@torrent-tv/proxy 2.89.6 → 2.89.8

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Files changed (92) hide show
  1. package/AGENTS.md +32 -12
  2. package/CHANGELOG.md +2340 -2330
  3. package/assets/calibration/audio/NOTICE.md +19 -19
  4. package/assets/calibration/audio/manifest.json +98 -98
  5. package/biome.json +412 -412
  6. package/docs/browser-proxy-contract.md +155 -155
  7. package/docs/container-architecture.md +273 -273
  8. package/docs/encode-run-state.md +1 -1
  9. package/docs/playback-start-forecast.md +113 -98
  10. package/package.json +51 -50
  11. package/routes/api/sources/files/get.js +106 -106
  12. package/scripts/build-audio-samples.mjs +31 -31
  13. package/services/encode/EncodeRun.js +67 -15
  14. package/services/encode/EncodeRuns.js +19 -7
  15. package/services/encode/OutputOpening.js +784 -784
  16. package/services/encode/audio-calibration.js +67 -67
  17. package/services/encode/audio-work-rate.js +15 -15
  18. package/services/encode/encode-exit.js +2 -0
  19. package/services/encode/hwaccel.js +1894 -1894
  20. package/services/encode/output/index.js +24 -24
  21. package/services/encode/piece-completeness.js +60 -2
  22. package/services/encode/run-command.js +757 -755
  23. package/services/encode/segment-formats/index.js +1 -0
  24. package/services/encode/segment-formats/mp4-boxes.js +8 -1
  25. package/services/media/ContainerOrchestrator.js +202 -202
  26. package/services/media/KeyframeTables.js +356 -356
  27. package/services/media/SubtitleCues.js +592 -592
  28. package/services/media/audio-inventory.js +299 -299
  29. package/services/media/container/AviContainer.js +268 -268
  30. package/services/media/container/Container.js +632 -632
  31. package/services/media/container/ContainerFactory.js +38 -38
  32. package/services/media/container/MatroskaContainer.js +1031 -1031
  33. package/services/media/container/Mp4Container.js +1354 -1354
  34. package/services/media/container/SubtitleFileContainer.js +339 -339
  35. package/services/media/container/ebml-stream.js +174 -174
  36. package/services/media/container/matroska-clusters.js +1165 -1165
  37. package/services/media/container/unavailable.js +77 -77
  38. package/services/media/tracks/ContainerTrack.js +84 -84
  39. package/services/media/tracks/TextSubtitleTrack.js +295 -295
  40. package/services/storage/piece-store/shared-piece-store.js +1937 -1937
  41. package/services/storage/segment-store/SegmentStore.js +1294 -1294
  42. package/services/torrent/Contents.js +382 -382
  43. package/services/torrent/episode-naming.js +182 -182
  44. package/services/torrent/torrent-pool.js +2688 -2688
  45. package/services/torrent/worker/client.js +836 -836
  46. package/services/torrent/worker/held-bytes.js +231 -231
  47. package/services/torrent/worker/worker.js +1137 -1137
  48. package/services/transport/data-channel-handler.js +1373 -1373
  49. package/services/viewer/PriorityMap.js +421 -421
  50. package/test/audio-calibration.test.js +23 -23
  51. package/test/auto-quality-step.test.js +762 -762
  52. package/test/coalesce.test.js +39 -39
  53. package/test/coverage-follows-the-disk.test.js +5 -0
  54. package/test/decode-cost.test.js +475 -475
  55. package/test/encode-run.test.js +58 -0
  56. package/test/episode-naming.test.js +131 -131
  57. package/test/failed-encoder-still-serves-what-exists.test.js +1 -1
  58. package/test/fixtures/audio-frame-boundary.json +1 -1
  59. package/test/fixtures/refused-audio-20261002.json +10 -0
  60. package/test/fmp4-presentation-clock.test.js +4 -2
  61. package/test/format-keyed-outputs.test.js +78 -78
  62. package/test/health-metrics.test.js +11 -13
  63. package/test/held-read-ownership.test.js +77 -77
  64. package/test/helpers/encode-run.js +14 -6
  65. package/test/helpers/held-file.js +77 -77
  66. package/test/helpers/manager.js +62 -62
  67. package/test/helpers/matroska-file.js +296 -296
  68. package/test/keyframe-table-budget.test.js +123 -123
  69. package/test/matroska-cluster-discovery.test.js +323 -323
  70. package/test/one-output-one-session.test.js +273 -273
  71. package/test/output-speed.test.js +6 -1
  72. package/test/piece-completeness.test.js +37 -1
  73. package/test/quality-variants.test.js +1274 -1270
  74. package/test/rate-control-in-the-output.test.js +4 -3
  75. package/test/reads-not-yet-arrived.test.js +218 -218
  76. package/test/seek-frees-the-viewers-requests.test.js +1 -1
  77. package/test/segment-closed-on-both-branches.test.js +114 -114
  78. package/test/segment-judged-by-its-own-header.test.js +222 -222
  79. package/test/segment-serve-wiring.test.js +481 -481
  80. package/test/serving-existing-output.test.js +111 -111
  81. package/test/source-files-route.test.js +113 -113
  82. package/test/subtitle-cue-walk.test.js +385 -385
  83. package/test/subtitle-metadata.test.js +15 -15
  84. package/test/subtitle-plan-waits.test.js +125 -125
  85. package/test/subtitle-track-numbering.test.js +391 -391
  86. package/test/two-viewers-one-picture.test.js +508 -508
  87. package/test/viewer-requests-admission.test.js +92 -92
  88. package/test/viewer-starts-on-map.test.js +27 -27
  89. package/test/viewer-states.test.js +5 -2
  90. package/test/viewing-generations.test.js +390 -390
  91. package/test/whole-file-held-read.test.js +30 -30
  92. package/utils/coalesce.js +41 -41
@@ -1,273 +1,273 @@
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- # Container & Track architecture
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-
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- Domain → Application → Interface, per RFC 9559 (Matroska) and ISO/IEC 14496-12 (MP4).
