anything whose cost is neither measured nor derivable contributes nothing.
+   * A guess here would refuse rungs on arithmetic nobody performed.
+   *
+   * @param {HlsSession} session
+   * @returns {number}
+   */
+  committedCostOf(session) {
+    let cost = 0;
+    for (const member of this.#outputs.familyOf(session)) {
+      // Only what still HAS an encoder. A quality step the viewer left keeps
+      // its session and its segments but not a process, and it produces nothing
+      // for anybody — charging the machine for it would refuse steps on work
+      // nobody is doing.
+      //
+      // A SUSPENDED encoder is charged, deliberately, and this is not the same
+      // question. The unit here is seconds of work per second of VIDEO, not per
+      // second of wall clock: a copy running at 8x costs 0.125 s/s whether it
+      // is producing right now or parked by the look-ahead cap, because over an
+      // hour of watching it still produces an hour of video. Suspension is how
+      // that cost is spread, not a discount on it — and pricing a parked
+      // encoder at zero would offer a step on the strength of a pause that ends
+      // the moment the viewer catches up.
+      if (!processCanBeSignalled(this.#stateFor(member))) {
+        continue;
+      }
+      if (member.spec.carries === "audio-only") {
+        // A soundtrack encoder, priced from its own measured speed. Nothing is
+        // charged for a track nobody has measured: a guess here refuses rungs
+        // on arithmetic no one performed.
+        const audio = this.#audioCost.get(EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(member));
+        cost += audio && audio.costSec > 0 ? audio.costSec : 0;
+        continue;
+      }
+      if (!member.spec.transcodesVideo) {
+        const observed = this.#copyCost.get(member.file.key);
+        cost += observed && observed.costSec > 0 ? observed.costSec : 0;
+        continue;
+      }
+      // A picture being RE-ENCODED beside the rung being judged — the warm-up
+      // that makes a quality switch seamless is two encoders by design, and
+      // that overlap is exactly where the field measured 0.504x on a rung
+      // predicted at 1.58x (2026-08-15). Priced by what it has been SEEN doing
+      // when it had the machine to itself, and otherwise by the same model that
+      // judges every rung — which is a prediction, not a guess.
+      cost += this.#pictureCostOf(member);
+    }
+    // And what the FILE costs simply by being fetched and delivered while it is
+    // watched: a viewer consumes it at its own byte rate, and every one of
+    // those bytes is downloaded, verified and pushed by this process. Priced
+    // per megabyte from readings taken while nothing was encoding, so the two
+    // measurements do not contain each other.
+    cost += this.#torrentCostSecFor(session);
+    return cost;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The speed each rung of this family was last seen running at, when it was
+   * running alone.
+   *
+   * A rung that has been watched failing is refused on that evidence; a rung
+   * nobody has run says nothing about itself and is judged by the startup
+   * measurement like any other.
+   *
+   * @param {HlsSession} base
+   * @returns {Map<number, number>}
+   */
+  measuredRungSpeeds(base) {
+    /** @type {Map<number, number>} */
+    const speeds = new Map();
+    for (const session of this.#outputs.familyOf(base)) {
+      const speed = qualityStateOf(session).lastAloneSpeed;
+      if (!session.spec.transcodesVideo || !Number.isFinite(speed)) {
+        continue;
+      }
+      const height = this.#outputs.variantHeightOf(session);
+      if (height > 0) {
+        speeds.set(height, speed);
+      }
+    }
+    return speeds;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Drop the rungs this host cannot hold at realtime.
+   *
+   * Every rung below the source height is a full re-encode — decode the whole
+   * source, encode a smaller picture — and on a weak host that is dearer than
+   * the copy it replaces. Measured 2026-08-14: 1080p was copied at 7.8-8.9x
+   * while the offered 240p rung ran at 0.388-0.947x, its first segment took
+   * 30 s and later ones were held 22 s, so choosing a LOWER quality is what
+   * broke playback. A rung that cannot be produced faster than it is watched
+   * must not be offered at all.
