Rabbit Encoder

Automated AV1 video transcoding pipeline powered by Auto-Boost-Essential and Opus audio encoding, with a real-time web dashboard.

Drop media files into the input folder and get optimally encoded MKV files in the output folder, or browse your media library directly from the dashboard and encode entire series in-place.

Features

• Auto-Boost-Essential integration for optimal per-scene CRF zones
• Opus audio encoding with configurable per-channel bitrates
• HDR10 metadata preservation (PQ, BT.2020, mastering display, content light)
• VapourSynth filter chain stackable per-job filters (FineDehalo, DehaloAlpha...) with light / medium / heavy presets, full per-parameter overrides, and a hot-reloadable user preset directory for dropping in your own .vpy scripts
• Web dashboard for monitoring progress and configuring per-file settings
• File watcher auto-detects new files in the input directory
• Queue system processes files sequentially, with drag-and-drop reordering and pause/resume
• Preview encoding generate 6 short comparison clips spread across the source so you can A/B source vs encode before committing the full job
• Library encoding browse mounted media folders from the UI and encode in-place, replacing source files
• Jellyfin / Sonarr integration automatically cleans up .nfo and thumbnail files when replacing sources so metadata is regenerated
• Smart skip already-encoded files (detected by -{ORGANIZATION} suffix) are recognized and skipped

Quick Start

# 1. Configure settings in docker-compose.yml (or use defaults)

# 2. deploy container
docker compose up -d

# 3. Open the dashboard (http://localhost:3000)

# 4. Drop files into the input folder
cp movie.mkv input/

Configuration

Settings are configurable via environment variables in docker-compose.yml:

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	3000	Web dashboard port
PASSWORD	rabbitencoder	Password to access web dashboard
FILE_COOLDOWN	30	Seconds the file size must stay unchanged before encoding starts
ORGANIZATION	RabbitCompany	Tag appended to encoded filenames (e.g. -RabbitCompany).

If ORGANIZATION is set to RabbitCompany (the default), then any file ending with -RabbitCompany.mkv is treated as already encoded and will be:

• Shown with a green encoded badge and dimmed in the library browser
• Completely skipped when you click Encode Folder

This means you can safely run Encode Folder on the same series multiple times (only new or unencoded files will be queued).

Encoding Pipeline

For each file, the engine runs:

1. Probe - Extract media info (resolution, audio layout, HDR metadata)
2. Prepare - Extract the best video stream into a clean container, then run any configured VapourSynth filter chain (each enabled filter is piped through vspipe -> FFmpeg as its own pass, before the FFmpeg filter chain)
3. Auto-Boost-Essential - 4-stage video encoding:
   • Fast pass for scene analysis
   • Quality metric calculation (XPSNR)
   • Optimal CRF zone generation
   • Final encode with per-scene CRF adjustments
4. Audio - Encode audio tracks to Opus via FLAC pipe
5. Mux - Merge video + audio into MKV with metadata tags
6. HDR - Apply HDR10 metadata via mkvpropedit (if source is HDR)

VapourSynth Filters

Rabbit Encoder ships with a VapourSynth filter system that lets you stack arbitrary preprocessing passes in front of the main encode. Each filter runs as its own vspipe pass.

Stock presets

Built-in presets live under /app/vapoursynth/presets inside the container and are namespaced as stock:<id>:

Preset ID	Name	Description
stock:finedehalo	FineDehalo	Reduces dark/bright halos around high-contrast edges. Best for anime and DVD upscales.
stock:dehalo_alpha	Dehalo Alpha	Classic halo reduction via vs-jetpack's dehalo_alpha.
stock:f3k_deband	F3K Deband	Removes color banding in smooth gradients while preserving detail. Wraps vszip.Deband (modern f3kdb successor) and can re-grain after debanding.

Every preset declares its own levels (typically light, medium, heavy) and a set of tunable parameters. You can pick a level per job and override individual params per-level in the dashboard's Advanced Settings -> VapourSynth Filters panel.