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-
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- ## Two axes, and what is NOT a third
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-
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- Everything here is placed on exactly two axes: **which container** a track lives
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- in, and **what kind of track** it is (video / audio / subtitle). A file lying
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- beside the video — a dub as `<name>.mka`, subtitles as `<name>.ass` — is not a
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- third kind of anything:
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-
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- - a `.mka` **is** Matroska. `ContainerFactory` sniffs it, `MatroskaContainer`
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- reads its `TrackEntry` list, and out comes an `AudioTrack` with its language,
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- title and flags. It differs from the picture's own file only in having no
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- video track. The same holds for `.m4a` and `Mp4Container`;
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- - "external" is therefore not a TYPE. It is the answer to WHERE a track's bytes
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- are, and that is torrent knowledge — which this layer must not have
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- (`ContainerFactory`: no torrent knowledge; `ContainerOrchestrator`:
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- transport-agnostic). The pairing of a sidecar file with a picture lives in
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- `services/sidecar-files.js`, and the numbered list a viewer chooses from lives
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- in `services/media/audio-inventory.js`. Both are pure and both are application-layer.
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-
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- A class called `ExternalSubtitleFile` used to sit in `tracks/` asserting the
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- opposite. It did not extend `ContainerTrack`, duplicated four of its fields, and
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- was imported by nothing; it was deleted rather than extended. Nothing replaced
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- it — a subtitle file beside the video is a `TextSubtitleTrack` whose bytes are
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- read from another file, and a raw `.srt` needs no `Container` subclass because
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- it has no track table and no index to read: the whole file is the payload, and
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- `SubtitleController` already reads it as such.
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-
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- ## Who answers what — the rule
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-
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- A fact the container DECLARES is read from the container. A fact only the media
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- itself has is measured from the media, which means ffmpeg.
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-
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- That is the whole boundary, and it is not about speed. Speed is a consequence:
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- this layer asks for the smallest region that holds the answer — 64 KB of header,
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- the Cues block, a sample table — while ffmpeg cannot be asked for a bounded
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- region at all. Its input analysis pulls megabytes before it will say anything,
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- and over a torrent those megabytes may not exist yet. Measured 2026-09-03 on one
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- `.mka`: this layer read its header in **8 ms**, and an ffmpeg reading the same
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- header of the same file through the proxy's own `/stream`, in the same second,
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- took **8121 ms** — and spent all of it waiting for a DURATION its caller did not
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- want, because its early exit is gated on one.
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-
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- So ffmpeg keeps exactly three jobs, and nothing else:
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-
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- 1. producing media — the encode run;
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- 2. measuring THIS MACHINE — encoder detection and its strict test, decode
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- calibration, the contention penalty;
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- 3. answering what the container does not declare — above all keyframe positions
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- in a container with no index, where a packet scan is the only source. Even
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- there the container is asked FIRST: measured, the container index gave 570
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- keyframes in 0.8 s from two point reads of 16 KB, while a scan of the same
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- file found 77 in 45 s and did not finish.
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-
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- `null` in `ContainerMediaInfo` means the container does not declare the field.
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- That is a final answer about the container, and the point at which a caller may
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- go to the media — not "unknown, ask again".
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-
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- ## A read that has not arrived is not an answer
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-
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- Every read a container makes goes through `strictReader` (`container/unavailable.js`):
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- it answers with every byte asked for, or throws `BytesUnavailable`. A reading has
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- therefore four outcomes — the value; a proven absence ("this file has no Cues");
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- a refusal of ours, stated with its reason and size (an MP4 `moov` larger than
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- this program reads whole: `moovRefused`); and "not here yet". Only the first
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- three are facts about the file, and only they are kept — by the container, by
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- `ContainerOrchestrator`, by `KeyframeTables` and by `SubtitleCues`.
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-
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- Until 2026-10-01 "not here yet" came back as `null`, the value the readers
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- return for an absent element. A subtitle plan read while its Cues table was
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- downloading was kept as "no clusters", and an embedded track showed nothing for
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- a whole session; the keyframe table, the container choice, the track table,
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- MP4's `moov` and AVI's `idx1` had the same shape
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- (`research/subtitles-never-appear-2026-10-01.md`).
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-
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- ## Elements are read where they lie
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-
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- Matroska's top-level elements are found by walking their HEADERS from the
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- Segment's start to the first cluster, each costing only its header, and from the
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- SeekHead for what lies after the clusters — so a Cues element stored before the
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- clusters with no SeekHead entry (RFC 9559 §6.4) is found. Elements are then read
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- by their own size through `container/ebml-stream.js`, one portion at a time; the
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- portion is the torrent's piece length, handed in, never chosen here. Data that
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- is not needed is skipped without being assembled; a needed element larger than
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- one portion is refused by name. There is no fixed window for the Cues table,
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- the Tracks element or a cluster any more.
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-
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- ## Where byte access lives, and why not on a track
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-
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- A `ContainerTrack` is a DECLARATION. It carries no `readRange` and no file
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- identity, and it should not: byte access is the `Container`'s, injected as
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- `readRange(start, end)` and bound to one file.