+   *
+   * The session's OWN height always stays: an encoder is already producing it,
+   * and removing it would point the player at a rung nobody is encoding.
+   *
+   * @param {{ heights: number[], ownHeight: number, sourceWidth: number, sourceHeight: number, fps: number, source: { megapixelsPerSecond: number, megabitsPerSecond: number } | null, transcodeVideo: boolean }} params
+   * @returns {number[]}
+   */
+  sustainableHeights({
+    heights,
+    ownHeight,
+    // Every height a viewer has on screen, not one: two viewers of one picture
+    // can be on two rungs, and a rung is never withdrawn while somebody is
+    // watching it — their next segment would 404 on a stream that is playing.
+    playingHeights = new Set(),
+    sourceWidth,
+    sourceHeight,
+    fps,
+    source,
+    transcodeVideo,
+    observedDecodeCostSec = null,
+    concurrentCostSec = 0,
+    runningCostByHeight = null,
+    measuredHeights = null,
+    requiredSpeed = null
+  }) {
+    // What this file's own supply demands, measured by its reader — and
+    // realtime while it has not been measured. Read once here so the line that
+    // reports a refusal names the figure it refused against.
+    const bar = speedBar(requiredSpeed);
+    const benchmark = this.#host().benchmark;
+    // CALIBRATED WITH NOTHING QUALIFIED is not the same as not calibrated at
+    // all (roadmap item 97, step 14): with no mode of this encoder shown to
+    // work, nothing re-encoded is offered.
+    const nothingQualified = Array.isArray(benchmark) && benchmark.length === 0;
+    if (!Array.isArray(benchmark) || benchmark.length === 0 || sourceHeight <= 0 || sourceWidth <= 0) {
+      // Nothing to predict WITH, so nothing is predicted. What has been SEEN
+      // still counts: a rung measured running below realtime is withdrawn here
+      // too, because the evidence for it does not come from the benchmark. This
+      // return used to hand back every height including one measured at 0.4x —
+      // found by a check written when this moved out of the session manager,
+      // 2026-09-05.
+      // The rung on screen is not exempt, for the same reason it is not exempt
+      // below: keeping one measured at 0.007x stalls the viewer with no path to
+      // a faster rung, which is what the field showed on 2026-08-31.
+      //
+      // What nothing has priced is not offered either (roadmap item 97, step
+      // 14): with no mode of this encoder qualified at startup, only a height
+      // that needs no encoder — the copied source — or one an encoder is
+      // already seen holding stays.
+      return heights.filter((height) => {
+        const measured = measuredHeights?.get(height) ?? null;
+        if (measured !== null) {
+          return measured >= 1;
+        }
+        return !nothingQualified || (!transcodeVideo && (height === sourceHeight || height === ownHeight));
+      });
+    }
+    /** @type {number[]} */
+    const kept = [];
+    /** @type {string[]} */
+    const dropped = [];
+    // What each height was predicted to do on THIS machine, kept so a session
+    // started at that height can be compared against it once it runs. The
+    // manager holds the last answer, because the offer is computed on the path
+    // that serves every request while a session is created elsewhere.
+    /** @type {Map<number, number | null>} */
+    const predictedByHeight = new Map();
+    for (const height of heights) {
+      // A rung this session has actually been seen running below realtime is
+      // withdrawn on that evidence, whatever the prediction says. This is the
+      // one thing a live reading is authority on: itself. It is asked before
+      // any exemption so a rung measured failing while on screen does not stay
+      // offered because it was on screen when measured — otherwise a step
+      // would ask for the one rung this machine has been measured failing at,
+      // then fail again, then step down, for ever. A copied source height
+      // cannot reach this: `#measuredRungSpeeds` records only sessions that
+      // re-encode, so a copy has no reading to be withdrawn on, which is right
+      // — it costs no encoder.