User custom presets

To add your own filter, drop a matching pair of files into the host-mounted user directory (./vapoursynth-user/presets by default, exposed inside the container at /config/vapoursynth/presets):

myfilter.vpy    # the VapourSynth script
myfilter.json   # the manifest (id, levels, params, defaults)

Both files must share the same stem. The .vpy script reads its input path from the SRC argument and any tunable parameter via rabbit_vs.arg_int / arg_float / arg_str / arg_bool. See Examples.

User presets are namespaced as user:<id> and override nothing (stock and user presets coexist). After editing or adding presets, click Reload presets in the Advanced Settings panel (or POST /api/vs-presets/reload); no container restart is required.

Per-job behavior

The VapourSynth chain is stored per job, so different files in the same queue can use different filter stacks. Each entry has a level (or "off" to disable without removing it from the chain) and a per-level param map, letting you switch intensity without losing your tweaks at other levels. The active chain is also baked into the output MKV's SETTINGS tag (e.g. VS finedehalo/medium+dehalo_alpha/light) for traceability.

Output Naming

Files are named following the pattern:

{Title} [Source-Resolution][Opus Layout][AV1]-{ORGANIZATION}.mkv

For example:

Blue Exorcist (2011) - S01E01 - The Devil Resides in Human Souls [Bluray-1080p][Opus 2.0][AV1]-RabbitCompany.mkv

Source tags are detected from the input filename: Bluray, WEBDL, WEBRip, HDTV, DVD, SDTV, CAM. Files with REMUX in the name are tagged as Bluray.

Supported Input Formats

.mp4, .mkv, .avi, .webm, .flv, .ts, .mov

API Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/jobs	List all jobs
GET	/api/jobs/:id	Get job details
PATCH	/api/jobs/:id	Update job settings (queued only)
DELETE	/api/jobs/:id	Remove a job
POST	/api/jobs/:id/retry	Retry a failed job
POST	/api/jobs/:id/cancel	Cancel an actively encoding job
POST	/api/jobs/:id/move	Move a queued job in the queue (direction: up, down, top, bottom)
POST	/api/jobs/reorder	Set the entire queue order from a JSON { ids: [...] } body
GET	/api/jobs/:id/audio-preview	Preview audio reorder/filter/dedup for a job
GET	/api/jobs/:id/subtitle-preview	Preview subtitle reorder/rename for a job
GET	/api/jobs/:id/mediainfo	Run mediainfo on the source file and return the report
GET	/api/jobs/:id/preview	Get preview-encode state for a job (idle, running, or completed samples)
POST	/api/jobs/:id/preview	Start a preview encode (6 short comparison clips spread across the source)
DELETE	/api/jobs/:id/preview	Cancel a running preview, or clear completed preview artifacts
GET	/api/jobs/:id/preview/sample/:index/:kind	Fetch a preview artifact. kind: source / encode (PNG) or clip (MKV)
GET	/api/config	Get default settings
PATCH	/api/config	Update default settings
POST	/api/config/reset	Reset default settings
GET	/api/library	List configured library root directories
GET	/api/library/browse	Browse a library folder (?path=/data/library/Animes)
POST	/api/library/encode	Queue all videos in a folder for in-place encoding
GET	/api/queue	Get queue state (paused or running)
POST	/api/queue/pause	Pause encoding - stops current encode, preserves queue
POST	/api/queue/resume	Resume encoding from where it was paused
GET	/api/opencl-devices	List available OpenCL devices
GET	/api/vulkan-devices	List available Vulkan devices
GET	/api/benchmark	Get current benchmark state
POST	/api/benchmark	Start a denoise benchmark run
DELETE	/api/benchmark	Cancel a running benchmark
GET	/api/vs-presets	List all VapourSynth presets (stock + user) with their manifests
POST	/api/vs-presets/reload	Rescan stock and user preset directories from disk and reload the registry
GET	/api/vs-presets/:id/default-entry	Build a fresh filter-chain entry for :id, pre-filled with manifest defaults

All API endpoints require authentication via Authorization: Bearer <token> header, where the token is the BLAKE2b-512 hash of rabbitencoder-{PASSWORD}.

License

GPL-3.0