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-
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- The obvious-looking improvement — hand the track a reader so it can fetch its own
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- bytes — was reviewed on 2026-09-03 and is **not** the right shape:
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-
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- - for video and audio, this layer never reads the payload at all. It goes to
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- ffmpeg by URL, where seeking and gigabytes belong. A `readRange` on a
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- `VideoTrack` would be a capability with no consumer, inviting reads of a size
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- this path is not built for;
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- - tracks cross the worker boundary as PLAIN OBJECTS (`plainTrack()`), because a
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- class instance does not survive it as a class. A back-reference to a container
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- cannot cross either, so such a track would be able to read its own bytes only
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- on the thread where the container is already at hand.
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-
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- **That split is closed.** `SubtitleTrack` carries `clusterPositions` and
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- `samples` — byte POSITIONS — and the reading of those positions is the
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- container's: `MatroskaContainer.readHeldCues` (over `container/matroska-clusters.js`)
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- and `Mp4Container.readHeldSamples`, beside `readTracks`, `readKeyframeIndex`,
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- `readMediaInfo` and `cueTextOf`.
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-
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- The two readers want different read POLICIES over the same file: the track
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- table fetches what is missing from the swarm, while the cue walk reads only
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- what is already downloaded, so that turning subtitles on never pulls bytes the
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- viewer is not waiting for. **One container per file serves both**: it is built
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- with the fetching `readRange`, and the walk's reader of downloaded bytes — which
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- ranges are whole, a strict read of them, the portion, where viewers stand — is
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- handed to `readHeldCues` on every pass (`HeldReader`), because what is
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- downloaded changes between passes. The walk used to build a second container of
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- its own over the same file and read the head and the Cues table again, under a
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- different rule for a read that had not arrived.
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-
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- What the container is NOT given is the torrent. `media/SubtitleCues.js` is
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- handed a `HeldFile` of plain functions by `server.js` and keeps only what is
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- genuinely its own: the found-order cursor a browser follows, the per-file
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- state, one walk of a file at a time, and taking back the cues of a cluster the
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- container withdraws.
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-
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- ## Where a cluster is, when the Cues table does not say
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-
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- RFC 9559 §22.1 only recommends that each subtitle frame be referenced by the
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- Cues table, and a file may have none. `container/matroska-clusters.js` finds
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- clusters from the downloaded bytes: positions the file establishes (the first
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- cluster, every `CueClusterPosition` of every track), a chain of top-level
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- elements from each established one, and — only where the file has no Cues — a
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- search for the Cluster id. What the search finds is a candidate; it is used only
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- once every child is one §5.1.3 allows, exactly one Timestamp is present, the
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- children fill it exactly, every block names a declared track, and any CRC-32 or
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- PrevSize matches. A candidate that an established cluster turns out to contain
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- is withdrawn with its cues, and the browser removes them by number. The cluster
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- a viewer stands in is read first, then the one before it, and pushed at once.
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-
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- The walk reads a cluster's STRUCTURE — every child's header and the first bytes
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- of each block, which name its track — and a subtitle block's data by its own
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- size. It never moves a picture's frames into the main thread: measured on the
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- addon host 2026-10-01, reading clusters a portion at a time moved every frame
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- of the film across the thread boundary, and the collector then took three times
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- as long as the walk. Each read also hands the loop back before the walk goes on,
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- because the torrent thread replies faster than the message port empties. The
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- search decides each candidate as it finds it; one accepted is followed by its
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- chain, and the search resumes where the chain ends, so a file whose clusters
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- follow one another is searched only up to the first cluster after each gap.
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-
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- ## Layers
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-
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- ```mermaid
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- flowchart TB
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- subgraph Domain
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- C[Container<br/>abstract<br/>RFC9559 / 14496-12]
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- MC[MatroskaContainer]
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- MpC[Mp4Container]
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- AC[AviContainer]
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- CT[ContainerTrack<br/>isEnabled/isDefault/language]
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- VT[VideoTrack]
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- AT[AudioTrack]
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- ST[SubtitleTrack]
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- TST[TextSubtitleTrack<br/>S_TEXT/UTF8 tx3g wvtt]
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- IST[ImageSubtitleTrack<br/>PGS VobSub subp]
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- C --> MC & MpC & AC
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- CT --> VT & AT & ST
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- ST --> TST & IST
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- MC & MpC & AC -- readTracks --> CT
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- end
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- subgraph Application
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- CF[ContainerFactory<br/>detect 16 bytes]
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- KT[KeyframeTables<br/>one read per file, bounded wait]
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- CO[ContainerOrchestrator<br/>cache + getTracks/getKeyframeIndex]
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- SO[SubtitleOrchestrator<br/>cursor + per-file state]
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- SF[sidecar-files.js<br/>which file goes with which]
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- AI[audio-inventory.js<br/>one flat numbering]