+      const measured = measuredHeights?.get(height) ?? null;
+      if (measured !== null && measured < 1) {
+        // Even the rung on screen is withdrawn on measured failure: keeping it
+        // would 404 the next segment, but keeping a rung measured at 0.007x
+        // (field 2026-08-31, 4K HEVC on CM4) stalls the viewer for minutes with
+        // 0.04s buffered and no way to downgrade because every other rung is
+        // also dropped. Withdrawing it lets the offer become empty, which the
+        // caller turns into an error the viewer can act on (try another proxy
+        // or a lower source) instead of an endless spinner.
+        dropped.push(`${height}p=${measured.toFixed(2)}x measured`);
+        continue;
+      }
+      // The rung ON SCREEN is kept only when it has not been measured failing
+      // above. Keeping a rung measured at 0.007x would stall the viewer with
+      // no path to a faster rung, which is what the field showed.
+      if (playingHeights.has(height)) {
+        kept.push(height);
+        continue;
+      }
+      // The height an encoder is ALREADY producing, and the source's own height
+      // when the FAMILY serves it by copy — neither has to be predicted,
+      // because it is happening. A copied rung costs no encoder at all, so no
+      // measurement of this host can ever be a reason to withdraw it, and the
+      // whole point of it is that it is where a viewer on a rung the machine
+      // cannot hold goes back to. `transcodeVideo` here is the base's, not the
+      // asking session's: a 240p rung re-encodes, and reading its own flag is
+      // what withdrew a copied 1080p in the field on 2026-08-15.
+      //
+      // A source height that would have to be RE-ENCODED is a prediction like
+      // any other: on a session whose budget stepped down to 480p, the source's
+      // 1080p is neither copied nor being produced, and keeping it unpriced
+      // would offer exactly the kind of rung this refuses. Likewise, a rung
+      // this session is already producing at 0.007x (field 2026-08-31, 4K HEVC
+      // on CM4, 0.1x at 23:45 and 0.007x at 06:57) is not sustainable just
+      // because it is running — keeping it offered no path to a faster rung
+      // and left the viewer at 0.04s buffered with no downgrade.
+      if (
+        (height === ownHeight && !transcodeVideo) ||
+        (height === sourceHeight && !transcodeVideo)
+      ) {
+        kept.push(height);
+        continue;
+      }
+      const width = Math.round(((sourceWidth / sourceHeight) * height) / 2) * 2;
+      // What the machine is spending on everything EXCEPT this height. A step
+      // being warmed for a switch is already running while it is judged, so its
+      // own cost is inside the committed total — and charged against itself it
+      // is counted twice. Measured against the field figures of 2026-08-15
+      // that is 1.83x against 1.03x: below the margin, so the step the viewer
+      // had just asked for was dropped from the offer by the act of warming it,
+      // and its next segment answered 404 on a stream that was playing.
+      const concurrentBesideThis = Math.max(
+        0,
+        concurrentCostSec - (runningCostByHeight?.get(height) ?? 0)
+      );
+      const { speed } = canSustainOutput({
+        benchmark,
+        decodeModel: this.#host().decodeModel,
+        source,
+        outputPixelsPerSec: width * height * fps,
+        observedDecodeCostSec,
+        concurrentCostSec: concurrentBesideThis,
+        frame: { width, height }
+      });
+      // The benchmark behind that figure was taken on a QUIET host — one
+      // ffmpeg and nothing else. The machine a step will actually run on is
+      // also running the kernel, the container and whatever else its owner
+      // does, and on the addon host that was measured at 99 % busy with a
+      // quarter of it unattributed. Only the unattributed part is charged
+      // here: our own encoders are already in `concurrentBesideThis` and the
+      // proxy's own work is already priced per megabyte moved.
