arthur/clips/extraction.py
Olive Vaughn 83d106bbc5 Measure the video, not a PNG per frame
Detection now walks a browser-seekable H.264 proxy in MediaPipe's VIDEO
running mode. The PNG sequence it replaces was 112MB for 7.6 seconds at
1440x1920 and 1.1GB at the 900-frame limit; the proxy is 6MB, and landmarks
detected off decoded H.264 rather than off the PNGs moved at most 0.0033 of
frame width.

Three things had to be true for video mode to work, and each was measured
against the same footage decoded to PNGs:

/blob/<digest> answers byte ranges. Django's FileResponse does no Range
handling, and a media element handed 200 with no Accept-Ranges reports an
empty `seekable`, no-ops every currentTime write, and detects frame one
ninety times without raising.

A seek aims at the MIDDLE of its frame. Aiming at i/fps sits on a frame
boundary and landed one frame early 31 times in 91; (i + 0.5)/fps was exact
on all 91.

Timestamps are strictly increasing footage milliseconds. Video mode is a
tracker: a repeat leaves the graph in an error state every later call
re-throws, so the landmarker is discarded on failure, and passing the frame
index instead of i*1000/fps moved landmarks six times further from the
per-frame answer.

Frames are verified rather than trusted. requestVideoFrameCallback states
which frame it handed over, the walker discards any other and fails loudly
if the one it asked for never arrives — a stale presentation from the tail
of a previous seek is what produced "asked for frame 1 and it presented
frame 2" on a video whose seeks were in fact exact.

The proxy is re-encoded even when the upload is already H.264: HEVC is not
decodable everywhere, and footage identity is the proxy's digest. The JPEG
stills beside it are tracing references, outside the footage digest because
re-rendering them at another size is not different footage.

Verified end to end in a real browser against real footage: 228/228 frames
detected, a drawn roto face, 37 backend and 234 frontend tests green.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-28 11:32:01 -04:00