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- CF --> CO
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- CO --> KT
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- CO --> SO
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- SF --> AI
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- CO --> AI
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- end
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- subgraph Interface
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- PC[PlaybackController]
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- SC[SubtitleController]
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- R1[routes/api/playback-plan]
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- R2[routes/api/subtitles]
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- PC --> R1
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- SC --> R2
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- CO --> PC
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- SO --> SC
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- end
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- ```
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-
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- ## Class responsibilities (spec-grounded)
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-
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- | Class | Spec section | Fields | Not responsible |
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- |---|---|---|---|
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- | `ContainerTrack` | RFC9559 TrackEntry common + ISO 14496-12 tkhd/mdhd/hdlr/elng | `trackNumber`, `declaredIndex`, `codecId`, `language`/`languageBcp47` (MUST rule), `name`, `isEnabled` (0xB9 / track_enabled), `isDefault`+`declaresDefault` (0x88) | Type-specific flags |
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- | `VideoTrack` | RFC9559 Video, ISO 14496-12 tkhd width/height, stsd | `width/height/display*`, `fps`, `isHdr`, `bitDepth` | Subtitle flags |
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- | `AudioTrack` | RFC9559 FlagOriginal 0x55AE, FlagCommentary 0x55AF, FlagVisualImpaired 0x55AC | `isOriginal/isCommentary/isVisualImpaired`, `channels/samplingFrequency` | FlagForced |
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- | `SubtitleTrack` | RFC9559 FlagForced 0x55AA (subtitle-only), FlagHearingImpaired 0x55AB | `isForced/isHearingImpaired`, `clusterPositions`/`samples` | Video dims |
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- | `TextSubtitleTrack` | `S_TEXT/UTF8, S_TEXT/ASS, tx3g, wvtt` | `toVtt()` convertible | Image tracks |
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- | `sidecar-files.js` | — (torrent naming) | which files of a torrent are one picture's sound and subtitles | what is inside them |
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- | `audio-inventory.js` | RFC9559 audio flags, merged against ffmpeg's numbering | one flat number per soundtrack → `(fileIndex, 0:a:N)` | display labels |
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- | `ImageSubtitleTrack` | `S_HDMV/PGS, S_VOBSUB, subp, clcp` | kept for `declaredIndex` alignment | Conversion |
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- | `MatroskaContainer` | RFC9559 SeekHead, Tracks, Cues, Clusters | single Tracks walk for all types, EBML via `ebml-reader.js` | HTTP |
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- | `Mp4Container` | ISO 14496-12 moov/trak/tkhd/mdhd/hdlr/elng/stbl | `alternate_group` grouping, packed language, `tx3g` forced bits | Torrent |
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- | `AviContainer` | RIFF AVI idx1 | `AVIIF_KEYFRAME` keyframe times | Tracks beyond video |
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-
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- `VideoTrack` never carries `isForced` — spec states FlagForced "Applies only to subtitles". Placing it in base would pollute video with irrelevant state.
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-
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- ## Orchestrators & Controllers
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-
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- - `ContainerFactory.create({readRange,fileSize})` — sniffs 16 bytes, returns precise `Container` subclass. No torrent knowledge.
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- - `ContainerOrchestrator` — per-file cache (`sourceKey:fileIndex`), `getTracks()` / `getMediaInfo()` / `getKeyframeIndex()`. Transport-agnostic.
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- - **The keyframe table is read once per file, and the container is not what remembers it.** `Container.readKeyframeIndex` parses and returns; each format implements `parseKeyframeIndex`. It used to keep the answer, and that made this the one fact stored in two places — here and in the file's `KeyframeTable` on the main thread. That copy had no reader, and since the parse itself moved to the main thread there is no second thread for a second copy to sit in.
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- - **`KeyframeTable` / `KeyframeTables` — the answer, and the policy around getting one.** The table is one object per file (`media/container/KeyframeTable.js`), held by everyone who reads that file rather than copied, so a read that lands after a session was made still reaches it. `media/KeyframeTables.js` reads it once per file whoever asks, joins the second asker to the read already running, bounds how long any one caller waits (`KEYFRAME_TABLE_BUDGET_MS`, measured), and never records a read that threw as an answer. Its reader is one function handed in at construction, so it knows nothing of torrents or HTTP. It is not `ContainerOrchestrator`: both live on the main thread, but that one keeps the file's container — which keeps its own Cues reading — and this keeps the answer the sessions hold and the wait around it. A read that has not arrived rejects with `BytesUnavailable` and is read again when pieces of the file arrive (`readAgainIfUnanswered`).
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- - **`answered` and `readable` are different questions.** `answered` says a reader came back; `readable` says it came back with times. A file that answered nothing must be re-encoded for ever (MPEG-TS: 669 real keyframes, no index of any kind); a file that has not answered is a shortage of bytes off the swarm. Held as loose fields in a bag of probe results nothing told them apart, and a passing shortage was written onto the file as a property of the bytes.
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- - **The second reader is the packet probe** (`media/keyframe-probe.js`): it finds keyframes by decoding, for containers that state no index. It is never waited for, and `KeyframeTable.learn` keeps the fuller answer whichever arrives second — measured 2026-08-02, a scan found 77 keyframes in 45 s without finishing against all 570 in 0.8 s from the index.
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- - `SubtitleOrchestrator` — wraps `media/SubtitleCues.js` (`cuesHeldFor`, `warmSubtitleCues`, `subtitleTracksOf`) behind the `ContainerTrack` abstraction, handed in by `server.js`. Routes depend on this. The reading itself is the file's one container's; `SubtitleCues` keeps the cursor and the per-file state.
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- - `PlaybackController` / `SubtitleController` — thin interface adapters; `routes/api/*` delegate to them, handle HTTP headers (`X-Subtitle-Language`, `X-Subtitle-Cursor`) only.
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-
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- ## Legacy
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-
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- Everything a container states about ITSELF is in its own class: the track table,
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- the Cues, the keyframe times they name, the cluster positions, the blocks inside
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- a cluster, the MP4 sample table. `services/container-index/` no longer exists.
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- What was kept apart is `container/ebml-reader.js` — EBML element walking is the
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- format's grammar rather than any of its statements.
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-
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- `ContainerFactory` is the one place that decides what a file IS. It sniffs the
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- header, because that is what the muxer wrote while a name is what somebody
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- typed, and it answers `readKeyframeIndex` for the same reason: doing it anywhere
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- else meant a third place making that decision. `ContainerFactory.byName` exists
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- for the one path that cannot sniff — the cue walk asks the swarm for nothing, so
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- a file whose head is not downloaded has only its name.