+      // Two corrections, and they are different facts about the machine. The
+      // availability share removes work nobody has been charged for; the
+      // contention penalty says what OUR OWN second job costs, because the
+      // budget adds independent prices and this host does not behave that way
+      // — the same work measured 2.6× dearer beside one encoder and 3.7×
+      // beside two (2026-08-18). `concurrentBesideThis` already counts what is
+      // committed; this multiplies by how badly running at all together goes.
+      const othersRunning = concurrentBesideThis > 0 ? this.#encodersRunningNow() : 0;
+      const { penalty } = contentionPenalty(othersRunning, this.#host().contentionPenalties);
+      const onThisMachine = correctForAvailability(
+        speed === null ? null : speed / penalty,
+        this.#host().availability
+      );
+      // Kept against the step's own session, so that when it runs the field
+      // says what the prediction was worth. Without this the only comparison
+      // available is between two figures written minutes apart in different
+      // lines of the log.
+      predictedByHeight.set(height, onThisMachine);
+      if (onThisMachine !== null && onThisMachine >= bar) {
+        kept.push(height);
+        continue;
+      }
+      dropped.push(`${height}p=${onThisMachine === null ? "n/a" : `${onThisMachine.toFixed(2)}x`}`);
+    }
+    // Written when the ANSWER changes, not when the answer is recomputed. This
+    // is asked on the path that serves every playlist, init and segment, and
+    // the figures behind it move every five seconds — so an unconditional line
+    // here is roughly seven hundred identical lines an hour into a forwarder
+    // that holds five hundred, which buries whatever is worth reading.
+    if (dropped.length > 0) {
+      const line =
+        `transcode: not offering ${dropped.join(" ")} — below ${bar.toFixed(2)}x ` +
+        (Number.isFinite(requiredSpeed) && requiredSpeed > 1
+          ? "(the speed this file's own interruptions demand) "
+          : "(realtime, this file's supply not measured yet) ") +
+        // Said with the figures, because a step refused on a busy machine and
+        // one refused on an idle machine are different facts about the host.
+        (this.#host().availability?.known
+          ? `on a machine with ${Math.round(this.#host().availability.share * 100)}% to spare `
+          : "") +
+        `(offering ${kept.map((height) => `${height}p`).join(" ")})`;
+      if (line !== this.#lastOfferLine) {
+        this.#lastOfferLine = line;
+        logger.info(line);
+      }
+      this.lastPredictedByHeight = predictedByHeight;
+    } else {
+      this.lastPredictedByHeight = predictedByHeight;
+      this.#lastOfferLine = "";
+    }
+    return kept;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Take one reading off an encoder that is running, and file it as the price of
+   * whatever that encoder is doing.
+   *
+   * Separate from the realtime budget, which asks a different question — should
+   * the quality step down — and answers it only where it CAN step down. Most of
+   * what is worth measuring is excluded by that: a rung at the foot of its
+   * ladder, a step whose ladder is one rung long, a picture that is copied.
+   * Measuring has no such preconditions.
+   *
+   * What it does refuse: a suspended encoder (ffmpeg reports a CUMULATIVE
+   * speed, so a look-ahead pause is divided into it and the figure decays while
+   * nothing is being encoded), a reading that has not moved since the last one,
+   * and a run short of input, where what is short is the swarm rather than the
+   * machine.
+   *
+   * @param {HlsSession} session
+   * @returns {Promise<void>}
+   */
+  async learnFrom(session) {
+    if (!session) {
+      return;
+    }
+    if (
+      this.#stateFor(session) === ENCODE_RUN_STATE.ENDED_FAILED ||
+      liveRunsOf(this.#runsFor(session)).length === 0 ||
+      this.#stateFor(session) === ENCODE_RUN_STATE.SUSPENDED
+    ) {
+      qualityStateOf(session).learnSample = null;
+      return;
+    }
+    // Measured as a DELTA between two readings of a run that was going for the
+    // whole interval, not from ffmpeg's cumulative `speed=`. The cumulative
+    // figure counts every second the encoder spent SIGSTOPped by the look-ahead
+    // cap in its denominator, and a copy spends most of its life there — it
+    // reaches the cap in about fifteen seconds and then waits a minute. Read
+    // that way a copy running at 8x reports 1.6x and falling, which would be
+    // filed as the price of copying and refuse rungs on arithmetic that
+    // measured a pause.
