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.

• 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 generates configurable short samples spread across the source, with frame-aligned source/encode comparisons 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

# 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/

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

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).

For each file, the engine runs:

1. Probe - Extract media information such as resolution, audio layout, frame rate, subtitle tracks, and HDR metadata.
2. Prepare - Extract the primary video stream, run the configured VapourSynth passes, and apply the FFmpeg crop/downscale/denoise/deband chain.
3. Auto-Boost-Essential - Run scene analysis, quality metrics, CRF-zone generation, and the final AV1 encode.
4. Audio - Sort, filter, deduplicate, and encode selected audio tracks to Opus through a FLAC pipe, or copy them when configured.
5. Subtitles and fonts
   • Sort, filter, deduplicate, and rename subtitle tracks.
   • Optionally convert SRT subtitles to ASS.
   • Restyle dialogue-classified ASS styles without changing signs, songs, or other untouched styles.
   • Resolve language/script-specific font faces.
   • Instance selected variable-font axes into static font files.
   • Remove unused source font attachments when enabled.
   • Preserve source fonts still referenced by surviving untouched styles or inline \fn overrides.
   • Use numbered aliases such as Noto Sans 2 only when a retained source font already occupies the requested family name.
6. Mux - Merge video, audio, subtitles, chapters, fonts, and metadata into the final MKV.
7. HDR - Apply HDR10 metadata with mkvpropedit when required.

Preview encoding creates configurable samples distributed across the source so source and encoded results can be compared before running the full job.

Each sample starts from an exact, lossless FFV1 video window rather than a stream-copied GOP fragment. This prevents keyframe preroll and timestamp offsets from causing source and encoded comparison images to land on different frames. The default is 6 samples, and both the sample count and duration can be changed through the dashboard or preview API.

Intermediate VapourSynth and prepare-filter stills are also exposed when those stages are active.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 parameter map, letting you switch intensity without losing your tweaks at other levels. The active chain and its resolved parameters are stored in the output MKV's versioned SETTINGS code (for example, RE1|...) so the configuration can be reproduced later.

Subtitles are styled per font group. A group is a folder under the user fonts directory (/config/fonts) containing one or more font files plus an optional metadata.json. A single group can supply different faces for different writing systems. For example a Latin-only face like Trebuchet MS together with a CJK face like Noto Sans JP - so one group can cover scripts no single font does.

Noto Sans and Noto Serif ship with Rabbit Encoder and are seeded into /config/fonts on first start if they are not already present, so they are editable in place.

{
	"label": "Anime old",
	"faces": {
		"trebuchet.ttf": { "keys": ["latin"] },
		"noto_jp.ttf": { "keys": ["japanese", "jpn"] },
	},
	"style": {
		// group-global appearance (1080p px)
		"fontSize": 80,
		"outline": 4,
		"shadow": 1.5,
		"marginV": 50,
		"marginL": 135,
		"marginR": 135,
		"alignment": 2,
		"bold": false,
		"primaryColour": "&H00FFFFFF",
		"outlineColour": "&H00000000",
		"backColour": "&H80000000",
	},
	"overrides": {
		"jpn": { "fontSize": 72, "marginV": 60, "fontAxes": { "wght": 600 } },
		"japanese": { "fontSize": 74 },
		"latin": { "fontAxes": {} },
	},
}

For each subtitle track, the face and the appearance are both resolved by the track's language tag and the detected writing system, in this order:

1. a keys/overrides entry matching the language code (e.g. jpn, de),
2. then the writing system (e.g. latin, japanese, cjk),
3. then the group-global style,
4. then the built-in defaults.

The family name written into the ASS is taken from the resolved face, so style/overrides only carry appearance (size, outline, shadow, margins, colours, alignment, bold, and variable-font axes). Because axes are face-specific, they belong in the per-key override for that face (a static Latin face has none; a variable CJK face can pin wght).

You can edit a group's style from the dashboard ("Font group & style…"), choosing a scope of "Group global" or a specific script/language; saving writes back to the group's metadata.json. Click Reload fonts (or POST /api/fonts/reload) after hand-editing files on disk.

Variable-font axes are instanced into static fonts before attachment. When a retained source font already uses the selected internal family name, Rabbit Encoder picks the first free numbered alias (Noto Sans → Noto Sans 2 → Noto Sans 3), written consistently into the static font's internal metadata and the ASS styles it rewrites. The attachment filename is slugified (Noto Sans 2 -> noto_sans_2.ttf); the internal family name keeps its spaces, so rendering is unaffected.

With Remove unused fonts enabled, source attachments are kept only when surviving untouched ASS styles or inline \fn overrides still reference them.

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.

Each encoded file includes a SETTINGS tag. This is a compact, versioned string that records the exact resolved settings used for the encode, such as RE1|c~q=h,ds=1|dn~m=m,s=4.5,p=5,r=13.

The settings code stores the actual underlying values, including every nlmeans and gradfun parameter, each active VapourSynth filter in chain order, and all related filter parameters. This makes it possible to reproduce a setup even if presets have changed since the original encode.

To restore settings from a code, paste it into the Settings Code field in either the Default Settings panel or the per-job settings panel. Codes are portable across machines because GPU-specific choices, such as the denoise backend and GPU device, are intentionally left out. This prevents an imported code from overwriting the target machine’s hardware configuration.

The format is versioned with an RE<n> prefix, so older codes continue to work as the format evolves. Fields that match the shipped baseline are omitted, which means a stock-default configuration is represented simply as RE1.

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

GPL-3.0