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-
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- **Two readings of one file, and which answers.** ffmpeg's `-i` banner and the
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- container's own table both describe a file's tracks, and the rule is stated once
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- per media kind on `Container`. `alignWithBanner` lines them up by position and
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- CHECKS each pair on language or title; one pair agreeing on neither, or a length
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- that differs, drops the container reading whole, because a wrong flag is worse
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- than a missing one. `mergeSubtitleFlags`, `mergeAudioFlags` and
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- `mergeVideoFacts` then say which side answers for which field: flags the banner
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- cannot express come from the container; the coded size and frame rate come from
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- the probe, because the encoder receives what the decoder produced.
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-
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- Direct imports from routes are deprecated — use `orchestrators/` and
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- `server/controllers/` instead.
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-
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- ## Flags matrix
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-
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- | Flag | Matroska ID | Applies to | Base or subclass |
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- |---|---|---|---|
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- | `FlagEnabled` | 0xB9 default 1 | all | `ContainerTrack` |
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- | `FlagDefault` | 0x88 default 1 | all | `ContainerTrack` (`declaresDefault`) |
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- | `Language` | 0x22B59C | all | `ContainerTrack` |
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- | `LanguageBCP47` | 0x22B59D MUST | all | `ContainerTrack` |
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- | `FlagForced` | 0x55AA | subtitle only | `SubtitleTrack` |
267
- | `FlagHearingImpaired` | 0x55AB | subtitle | `SubtitleTrack` |
268
- | `FlagVisualImpaired` | 0x55AC | audio (descriptive) + subtitle | `AudioTrack`/`SubtitleTrack` |
269
- | `FlagOriginal` | 0x55AE | audio | `AudioTrack` |
270
- | `FlagCommentary` | 0x55AF | audio | `AudioTrack` |
271
- | `track_enabled` | tkhd 0x000001 | all | `ContainerTrack` |
272
- | `alternate_group` | tkhd | audio/video alternates | `ContainerTrack.alternateGroup` |
273
- | `elng` | 14496-12 §8.4.6 | all | `ContainerTrack.languageBcp47` |
1
+ # Container & Track architecture
2
+
3
+ Domain → Application → Interface, per RFC 9559 (Matroska) and ISO/IEC 14496-12 (MP4).
4
+
5
+ ## Two axes, and what is NOT a third
6
+
7
+ Everything here is placed on exactly two axes: **which container** a track lives
8
+ in, and **what kind of track** it is (video / audio / subtitle). A file lying
9
+ beside the video — a dub as `<name>.mka`, subtitles as `<name>.ass` — is not a
10
+ third kind of anything:
11
+
12
+ - a `.mka` **is** Matroska. `ContainerFactory` sniffs it, `MatroskaContainer`
13
+ reads its `TrackEntry` list, and out comes an `AudioTrack` with its language,
14
+ title and flags. It differs from the picture's own file only in having no
15
+ video track. The same holds for `.m4a` and `Mp4Container`;
16
+ - "external" is therefore not a TYPE. It is the answer to WHERE a track's bytes
17
+ are, and that is torrent knowledge — which this layer must not have
18
+ (`ContainerFactory`: no torrent knowledge; `ContainerOrchestrator`:
19
+ transport-agnostic). The pairing of a sidecar file with a picture lives in
20
+ `services/sidecar-files.js`, and the numbered list a viewer chooses from lives
21
+ in `services/media/audio-inventory.js`. Both are pure and both are application-layer.
22
+
23
+ A class called `ExternalSubtitleFile` used to sit in `tracks/` asserting the
24
+ opposite. It did not extend `ContainerTrack`, duplicated four of its fields, and
25
+ was imported by nothing; it was deleted rather than extended. Nothing replaced
26
+ it — a subtitle file beside the video is a `TextSubtitleTrack` whose bytes are
27
+ read from another file, and a raw `.srt` needs no `Container` subclass because
28
+ it has no track table and no index to read: the whole file is the payload, and
29
+ `SubtitleController` already reads it as such.
30
+
31
+ ## Who answers what — the rule
32
+
33
+ A fact the container DECLARES is read from the container. A fact only the media
34
+ itself has is measured from the media, which means ffmpeg.
35
+
36
+ That is the whole boundary, and it is not about speed. Speed is a consequence:
37
+ this layer asks for the smallest region that holds the answer — 64 KB of header,
38
+ the Cues block, a sample table — while ffmpeg cannot be asked for a bounded
39
+ region at all. Its input analysis pulls megabytes before it will say anything,
40
+ and over a torrent those megabytes may not exist yet. Measured 2026-09-03 on one
41
+ `.mka`: this layer read its header in **8 ms**, and an ffmpeg reading the same
42
+ header of the same file through the proxy's own `/stream`, in the same second,
43
+ took **8121 ms** — and spent all of it waiting for a DURATION its caller did not
44
+ want, because its early exit is gated on one.
45
+
46
+ So ffmpeg keeps exactly three jobs, and nothing else:
47
+
48
+ 1. producing media — the encode run;
49
+ 2. measuring THIS MACHINE — encoder detection and its strict test, decode
50
+ calibration, the contention penalty;
51
+ 3. answering what the container does not declare — above all keyframe positions
52
+ in a container with no index, where a packet scan is the only source. Even
53
+ there the container is asked FIRST: measured, the container index gave 570
54
+ keyframes in 0.8 s from two point reads of 16 KB, while a scan of the same
55
+ file found 77 in 45 s and did not finish.
56
+
57
+ `null` in `ContainerMediaInfo` means the container does not declare the field.