+    const run = liveRunsOf(this.#runsFor(session))[0] ?? null;
+    // The position is THAT run's own, read from the same process the sample is
+    // stamped with. It used to be the output's progress, which is whichever
+    // live run covers the viewer and updated last — so with two encoders on
+    // one output a pair of readings could be two processes' positions filed
+    // under one run, and the difference between them read as a speed.
+    const processedSeconds = Number(this.#progressFor(session, run)?.processedSeconds);
+    const takenAt = Date.now();
+    const state = qualityStateOf(session);
+    const previous = state.learnSample ?? null;
+    // Stamped with the run it was taken from. A restart clears this sample, but
+    // it then spends up to a second and a half making its directory and burying
+    // its predecessor, and through that window the session still carries the
+    // OLD process and the OLD position — so a sample taken there, paired with
+    // the new run's first position, reads a twenty-minute seek as twenty
+    // minutes of video produced in five seconds. Filed as this file's price it
+    // admits every quality step there is. Comparing the serials is what the
+    // twenty-second wait used to stand in for, and unlike the wait it costs no
+    // readings on a short run.
+    state.learnSample = { takenAt, processedSeconds, run };
+    if (previous === null || !Number.isFinite(processedSeconds) || !Number.isFinite(previous.processedSeconds)) {
+      return;
+    }
+    if (previous.run !== run) {
+      return; // the pair straddles a restart and measures the seek, not the host
+    }
+    const speed = speedFromReadings(previous, { takenAt, processedSeconds }, LEARN_WINDOW_MIN_SEC);
+    if (speed === null) {
+      return;
+    }
+    // Recorded HERE, before any of the conditions below can discard the
+    // reading, because the budget and the learning ask different questions of
+    // it. Learning refuses a reading taken beside another encoder, since it
+    // would file that encoder's work as this file's price; the budget wants
+    // exactly what this run is doing right now, whatever else the machine is
+    // doing beside it. Sharing the figure and not the conditions is what lets
+    // the budget stop reading ffmpeg's cumulative average.
+    state.recentSpeed = { speed, at: takenAt, run };
+    const kind = costKindForSession(session);
+    // A reading taken beside another encoder contains that other encoder's
+    // work, and the budget ADDS the same work again when it predicts — so filed
+    // as it stands the price is counted twice and grows with every reading.
+    // Measured 2026-08-15 in the field: copying, whose truth is 7.9x, was
+    // learned as 2.03x, and decoding, whose clips say 2.6x, as 0.87x. Every
+    // step was then refused, the offer collapsed to the one copied height, and
+    // the viewer lost the quality menu altogether.
+    //
+    // For a picture the answer is to wait for a moment alone, which comes often
+    // enough. For a SOUNDTRACK it never comes: a rendition runs for exactly as
+    // long as the picture it accompanies, so "alone" is a state it is never in,
+    // and the price stayed unmeasured for ever — the hole this was meant to
+    // close. Its share is instead recovered by subtracting what the machine is
+    // already known to be spending, which is the same arithmetic that recovers
+    // this source's decoding from a running encoder, and it is only done when
+    // every other running encode HAS a price. Otherwise the unpriced work would
+    // land in the soundtrack's account and refuse steps on it.
+    let othersCostSec = 0;
+    if (this.#runningEncoders() > 1) {
+      if (kind !== "audio") {
+        return;
+      }
+      const others = this.pricedConcurrentCost(session);
+      if (others === null) {
+        return; // something running has no price; nothing can be attributed
+      }
+      othersCostSec = others;
+    }
+    if (speed < 1 && await this.#boundBy(session) === "download") {
+      return; // the torrent is what is short; this says nothing about the host
+    }
+    // What this encode did with the machine to itself — the one figure a live
+    // reading is authority on, and what withdraws a quality step that has been
+    // seen failing without letting it speak for steps nobody has run.
