The screen-share viewer ran mpv with --profile=low-latency (hwdec off by
default) and then forced --hwdec=auto back on. On some drivers the HW H.264
decoder stalls mid-stream: a viewer receiving a software-x264 share froze on
the first frame while audio kept playing (one MPEG-TS byte stream, so bytes
were still flowing — the video decoder gave up, the audio decoder didn't).
Screen-share H.264 at these bitrates decodes trivially in software, so leave
hwdec at the low-latency default.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
X11 full-desktop capture used `ximagesrc use-damage=false`, which copies
the whole root window every frame. On servers without working MIT-SHM
(and CPU-bound everywhere else) this collapses to ~1 fps — a field test
over an xlibre host played back at roughly one frame per minute. Default
to `use-damage=true` (XDamage re-grabs only changed regions); keep
`PIXELPASS_X11_NO_DAMAGE=1` as an escape hatch for driver artifacts.
Also drop `--untimed` from both mpv invocations (viewer banner + the
interactive launcher). `--untimed` displays each frame as it decodes and
ignores audio timestamps, which drifts a shared *video* progressively
out of sync with its audio. Pacing to the audio clock keeps A/V synced
at a negligible latency cost.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A newer rustfmt wraps over-long match arms and call expressions that the
version main was last formatted with left on one line. Pure formatting,
no semantic change — split out so the friends-list feature commits stay
focused on real changes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`cargo clippy --fix`: drop needless borrows in interactive.rs, remove an
unneeded `return`, and derive `Default` for `HostState` / the config struct
instead of hand-writing it. No behaviour change.
README: the GUI host screen now lists connected viewers with a Kick button
and notifies on join/leave — update the description, which still mentioned
only a "live viewer count".
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add a host-global quality knob (Discord-style) so the sharer can trade
resolution + bitrate for upload bandwidth. Quality is host-global by
design: one encode pipeline fans out to every viewer, so per-viewer
quality is out of scope (it would kill the broadcast fanout).
- New `--quality source|high|medium|low|auto` (ValueEnum) bundling a
(max-height, bitrate, fps) tuple per preset; `auto` derives the preset
from the saved bandwidth pre-flight (safe_mbps / viewer cap), falling
back to `medium` when unmeasured. Default is auto; the interactive
Host branch shows a picker when --quality is omitted (mirrors pick_app).
- `--max-height N` raw override; `--bitrate`/`--framerate` changed to
Option so an explicit flag overrides just that field of the preset
(precedence rule), leaving the rest of the preset intact.
- host/quality.rs: Preset table + resolve(); pure resolve_auto() split
from the config read for testability. 5 unit tests lock preset
pass-through, the Auto ladder, the unmeasured fallback, and override
precedence.
- pipeline::build_args inserts `videoscale ! video/x-raw,height=N,
pixel-aspect-ratio=1/1,width=[2,8192,2]` only for non-Source presets.
PAR 1/1 forces a proportional downscale (without it videoscale keeps
full width and squashes PAR — no bandwidth win); the even-stepped width
range + even-rounded height satisfy H.264 4:2:0. EffectiveQuality is
threaded capture -> wayland/x11 -> pipeline; max_viewers is now sized
against the effective (post-preset) bitrate.
- Banner gains a quality line (preset label + ≤Np/kbps/fps + provenance).
- deps.rs checks `videoscale`; smoke-pipeline.sh adds a 1080->480
downscale check asserting an even width below source.
- README: --quality preset table, Auto behavior, host-global note,
--max-height/--bitrate/--framerate override precedence.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
When opts.app is set, a dedicated OS thread runs a libpipewire
MainLoop, subscribes to the registry, and writes target.object to
the "default" metadata so WirePlumber reroutes matching streams to
our per-PID null-sink. Activation is now opts.app.is_some() OR the
existing PIXELPASS_AUDIO_VIA_NULL_SINK env var (kept for
no-filter dogfooding).
Threading: tokio side spawns a std::thread; the two sides bridge via
pipewire::channel for cmd→thread (Shutdown) and tokio::sync::mpsc
for event→tokio (FirstRoutedStream). Cross-thread quit goes through
the libpipewire channel so MainLoop is only mutated from its own
thread. Shutdown clears target.object on every routed stream before
quitting so WirePlumber doesn't log orphans.
Routing decisions:
- Filter is case-insensitive equality on application.name (predictable;
no surprise matches from substring).
- target.object is written as Spa:Id with the sink's object.serial.
- Default-sink loopback stays loaded until the first stream is
actually routed — avoids viewer silence if the user picks an app
that isn't producing sound yet. On first route, the event task
takes() the loopback module ID and unloads it.
Session 2 picker explainer + (app pick saved: ...) banner softening
both removed; banner is back to plain app-audio=NAME.