58
+ That is a final answer about the container, and the point at which a caller may
59
+ go to the media — not "unknown, ask again".
60
+
61
+ ## A read that has not arrived is not an answer
62
+
63
+ Every read a container makes goes through `strictReader` (`container/unavailable.js`):
64
+ it answers with every byte asked for, or throws `BytesUnavailable`. A reading has
65
+ therefore four outcomes — the value; a proven absence ("this file has no Cues");
66
+ a refusal of ours, stated with its reason and size (an MP4 `moov` larger than
67
+ this program reads whole: `moovRefused`); and "not here yet". Only the first
68
+ three are facts about the file, and only they are kept — by the container, by
69
+ `ContainerOrchestrator`, by `KeyframeTables` and by `SubtitleCues`.
70
+
71
+ Until 2026-10-01 "not here yet" came back as `null`, the value the readers
72
+ return for an absent element. A subtitle plan read while its Cues table was
73
+ downloading was kept as "no clusters", and an embedded track showed nothing for
74
+ a whole session; the keyframe table, the container choice, the track table,
75
+ MP4's `moov` and AVI's `idx1` had the same shape
76
+ (`research/subtitles-never-appear-2026-10-01.md`).
77
+
78
+ ## Elements are read where they lie
79
+
80
+ Matroska's top-level elements are found by walking their HEADERS from the
81
+ Segment's start to the first cluster, each costing only its header, and from the
82
+ SeekHead for what lies after the clusters — so a Cues element stored before the
83
+ clusters with no SeekHead entry (RFC 9559 §6.4) is found. Elements are then read
84
+ by their own size through `container/ebml-stream.js`, one portion at a time; the
85
+ portion is the torrent's piece length, handed in, never chosen here. Data that
86
+ is not needed is skipped without being assembled; a needed element larger than
87
+ one portion is refused by name. There is no fixed window for the Cues table,
88
+ the Tracks element or a cluster any more.
89
+
90
+ ## Where byte access lives, and why not on a track
91
+
92
+ A `ContainerTrack` is a DECLARATION. It carries no `readRange` and no file
93
+ identity, and it should not: byte access is the `Container`'s, injected as
94
+ `readRange(start, end)` and bound to one file.
95
+
96
+ The obvious-looking improvement — hand the track a reader so it can fetch its own
97
+ bytes — was reviewed on 2026-09-03 and is **not** the right shape:
98
+
99
+ - for video and audio, this layer never reads the payload at all. It goes to
100
+ ffmpeg by URL, where seeking and gigabytes belong. A `readRange` on a
101
+ `VideoTrack` would be a capability with no consumer, inviting reads of a size
102
+ this path is not built for;
103
+ - tracks cross the worker boundary as PLAIN OBJECTS (`plainTrack()`), because a
104
+ class instance does not survive it as a class. A back-reference to a container
105
+ cannot cross either, so such a track would be able to read its own bytes only
106
+ on the thread where the container is already at hand.
107
+
108
+ **That split is closed.** `SubtitleTrack` carries `clusterPositions` and
109
+ `samples` — byte POSITIONS — and the reading of those positions is the
110
+ container's: `MatroskaContainer.readHeldCues` (over `container/matroska-clusters.js`)
111
+ and `Mp4Container.readHeldSamples`, beside `readTracks`, `readKeyframeIndex`,
112
+ `readMediaInfo` and `cueTextOf`.
113
+
114
+ The two readers want different read POLICIES over the same file: the track
115
+ table fetches what is missing from the swarm, while the cue walk reads only
116
+ what is already downloaded, so that turning subtitles on never pulls bytes the
117
+ viewer is not waiting for. **One container per file serves both**: it is built
118
+ with the fetching `readRange`, and the walk's reader of downloaded bytes — which
119
+ ranges are whole, a strict read of them, the portion, where viewers stand — is
120
+ handed to `readHeldCues` on every pass (`HeldReader`), because what is
121
+ downloaded changes between passes. The walk used to build a second container of
122
+ its own over the same file and read the head and the Cues table again, under a
123
+ different rule for a read that had not arrived.
124
+
125
+ What the container is NOT given is the torrent. `media/SubtitleCues.js` is
126
+ handed a `HeldFile` of plain functions by `server.js` and keeps only what is
127
+ genuinely its own: the found-order cursor a browser follows, the per-file
128
+ state, one walk of a file at a time, and taking back the cues of a cluster the
129
+ container withdraws.
130
+
131
+ ## Where a cluster is, when the Cues table does not say
132
+
133
+ RFC 9559 §22.1 only recommends that each subtitle frame be referenced by the
134
+ Cues table, and a file may have none. `container/matroska-clusters.js` finds
135
+ clusters from the downloaded bytes: positions the file establishes (the first
136
+ cluster, every `CueClusterPosition` of every track), a chain of top-level
137
+ elements from each established one, and — only where the file has no Cues — a
138
+ search for the Cluster id. What the search finds is a candidate; it is used only
139
+ once every child is one §5.1.3 allows, exactly one Timestamp is present, the
140
+ children fill it exactly, every block names a declared track, and any CRC-32 or
141
+ PrevSize matches. A candidate that an established cluster turns out to contain
142
+ is withdrawn with its cues, and the browser removes them by number. The cluster
143
+ a viewer stands in is read first, then the one before it, and pushed at once.