+    //
+    // Recorded only AFTER the download-bound check, and that order is the whole
+    // point: a run starved of torrent data reports a speed that measures the
+    // swarm. Stored first, as it was, that figure became this encode's price —
+    // 0.3x reads as 3.33 s of work per second of video, more than the machine
+    // has — and every other quality step was refused on the download's account.
+    state.lastAloneSpeed = speed;
+    // What the offer predicted for this very step, against what it then did
+    // with the machine to itself. The prediction is corrected for the share of
+    // the machine that was free at the time, so this ratio is the error that
+    // remains AFTER that correction — which is the only way to tell whether a
+    // stage of roadmap item 3 moved anything. Written when it changes by more
+    // than a tenth, so a steady step says it once rather than every five
+    // seconds.
+    if (Number.isFinite(state.predictedSpeedWhenOffered) && state.predictedSpeedWhenOffered > 0) {
+      const ratio = speed / state.predictedSpeedWhenOffered;
+      const lastSaid = state.lastPredictionRatio;
+      if (!Number.isFinite(lastSaid) || Math.abs(ratio - lastSaid) > 0.1) {
+        state.lastPredictionRatio = ratio;
+        logger.info(
+          `prediction ${session.id.slice(0, 8)} ${session.output.encodeHeight || "source"}p: ` +
+          `predicted ${state.predictedSpeedWhenOffered.toFixed(2)}x, measured ${speed.toFixed(2)}x ` +
+          `(ratio ${ratio.toFixed(2)}; 1.00 would mean the arithmetic describes this machine)`
+        );
+      }
+    }
+    if (kind === "audio") {
+      // What is left after the work that was already accounted for. `null` when
+      // the subtraction leaves nothing positive, which means the reading says
+      // less than the noise in it.
+      const ownCostSec = 1 / speed - othersCostSec;
+      if (!(ownCostSec > 0) || !Number.isFinite(ownCostSec)) {
+        return;
+      }
+      await this.#learnAudioCost(session, 1 / ownCostSec);
+      return;
+    }
+    if (kind === "decode") {
+      this.#learnDecodeCost(session, speed);
+      return;
+    }
+    await this.#learnCopyCost(session, speed);
+  }
+
+  async #learnCopyCost(session, speed) {
+    if (this.#stateFor(session) === ENCODE_RUN_STATE.SUSPENDED) {
+      return; // a suspended run reports a cumulative figure that is decaying
+    }
+    // Always asked, not only below realtime. A re-encode near 1x may be the
+    // host; a COPY near 1x is a copy waiting for the torrent, because copying
+    // is what a machine does at eight times realtime — and a starved reading
+    // filed as the price of copying would refuse rungs on the download's
+    // account.