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"""Upload a video once, then turn it into the two things the app actually reads.
WHAT CHANGED AND WHY. This used to decode one PNG per source frame and store every
one of them. A 7.6-second 1440x1920 take is 112MB that way, and the 900-frame limit
is 1.1GB — for pixels whose only consumer was a canvas that MediaPipe then read
once. The page now detects from the video itself (see `frontend/src/arthur/flow/
ingest.cljs`), so this produces:
THE PROXY. One browser-safe H.264/yuv420p MP4, CFR, `+faststart`. The same take
is 6MB. This is the analysis source, and it is re-encoded RATHER THAN KEPT AS
UPLOADED even when the upload is already H.264, for two reasons that are both
about not guessing: an iPhone's HEVC is not decodable in every browser, and the
footage's identity is the digest of this file — one produced by one ffmpeg
invocation, not one that depends on which branch the source happened to take.
THE TRACING STILLS. One JPEG per frame, long edge capped, for the tracing editor
to draw over. Reference images; nothing measures them. They are not in the
footage digest — see `models.Footage`.
The proxy is probed after it is written rather than before. `width`, `height` and
`frames` are properties of the file the browser will decode, and taking them from
the source instead is how a scaler or a dropped frame becomes a silent one-frame
offset between the landmarks and the audio.
"""
import hashlib
import json
import subprocess
import tempfile
import threading
import time
from fractions import Fraction
from pathlib import Path
from django.db import close_old_connections, transaction
from . import blobs
from .models import Blob, Extraction, Footage, FootageFrame
_active = set()
_lock = threading.Lock()
TIMEOUT = 3600
# Visually lossless enough that landmarks do not move: measured against the same
# frames as PNGs, IMAGE-mode landmarks shifted at most 0.0033 of frame width.
PROXY_CRF = "18"
# The long edge of a tracing still. The proxy keeps full resolution because the
# detector reads it; a still only has to be good enough to draw a cel over.
TRACING_EDGE = 1280
TRACING_QUALITY = "4"
def _command(args):
result = subprocess.run(args, capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=TIMEOUT)
if result.returncode:
raise ValueError((result.stderr or result.stdout or "media tool failed")[-1200:])
return result.stdout
def _run_with_progress(job, args, root, name, total, span):
"""Run one ffmpeg and publish its live frame count as `span` of the job.
ffmpeg's `-progress` file is the only honest source for this: parsing its
stderr means parsing a format that is explicitly not an interface, and a
spinner that is not attached to frames is a spinner that lies on a long take.
"""
progress_path = root / f"{name}.progress"
log_path = root / f"{name}.log"
first, last = span
args = ["ffmpeg", "-hide_banner", "-loglevel", "error", "-y",
"-stats_period", "0.25", "-progress", str(progress_path)] + args
with open(log_path, "wb") as log:
proc = subprocess.Popen(args, stdout=log, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
deadline = time.monotonic() + TIMEOUT
try:
while proc.poll() is None:
if time.monotonic() >= deadline:
raise TimeoutError(f"{name} timed out")
if progress_path.exists():
lines = progress_path.read_text(errors="replace").splitlines()
count = next((int(line[6:].strip()) for line in reversed(lines)
if line.startswith("frame=") and
line[6:].strip().isdigit()), 0)
if count and total:
reached = first + int((last - first) * min(1.0, count / total))
if reached > job.progress:
job.progress = reached
job.save(update_fields=["progress", "updated"])
time.sleep(0.2)
finally:
if proc.poll() is None:
proc.kill()
proc.wait()
if proc.returncode:
raise ValueError(log_path.read_text(errors="replace")[-1200:] or f"{name} failed")
def _encode_proxy(job, source_path, proxy_path, facts, root):
"""The uploaded video -> one H.264 file every browser can decode and seek."""
total = facts.get("reported_frames") or round(facts["duration"] * facts["fps"])
_run_with_progress(
job,
["-i", str(source_path), "-an",
# Constant frame rate at the source's own rate. `probe` has already
# refused VFR, so this asserts that rather than resampling.
"-fps_mode", "cfr", "-r", str(facts["fps"]),
"-c:v", "libx264", "-preset", "veryfast", "-crf", PROXY_CRF,
# yuv420p and an even frame size are what makes this playable everywhere
# rather than only in the browser that happened to be tested.
"-pix_fmt", "yuv420p", "-vf", "scale=trunc(iw/2)*2:trunc(ih/2)*2",
"-movflags", "+faststart", str(proxy_path)],
root, "proxy", total, (0, 55))
def _extract_stills(job, proxy_path, frames_dir, frames, root):
"""The proxy -> one tracing JPEG per frame, long edge capped."""
_run_with_progress(
job,
["-i", str(proxy_path), "-fps_mode", "passthrough",
"-vf", f"scale='if(gt(iw,ih),min({TRACING_EDGE},iw),-2)':"
f"'if(gt(iw,ih),-2,min({TRACING_EDGE},ih))'",
"-q:v", TRACING_QUALITY, str(frames_dir / "%04d.jpg")],
root, "stills", frames, (55, 85))
def probe(path):
data = json.loads(_command(["ffprobe", "-v", "error", "-show_streams",
"-show_format", "-of", "json", str(path)]))
video = next((s for s in data.get("streams", []) if s.get("codec_type") == "video"), None)
if not video:
raise ValueError("the uploaded file has no video stream")
nominal = Fraction(video.get("r_frame_rate") or "0")
average = Fraction(video.get("avg_frame_rate") or "0")
if nominal <= 0 or average <= 0:
raise ValueError("the video's frame rate is unknown")
vfr = abs(float(nominal / average) - 1) > 0.001
if vfr:
raise ValueError("variable-frame-rate video needs timestamp-aware playback")
frames = video.get("nb_frames")
duration = float(data.get("format", {}).get("duration") or 0)
if ((frames and frames.isdigit() and int(frames) > 900)
or (duration > 0 and duration * float(average) > 901)):
raise ValueError("video is longer than the 900-frame footage limit")
return {"fps": float(average), "nominal_fps": float(nominal),
"width": int(video["width"]), "height": int(video["height"]),
"duration": duration,
"reported_frames": int(frames) if frames and frames.isdigit() else None,
"has_audio": any(s.get("codec_type") == "audio" for s in data.get("streams", [])),
"vfr": False}
def count_frames(path):
"""How many frames a file really holds, counted rather than reported.
`nb_frames` is a container's claim. This is the decoder's answer, and it is
what the page will get when it walks the proxy — so a disagreement between the
two has to be settled before the count reaches a manifest, not after it has
become a one-frame audio offset nobody can find.
"""
text = _command(["ffprobe", "-v", "error", "-select_streams", "v:0",
"-count_frames", "-show_entries", "stream=nb_read_frames",
"-of", "default=nokey=1:noprint_wrappers=1", str(path)])
counted = text.strip()
if not counted.isdigit():
raise ValueError("could not count the proxy's frames")
return int(counted)
def extraction_key(source, settings):
text = json.dumps({"scheme": 2, "source": source.blob_id, "settings": settings},
sort_keys=True, separators=(",", ":"))
return "sha256:" + hashlib.sha256(text.encode()).hexdigest()
def _register(job, proxy_path, stills, audio_path, facts):
proxy_digest, proxy_size = blobs.adopt(proxy_path)
audio_digest, audio_size = blobs.adopt(audio_path)
still_blobs = [(index, *blobs.adopt(path)) for index, path in enumerate(stills)]
width, height, fps, frames = facts["width"], facts["height"], facts["fps"], facts["frames"]
# The footage's own identity: the bytes the page will measure, the audio it
# will clock against, and the rate that ties them together. Scheme 2 — scheme
# 1 hashed a PNG per frame, and those footages name pixels this no longer has.
h = hashlib.sha256()
h.update(f"arthur-footage-2/{fps}/{frames}/{width}x{height}\n".encode())
h.update(proxy_digest.encode())
h.update(audio_digest.encode())
with transaction.atomic():
proxy_blob, _ = Blob.objects.get_or_create(
digest=proxy_digest, defaults={"size": proxy_size, "media_type": "video/mp4"})
audio_blob, _ = Blob.objects.get_or_create(
digest=audio_digest, defaults={"size": audio_size, "media_type": "audio/wav"})
footage, created = Footage.objects.get_or_create(
digest=h.hexdigest(),
defaults={"label": job.source.filename[:200], "source": job.source.filename[:200],
"fps": fps, "frames": frames, "width": width, "height": height,
"audio": audio_blob, "video": proxy_blob})
if created:
rows = []
for index, digest, size in still_blobs:
blob, _ = Blob.objects.get_or_create(
digest=digest, defaults={"size": size, "media_type": "image/jpeg"})
rows.append(FootageFrame(footage=footage, index=index, blob=blob))
FootageFrame.objects.bulk_create(rows)
return footage
def run(key):
close_old_connections()
try:
job = Extraction.objects.select_related("source", "source__blob").get(key=key)
job.state, job.progress, job.error = "running", 0, ""
job.save(update_fields=["state", "progress", "error", "updated"])
facts = job.source.probe
source_path = blobs.path_for(job.source.blob_id)
with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory(prefix="arthur-extract-") as directory:
root = Path(directory)
proxy_path = root / "proxy.mp4"
_encode_proxy(job, source_path, proxy_path, facts, root)
# Everything downstream describes the PROXY, not the upload.
proxy_facts = probe(proxy_path)
frames = count_frames(proxy_path)
if not 1 <= frames <= 900:
raise ValueError(f"the proxy holds {frames} frames; the limit is 1–900")
expected = facts.get("reported_frames")
if expected and frames != expected:
raise ValueError(
f"the proxy holds {frames} frames and the upload reports {expected}; "
"refusing footage whose picture and audio would drift")
proxy_facts["frames"] = frames
frames_dir = root / "stills"
frames_dir.mkdir()
_extract_stills(job, proxy_path, frames_dir, frames, root)
stills = sorted(frames_dir.glob("*.jpg"))
if len(stills) != frames:
raise ValueError(f"wrote {len(stills)} tracing stills for {frames} frames")
job.progress = 85
job.save(update_fields=["progress", "updated"])
audio_path = root / "audio.wav"
if facts["has_audio"]:
_command(["ffmpeg", "-hide_banner", "-loglevel", "error", "-y",
"-i", str(source_path), "-vn", "-ac", "1", "-ar", "44100",
str(audio_path)])
else:
_command(["ffmpeg", "-hide_banner", "-loglevel", "error", "-y",
"-f", "lavfi", "-i", "anullsrc=r=44100:cl=mono",
"-t", str(frames / proxy_facts["fps"]), "-c:a", "pcm_s16le",
str(audio_path)])
footage = _register(job, proxy_path, stills, audio_path, proxy_facts)
job.footage, job.state, job.progress = footage, "done", 100
job.save(update_fields=["footage", "state", "progress", "updated"])
except Exception as exc:
Extraction.objects.filter(key=key).update(state="failed", error=str(exc)[:2000])
finally:
with _lock:
_active.discard(key)
close_old_connections()
def enqueue(key):
with _lock:
if key in _active:
return
_active.add(key)
threading.Thread(target=run, args=(key,), daemon=True,
name=f"arthur-extract-{key[7:15]}").start()