144
+
145
+ The walk reads a cluster's STRUCTURE — every child's header and the first bytes
146
+ of each block, which name its track — and a subtitle block's data by its own
147
+ size. It never moves a picture's frames into the main thread: measured on the
148
+ addon host 2026-10-01, reading clusters a portion at a time moved every frame
149
+ of the film across the thread boundary, and the collector then took three times
150
+ as long as the walk. Each read also hands the loop back before the walk goes on,
151
+ because the torrent thread replies faster than the message port empties. The
152
+ search decides each candidate as it finds it; one accepted is followed by its
153
+ chain, and the search resumes where the chain ends, so a file whose clusters
154
+ follow one another is searched only up to the first cluster after each gap.
155
+
156
+ ## Layers
157
+
158
+ ```mermaid
159
+ flowchart TB
160
+ subgraph Domain
161
+ C[Container<br/>abstract<br/>RFC9559 / 14496-12]
162
+ MC[MatroskaContainer]
163
+ MpC[Mp4Container]
164
+ AC[AviContainer]
165
+ CT[ContainerTrack<br/>isEnabled/isDefault/language]
166
+ VT[VideoTrack]
167
+ AT[AudioTrack]
168
+ ST[SubtitleTrack]
169
+ TST[TextSubtitleTrack<br/>S_TEXT/UTF8 tx3g wvtt]
170
+ IST[ImageSubtitleTrack<br/>PGS VobSub subp]
171
+ C --> MC & MpC & AC
172
+ CT --> VT & AT & ST
173
+ ST --> TST & IST
174
+ MC & MpC & AC -- readTracks --> CT
175
+ end
176
+ subgraph Application
177
+ CF[ContainerFactory<br/>detect 16 bytes]
178
+ KT[KeyframeTables<br/>one read per file, bounded wait]
179
+ CO[ContainerOrchestrator<br/>cache + getTracks/getKeyframeIndex]
180
+ SO[SubtitleOrchestrator<br/>cursor + per-file state]
181
+ SF[sidecar-files.js<br/>which file goes with which]
182
+ AI[audio-inventory.js<br/>one flat numbering]
183
+ CF --> CO
184
+ CO --> KT
185
+ CO --> SO
186
+ SF --> AI
187
+ CO --> AI
188
+ end
189
+ subgraph Interface
190
+ PC[PlaybackController]
191
+ SC[SubtitleController]
192
+ R1[routes/api/playback-plan]
193
+ R2[routes/api/subtitles]
194
+ PC --> R1
195
+ SC --> R2
196
+ CO --> PC
197
+ SO --> SC
198
+ end
199
+ ```
200
+
201
+ ## Class responsibilities (spec-grounded)
202
+
203
+ | Class | Spec section | Fields | Not responsible |
204
+ |---|---|---|---|
205
+ | `ContainerTrack` | RFC9559 TrackEntry common + ISO 14496-12 tkhd/mdhd/hdlr/elng | `trackNumber`, `declaredIndex`, `codecId`, `language`/`languageBcp47` (MUST rule), `name`, `isEnabled` (0xB9 / track_enabled), `isDefault`+`declaresDefault` (0x88) | Type-specific flags |
206
+ | `VideoTrack` | RFC9559 Video, ISO 14496-12 tkhd width/height, stsd | `width/height/display*`, `fps`, `isHdr`, `bitDepth` | Subtitle flags |
207
+ | `AudioTrack` | RFC9559 FlagOriginal 0x55AE, FlagCommentary 0x55AF, FlagVisualImpaired 0x55AC | `isOriginal/isCommentary/isVisualImpaired`, `channels/samplingFrequency` | FlagForced |
208
+ | `SubtitleTrack` | RFC9559 FlagForced 0x55AA (subtitle-only), FlagHearingImpaired 0x55AB | `isForced/isHearingImpaired`, `clusterPositions`/`samples` | Video dims |
209
+ | `TextSubtitleTrack` | `S_TEXT/UTF8, S_TEXT/ASS, tx3g, wvtt` | `toVtt()` convertible | Image tracks |
210
+ | `sidecar-files.js` | — (torrent naming) | which files of a torrent are one picture's sound and subtitles | what is inside them |
211
+ | `audio-inventory.js` | RFC9559 audio flags, merged against ffmpeg's numbering | one flat number per soundtrack → `(fileIndex, 0:a:N)` | display labels |
212
+ | `ImageSubtitleTrack` | `S_HDMV/PGS, S_VOBSUB, subp, clcp` | kept for `declaredIndex` alignment | Conversion |
213
+ | `MatroskaContainer` | RFC9559 SeekHead, Tracks, Cues, Clusters | single Tracks walk for all types, EBML via `ebml-reader.js` | HTTP |
214
+ | `Mp4Container` | ISO 14496-12 moov/trak/tkhd/mdhd/hdlr/elng/stbl | `alternate_group` grouping, packed language, `tx3g` forced bits | Torrent |
215
+ | `AviContainer` | RIFF AVI idx1 | `AVIIF_KEYFRAME` keyframe times | Tracks beyond video |
216
+
217
+ `VideoTrack` never carries `isForced` — spec states FlagForced "Applies only to subtitles". Placing it in base would pollute video with irrelevant state.
218
+
219
+ ## Orchestrators & Controllers
220
+
221
+ - `ContainerFactory.create({readRange,fileSize})` — sniffs 16 bytes, returns precise `Container` subclass. No torrent knowledge.
222
+ - `ContainerOrchestrator` — per-file cache (`sourceKey:fileIndex`), `getTracks()` / `getMediaInfo()` / `getKeyframeIndex()`. Transport-agnostic.
223
+ - **The keyframe table is read once per file, and the container is not what remembers it.** `Container.readKeyframeIndex` parses and returns; each format implements `parseKeyframeIndex`. It used to keep the answer, and that made this the one fact stored in two places — here and in the file's `KeyframeTable` on the main thread. That copy had no reader, and since the parse itself moved to the main thread there is no second thread for a second copy to sit in.