+    if (await this.#boundBy(session) === "download") {
+      return;
+    }
+    const costSec = 1 / speed;
+    if (!(costSec > 0) || !Number.isFinite(costSec)) {
+      return;
+    }
+    const key = session.file.key;
+    const known = this.#copyCost.get(key);
+    const readings = [...(known?.readings ?? []), costSec].slice(-READINGS_KEPT);
+    const median = medianOf(readings);
+    if (!movedBeyondScatter(known?.costSec ?? null, median, readings)) {
+      this.#copyCost.set(key, { ...known, readings });
+      return;
+    }
+    this.#copyCost.set(key, { costSec: median, readings, version: (known?.version ?? 0) + 1 });
+    logger.info(
+      `transcode: ${session.file.name} copies at ${(1 / median).toFixed(2)}x on this host ` +
+        `(median of ${readings.length}, latest ${speed.toFixed(2)}x)`
+    );
+  }
+
+  async #learnAudioCost(session, speed) {
+    if (this.#stateFor(session) === ENCODE_RUN_STATE.SUSPENDED) {
+      return;
+    }
+    if (await this.#boundBy(session) === "download") {
+      return;
+    }
+    const costSec = 1 / speed;
+    if (!(costSec > 0) || !Number.isFinite(costSec)) {
+      return;
+    }
+    const key = EncodeCost.audioKeyOf(session);
+    const known = this.#audioCost.get(key);
+    const readings = [...(known?.readings ?? []), costSec].slice(-READINGS_KEPT);
+    const median = medianOf(readings);
+    if (!movedBeyondScatter(known?.costSec ?? null, median, readings)) {
+      this.#audioCost.set(key, { ...known, readings });
+      return;
+    }
+    this.#audioCost.set(key, { costSec: median, readings, version: (known?.version ?? 0) + 1 });
+    logger.info(
+      `transcode: ${session.file.name} encodes audio track ${session.spec.audioSourceTrackIndex} at ` +
+        `${(1 / median).toFixed(2)}x on this host (median of ${readings.length}, latest ${speed.toFixed(2)}x)`
+    );
+  }
+
+  #learnDecodeCost(session, speed) {
+    if (!(speed > 0)) {
+      return;
+    }
+    if (!session.spec.transcodesVideo) {
+      // Nothing to learn about decoding here, and nothing else either: the
+      // caller routes a copy to #learnCopyCost and a rendition to
+      // #learnAudioCost before this is ever reached. Routing them from here as
+      // well put both calls behind a guard the caller had already made
+      // (`transcodeVideo === true`), so neither could run.
+      return;
+    }
+    if (this.#host().encoderKind !== "software") {
+      return; // the benchmark that prices the encode half is libx264 only
+    }
+    const benchmark = this.#host().benchmark;
+    if (!Array.isArray(benchmark) || benchmark.length === 0) {
+      return;
+    }
+    const entry = benchmark.find((item) => item.preset === session.output.softwarePreset);
+    const height = Number(session.output.encodeHeight) || 0;
+    const width = Number(session.output.encodeWidth) || 0;
+    const fps = Number(session.output.outputFps) || TRANSCODE_FPS;
+    if (!entry || height <= 0 || width <= 0) {
+      return;
+    }
+    // The preset's throughput AT THIS SIZE, as the startup calibration read it.
+    const pixelsPerSec = throughputAt(entry, { width, height });
+    if (!(pixelsPerSec > 0)) {
+      return;
+    }
+    const encodeCostSec = (width * height * fps) / pixelsPerSec;
+    const decodeCostSec = 1 / speed - encodeCostSec;
+    if (!(decodeCostSec > 0)) {
+      // The encode half already accounts for everything measured. Nothing is
+      // left to attribute to decoding, and a zero or negative cost would say
+      // decoding is free, which is a claim this reading cannot support.
+      return;
+    }
+    const key = session.file.key;
+    const known = this.#decodeCost.get(key);
+    const readings = [...(known?.readings ?? []), decodeCostSec].slice(-READINGS_KEPT);
+    const costSec = medianOf(readings);
+    if (!movedBeyondScatter(known?.costSec ?? null, costSec, readings)) {
+      // The same answer as before, by the readings' own scatter. Storing it
+      // would bump the version and make every session recompute its offer,
+      // which is asked for on the path that serves every playlist, init and
+      // segment.
+      this.#decodeCost.set(key, { ...known, readings });
+      return;
+    }
+    this.#decodeCost.set(key, { costSec, readings, version: (known?.version ?? 0) + 1 });
+    logger.info(
+      `transcode: ${session.file.name} decodes at ${(1 / costSec).toFixed(2)}x on this host ` +
+        `(median of ${readings.length}, latest ${(1 / decodeCostSec).toFixed(2)}x from ${height}p ` +
+        `at ${speed.toFixed(2)}x, preset ${session.output.softwarePreset})`
+    );
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The speed this run is making RIGHT NOW, or null when nothing recent enough
+   * says.
