Dragonflight

Self-hosted broadcast media-asset management system that replaces legacy tools like Grass Valley AMPP and FramelightX. Handles live ingest, growing-file editing, scheduling, transcoding, and asset management in a single operator-focused interface.

Repo renamed from wild-dragon → dragonflight (2026-05-23). The old URL still redirects.

Home Dashboard

The home screen provides quick access to all major features and displays system status at a glance:

• Library — Browse projects, bins, and assets with hover-scrub previews
• Recorders — View configured capture devices and their status
• Editor — Timeline editor with cross-clip preview and render queue
• Jobs — Proxy and thumbnail queue with retry controls
• Settings — Configure storage, encoder, growing files, and capture SDK
• Dashboard — Operations view showing recent activity, job queue, and cluster health

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Core Features

1. Live Ingest & Capture

Multi-protocol source capture with per-recorder codec settings

Dragonflight ingests from multiple sources simultaneously:

• SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) — caller and listener modes
• RTMP — standard streaming protocol
• SDI — via Blackmagic DeckLink cards with FFmpeg SDK 16.x patches

Each recorder can be configured with independent codec settings:

• ProRes (hi-res masters)
• H.264 / H.265 (proxies)
• DNxHR (Avid compatibility)

Audio routing and per-source configuration ensure flexibility for multi-camera productions.

2. Growing-File Editing

Live editing in Premiere Pro while capture is still writing

Editors mount the SMB landing zone directly in Premiere Pro and edit the live master file as it's being written. The included CEP (Custom Extension Panel) provides:

• Real-time clip detection and frame-accurate trimming
• One-click relink to final S3 master after promotion
• No waiting for capture to finish before editorial begins

3. Recorder Scheduler

Time-windowed recording automation

Schedule recordings with:

• One-shot, daily, or weekly recurrence
• Automatic start/stop via 15-second tick loop
• Conflict detection across recorders
• Project and bin assignment at schedule time

4. Library & Asset Management

Browse, search, and organize captured footage

The Library screen provides:

• Project and bin hierarchy
• Asset detail view with frame-anchored persistent comments
• Right-click context menu (move-to-bin, rename, delete)
• Global cmd/ctrl-K search across assets, projects, recorders, jobs, and users
• Hover-scrub preview with HLS playback

5. Jobs Queue

BullMQ-backed proxy and thumbnail generation

Automated background processing:

• Per-job retry logic with exponential backoff
• Bulk "retry all failed" for batch recovery
• Inline error messages with actionable diagnostics
• Status tracking: ingesting → processing → ready

Proxy encoder options:

• CPU-based: libx264 (H.264)
• GPU-accelerated: NVENC (NVIDIA) or VAAPI (AMD/Intel)

6. Timeline Conform & Export

FCP XML export with server-side FFmpeg rendering

The Premiere Pro panel exports FCP XML with:

• Server-side conform via FFmpeg
• Multiple output formats: H.264, H.265, ProRes
• Resolution presets: Broadcast, Web, Archive
• Batch processing with job queue integration

7. Hi-Res Auto-Relink

One-click batch relink of proxy clips to frame-accurate server-trimmed masters

After editing on proxies:

• Select clips in Premiere
• Trigger relink from the CEP panel
• Server trims hi-res segments to exact in/out points
• Concurrent trim worker pool for speed
• 24-hour TTL with automatic cleanup

8. Settings & Configuration

Centralized control for storage, encoding, and capture

Configure:

• S3 Storage — endpoint, bucket, credentials (with env-var fallback)
• Proxy Encoder — CPU vs GPU, bitrate, resolution
• Growing Files — SMB path, retention, auto-promotion
• Capture SDK — Blackmagic, AJA, or Deltacast uploader selection

9. Cluster & Distributed Capture

Primary + worker topology with remote DeckLink nodes

• Primary node runs API, scheduler, and web UI
• Worker nodes handle proxy/thumbnail jobs
• Remote capture nodes run DeckLink cards off-host
• Heartbeat health monitoring
• Automatic failover and recovery

10. Admin & User Management

Role-based access, token auth, and cluster monitoring

• User creation and role assignment
• API token generation for integrations
• Container and cluster node status
• System health dashboard

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Quick Start

# Clone (repo renamed; old URL still redirects)
git clone https://forge.wilddragon.net/zgaetano/dragonflight.git
cd dragonflight