224
+ - **`KeyframeTable` / `KeyframeTables` — the answer, and the policy around getting one.** The table is one object per file (`media/container/KeyframeTable.js`), held by everyone who reads that file rather than copied, so a read that lands after a session was made still reaches it. `media/KeyframeTables.js` reads it once per file whoever asks, joins the second asker to the read already running, bounds how long any one caller waits (`KEYFRAME_TABLE_BUDGET_MS`, measured), and never records a read that threw as an answer. Its reader is one function handed in at construction, so it knows nothing of torrents or HTTP. It is not `ContainerOrchestrator`: both live on the main thread, but that one keeps the file's container — which keeps its own Cues reading — and this keeps the answer the sessions hold and the wait around it. A read that has not arrived rejects with `BytesUnavailable` and is read again when pieces of the file arrive (`readAgainIfUnanswered`).
225
+ - **`answered` and `readable` are different questions.** `answered` says a reader came back; `readable` says it came back with times. A file that answered nothing must be re-encoded for ever (MPEG-TS: 669 real keyframes, no index of any kind); a file that has not answered is a shortage of bytes off the swarm. Held as loose fields in a bag of probe results nothing told them apart, and a passing shortage was written onto the file as a property of the bytes.
226
+ - **The second reader is the packet probe** (`media/keyframe-probe.js`): it finds keyframes by decoding, for containers that state no index. It is never waited for, and `KeyframeTable.learn` keeps the fuller answer whichever arrives second — measured 2026-08-02, a scan found 77 keyframes in 45 s without finishing against all 570 in 0.8 s from the index.
227
+ - `SubtitleOrchestrator` — wraps `media/SubtitleCues.js` (`cuesHeldFor`, `warmSubtitleCues`, `subtitleTracksOf`) behind the `ContainerTrack` abstraction, handed in by `server.js`. Routes depend on this. The reading itself is the file's one container's; `SubtitleCues` keeps the cursor and the per-file state.
228
+ - `PlaybackController` / `SubtitleController` — thin interface adapters; `routes/api/*` delegate to them, handle HTTP headers (`X-Subtitle-Language`, `X-Subtitle-Cursor`) only.
229
+
230
+ ## Legacy
231
+
232
+ Everything a container states about ITSELF is in its own class: the track table,
233
+ the Cues, the keyframe times they name, the cluster positions, the blocks inside
234
+ a cluster, the MP4 sample table. `services/container-index/` no longer exists.
235
+ What was kept apart is `container/ebml-reader.js` — EBML element walking is the
236
+ format's grammar rather than any of its statements.
237
+
238
+ `ContainerFactory` is the one place that decides what a file IS. It sniffs the
239
+ header, because that is what the muxer wrote while a name is what somebody
240
+ typed, and it answers `readKeyframeIndex` for the same reason: doing it anywhere
241
+ else meant a third place making that decision. `ContainerFactory.byName` exists
242
+ for the one path that cannot sniff — the cue walk asks the swarm for nothing, so
243
+ a file whose head is not downloaded has only its name.
244
+
245
+ **Two readings of one file, and which answers.** ffmpeg's `-i` banner and the
246
+ container's own table both describe a file's tracks, and the rule is stated once
247
+ per media kind on `Container`. `alignWithBanner` lines them up by position and
248
+ CHECKS each pair on language or title; one pair agreeing on neither, or a length
249
+ that differs, drops the container reading whole, because a wrong flag is worse
250
+ than a missing one. `mergeSubtitleFlags`, `mergeAudioFlags` and
251
+ `mergeVideoFacts` then say which side answers for which field: flags the banner
252
+ cannot express come from the container; the coded size and frame rate come from
253
+ the probe, because the encoder receives what the decoder produced.
254
+
255
+ Direct imports from routes are deprecated — use `orchestrators/` and
256
+ `server/controllers/` instead.
257
+
258
+ ## Flags matrix
259
+
260
+ | Flag | Matroska ID | Applies to | Base or subclass |
261
+ |---|---|---|---|
262
+ | `FlagEnabled` | 0xB9 default 1 | all | `ContainerTrack` |
263
+ | `FlagDefault` | 0x88 default 1 | all | `ContainerTrack` (`declaresDefault`) |
264
+ | `Language` | 0x22B59C | all | `ContainerTrack` |
265
+ | `LanguageBCP47` | 0x22B59D MUST | all | `ContainerTrack` |
266
+ | `FlagForced` | 0x55AA | subtitle only | `SubtitleTrack` |
267
+ | `FlagHearingImpaired` | 0x55AB | subtitle | `SubtitleTrack` |
268
+ | `FlagVisualImpaired` | 0x55AC | audio (descriptive) + subtitle | `AudioTrack`/`SubtitleTrack` |
269
+ | `FlagOriginal` | 0x55AE | audio | `AudioTrack` |
270
+ | `FlagCommentary` | 0x55AF | audio | `AudioTrack` |
271
+ | `track_enabled` | tkhd 0x000001 | all | `ContainerTrack` |
272
+ | `alternate_group` | tkhd | audio/video alternates | `ContainerTrack.alternateGroup` |
273
+ | `elng` | 14496-12 §8.4.6 | all | `ContainerTrack.languageBcp47` |
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ stateDiagram-v2
69
69
  ## What each state answers
70
70
 
71
71
  Outputs depend on the state alone — computed here by calling the same
72
- functions the encoding component (`EncodeRuns`) calls.
72
+ functions the session manager calls.
73
73
 
74
74
  | state | reads its input | can be signalled | a missing segment | on the wire | may restart |
75
75
  |---|---|---|---|---|---|