Frame.io

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Build the video review tool I actually need instead of Frame.io — and be clear about which half you are giving up.

**The camera-to-cloud path and the editing-suite panels are not buildable.** They are hardware partnerships and plugins for closed applications. If footage arriving from set is why you pay, keep paying. If it is review and approval, that is entirely doable.

STACK
- Node 20+ with Fastify, server-rendered HTML with a little vanilla JS
- SQLite through better-sqlite3, WAL mode
- ffmpeg on a worker for proxies, hls.js for playback
- Object storage with a delivery network
- Caddy in front

THE DATA MODEL
- assets: id, project_id, name, source_path, duration_ms, status
- versions: id, asset_id, number, path, uploaded_at — **an upload is always a new version**
- renditions: id, version_id, height, path — the proxies
- comments: id, version_id, at_ms, out_ms, body, author, drawing_json, resolved_at
- decisions: id, version_id, reviewer, verdict, note, at — append-only

PROXIES, WHICH DECIDE WHETHER THIS IS USABLE
- Nobody reviews a 40GB master over a hotel connection. Transcode to a small ladder and serve HLS
- **Generate the proxy before the upload finishes if you can**, chunk by chunk. The wait between uploading and reviewing is where this kind of tool loses people
- A queue with a concurrency cap; ffmpeg will take every core you give it

COMMENTING, FRAME-ACCURATE OR NOT AT ALL
- Store the exact millisecond, and a range for a comment about a section
- **Snap to frame boundaries using the real frame rate.** 'At about 4:12' is what a comment in an email says, and the entire reason a tool like this exists is to be better than that
- Drawing over the frame, stored as shapes with the timestamp, never flattened into an image
- Keyboard: play, pause, step one frame, comment. An editor lives on the keyboard

VERSIONS
- Side-by-side playback of two versions, locked to the same timecode. That is what ends 'this note was never addressed'
- Comments stay attached to the version they were made on and carry forward marked as such

SHARING
- Token links with no account for clients, an expiry, and a download switch that is off by default
- **Watermark the reviewer's name into the picture for anything under embargo.** Unreleased footage leaks, and a burnt-in name is what makes somebody think twice

STORAGE, WHICH IS THE BILL
- Masters on cold storage, proxies on fast. Measure bytes stored and served per project
- A retention per project with a warning before anything is removed, never a silent deletion

WHAT MATTERS MOST
Fast proxies and frame-accurate comments. Without the first nobody reviews; without the second you have built email with a video player.