+   *
+   * Read as the slope between two progress reports, never as ffmpeg's own
+   * `speed=`. That figure is cumulative — output time over wall time since the
+   * run began — so a run starved of torrent data early carries the average of
+   * that starvation for the rest of its life. Measured 2026-08-21: a run whose
+   * progress lines showed 1.30x at that moment (13 s of video in 10.02 s of
+   * clock) still reported a cumulative 0.39x from four minutes on a ~100 KB/s
+   * swarm, and the budget stepped the picture down on it. The same mistake was
+   * found and solved once already — the startup decode benchmark reads the
+   * slope between two progress reports for exactly this reason.
+   *
+   * @param {HlsSession} session
+   * @param {number} now
+   * @returns {number | null}
+   */
+  recentSpeedOf(session, now, withinMs) {
+    return this.recentSpeedReadingOf(session, now, withinMs)?.speed ?? null;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The newest measured speed from the output's current or most recent run.
+   * Its measurement time lets the playback model project the observed trend
+   * without imposing a separate freshness window.
+   *
+   * @param {HlsSession} session
+   * @returns {{ speed: number, at: number } | null}
+   */
+  latestSpeedReadingOf(session) {
+    const reading = qualityStateOf(session).recentSpeed;
+    if (!reading || !this.#runsFor(session).includes(reading.run)) {
+      return null;
+    }
+    return { speed: reading.speed, at: reading.at };
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The current output's measured production speed, with the time it was
+   * measured. The caller can use the same observation in a trend without
+   * treating repeated progress polls as new samples.
+   *
+   * @param {HlsSession} session
+   * @param {number} now
+   * @param {number} withinMs
+   * @returns {{ speed: number, at: number } | null}
+   */
+  recentSpeedReadingOf(session, now, withinMs) {
+    const reading = this.latestSpeedReadingOf(session);
+    // Stale by whatever the asker calls stale — two of its own ticks, for the
+    // budget loop, which takes a fresh reading every pass anyway. A reading
+    // older than that is not about the machine as it stands.
+    if (!reading || now - reading.at > withinMs) {
+      return null;
+    }
+    return reading;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Realtime budget (software encoder only): choose the output resolution AND
+   * libx264 preset this host can encode faster than realtime, from the startup
+   * benchmark. The ceiling is the client-requested box capped to the source
+   * (never upscaled); the budget picks the highest resolution rung at or below
+   * that ceiling that clears realtime × margin, then the best preset at that
+   * resolution. On a weak host this downscales below the client target instead
+   * of dropping into sub-realtime playback. Returns null when not applicable
+   * (no video transcode, hardware encoder, or missing benchmark/source size) —
+   * the encode then keeps the ceiling resolution and the default preset.
+   *
+   * @param {{ transcodeVideo: boolean, targetWidth: number, targetHeight: number, sourceWidth: number | null, sourceHeight: number | null, outputFps: number, source?: { megapixelsPerSecond: number, megabitsPerSecond: number } | null }} params
+   * @returns {{ width: number, height: number, preset: string } | null}
+   */
+  chooseEncodeBudget({
+    transcodeVideo,
+    targetWidth,
+    targetHeight,
+    sourceWidth,
+    sourceHeight,
+    outputFps,
+    source = null,
+    requiredSpeed = null
+  }) {
+    if (!transcodeVideo || this.#host().encoderKind !== "software" || !this.#host().benchmark) {
+      return null;
+    }
+    const ceiling = computeOutputDimensions(targetWidth, targetHeight, sourceWidth, sourceHeight);
+    if (!ceiling) {
+      return null;
+    }
+    return chooseSoftwareEncodeSettings(
+      this.#host().benchmark,
+      { width: ceiling.w, height: ceiling.h },
+      outputFps,
+      { decodeModel: this.#host().decodeModel, source, requiredSpeed }
+    );
+  }
+}