Verified end-to-end cross-machine: desktop host with Strawberry
selected, laptop viewer over mpv. Strawberry audible on the laptop;
YouTube playback started on the desktop was NOT audible on the
laptop. Routing isolates the filtered app.
Session 4 still open: recreate loopback when the last filtered stream
disappears (avoid silence), handle app-disappears-mid-session,
multi-instance, --repair coupling for orphan sink cleanup.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
list_playing_apps() shells out to `pactl -f json list sink-inputs`,
parses with serde_json, dedupes by application.name (BTreeMap for
stable ordering), returns Vec<App { name, stream_count }>.
Picker fires in interactive::run after preflight, before host::run.
Bypassed when --app NAME is on the CLI. Shows the apps with a
"per-app routing isn't live yet" explainer so users aren't surprised
that audio still captures system-wide. Empty-list path shows the
default + a "start your app first" hint so the feature stays
discoverable.
Banner softened to `system-audio (app pick saved: <name>)` when
opts.app is set — keeps the choice visible without lying about what
gets captured. Routing activation still gated on the
PIXELPASS_AUDIO_VIA_NULL_SINK env var (session 1's locked decision
#2); --app flips to that activation in session 3 once per-stream
filtering exists.
Verified end-to-end interactively: Strawberry shows up in the picker
during music playback, both default and app-pick paths advance into
the portal handshake, banner matches choice.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
First-run host launch now offers a one-time upstream measurement
against speed.cloudflare.com/__up via ureq (~5 MB POST, ~5s). The
result lives at ~/.config/pixelpass/config.toml under [bandwidth]
and feeds the default --max-viewers calculation on subsequent runs.
Sticky semantics for the dialog:
- Unmeasured: first-run prompt (Run / Skip)
- Measured / Skipped: silent — never re-prompts
- Failed: ask again on next launch (Retry / give up → Skipped)
`pixelpass --reconfigure` re-runs the test unconditionally for users
whose connection has changed (new ISP, moved house, etc.).
--max-viewers is now Option<u32>. When unset, host startup loads the
saved measurement, runs recommended_max_viewers(safe_mbps, bitrate),
and surfaces the source in the banner: "max viewers : N (auto: X.X
Mbps measured upstream)" — or user-specified / default fallback.
User verified end-to-end on 2026-05-21 16:54 EDT: first-run dialog,
skip path, run path, --reconfigure refresh, and banner integration
all work as expected.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The previous vlc-plugin-dvb diagnosis was incomplete. On a laptop with
only vlc-plugin-dvb installed, VLC reads the MPEG-TS container, sees
the H.264 stream type in the PMT, then errors "Codec h264 ... is not
supported" because libavcodec_plugin.so is also a split package and
also wasn't pulled in by the base `vlc` install.
Installing vlc-plugin-ffmpeg (which pulls ffmpeg4.4 as a compat dep)
on the laptop made VLC play pixelpass cleanly via Intel iHD hardware
decode.
- README: list both plugin packages under requirements; rewrite the
known-limitations line.
- interactive.rs: extend the launch-time check to also probe for
libavcodec_plugin.so; combine both into one warning that lists
every missing piece and the single pacman invocation to fix.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
VLC's MPEG-TS demuxer (libts_plugin.so) ships in a separate package on
Arch / CachyOS (vlc-plugin-dvb). Without it, VLC silently falls back
to the PS demuxer and misidentifies our H.264 stream — the symptom is
a green screen. mpv doesn't share this dependency.
- README: list vlc-plugin-dvb under requirements, replace the
"green screen, not yet diagnosed" gotcha with the diagnosis.
- interactive.rs: when the user picks VLC, check for
/usr/lib/vlc/plugins/demux/libts_plugin.so and print a warning to
stderr if it's missing. Soft warning, not a hard error — VLC still
spawns so the user can confirm the symptom for themselves.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Software H.264 decode at 1080p struggled on a low-power viewer (Intel
UHD 620 laptop on battery / power-save governor), surfacing as choppy
motion and A-V drift even though the host encode side was clean. mpv's
auto hwdec picks vaapi/nvdec/etc. when available and silently falls
back to software when not, so the default is strictly safer.
Applied to both the headless banner recipe and the interactive
player-picker spawn args.
Bare `pixelpass` now opens a dialoguer-driven Host/View menu instead of
going straight to host mode. Host path copies the ticket to the system
clipboard via arboard with silent print-only fallback. View path
prompts for the ticket, then after the local listener binds prompts
mpv-vs-VLC and spawns it detached (setsid + null stdio) so the player
survives pixelpass exiting.
Headless invocations (`pixelpass <ticket>`, `pixelpass --repair`)
unchanged. Per spec at ~/Documents/pixelpass-interactive-mode-spec.md.
mollusk