# Configure
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — S3 credentials + SESSION_SECRET at minimum

# Launch
docker compose up -d

# Open
open http://localhost:47434

Architecture

SDI / SRT / RTMP ──► capture (FFmpeg)
                       ├─ HLS preview tee ──► /live/<assetId>/index.m3u8
                       └─ master output
                            ├─ growing_enabled=true:
                            │    /growing/<projectId>/<clip>.mov
                            │      (Premiere mounts SMB, edits live)
                            │      └─► promotion worker uploads to S3
                            │
                            └─ growing_enabled=false:
                                 multipart stream → S3

assets POST ──► proxy job ──► worker
                                ├─ libx264 (CPU) or NVENC/VAAPI (GPU)
                                ├─ thumbnail job
                                └─ status: ingesting → processing → ready

Tech Stack

• Runtime: Node.js 22, Docker Compose
• Backend: Express, PostgreSQL 16, Redis 7 + BullMQ
• Frontend: Vanilla React via in-browser Babel (no bundler), hls.js
• Media: FFmpeg 7.1 with SDK 16 DeckLink patches
• Codecs: ProRes, H.264, H.265, DNxHR, MOV/MP4/MXF containers
• Storage: S3-compatible (RustFS) for masters, proxies, thumbnails

Services

Service	Port	Purpose
web-ui	47434	Browser SPA + capture controls
mam-api	47432	REST API + recorder orchestration + scheduler
capture	47433 / 9000 / 1935	DeckLink/SRT/RTMP ingest sidecar
worker	—	BullMQ proxy + thumbnail workers
db	5432	PostgreSQL 16
queue	6379	Redis 7

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Workflow Example: Live-to-Edit

1. Operator schedules a recording on Recorder A for 14:00–15:30, assigns to "News/Segment-A" project
2. Capture starts at 14:00, writes ProRes master to SMB landing zone
3. Editor mounts SMB in Premiere, opens the live .mov file via the CEP panel
4. Editor trims and marks in/out points while capture is still writing
5. Capture finishes at 15:30, promotion worker uploads master to S3
6. Editor clicks "Relink to Master" in CEP panel
7. Server trims hi-res segment to exact in/out, stores for 24 hours
8. Premiere relinks proxy clips to trimmed master
9. Editor exports final timeline via FCP XML conform

Total time from end of capture to relinked master: ~2 minutes.

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Operations

• deploy/api-smoke.sh — verify every API endpoint after deploy
• deploy/onboard-node.sh — provision a remote worker host
• deploy/test-cluster.sh — primary↔worker connectivity smoke test
• docs/GROWING_FILES_QUICKSTART.md — Premiere CEP panel install + growing-file flow

Authentication

Dragonflight uses local username/password authentication with two transports:

• Browser: session cookie (dragonflight.sid), 8 hour absolute + 1 hour idle timeout.
• Premiere panel / scripts: SHA-256-hashed bearer tokens issued from Settings → API Tokens.

First-run setup

On a fresh install with AUTH_ENABLED=true, navigate to the web UI in a browser. With no users in the database, the login screen renders a "First-run setup" form instead — fill it in to create the first admin and you are logged in immediately.

Subsequent users are created from Settings → Users (any signed-in user can create others — flat access).

Dev mode

Setting AUTH_ENABLED=false disables all auth checks; a synthetic dev user is attached to every request. Never deploy this way. The dev user row is seeded with a hash that no real password can match, so flipping AUTH_ENABLED=true later does not expose the dev account.

Recovering a forgotten admin password

Any signed-in user can reset another user's password from Settings → Users. If no one can sign in (all admins forgot their passwords), reset directly in Postgres:

-- generate a fresh bcrypt hash with:
--   node -e "import('bcrypt').then(b => b.default.hash(process.argv[1], 12).then(h => console.log(h)))" 'new-passphrase-here'
UPDATE users SET password_hash = '<bcrypt-hash>', password_updated_at = NOW()
 WHERE username = 'admin';

AUTH_ENABLED transition

When flipping AUTH_ENABLED=false → true on an existing install:

1. Ensure SESSION_SECRET is set to a stable value (rotating it logs everyone out).
2. Set ALLOWED_ORIGINS to the public origin(s) of the web UI.
3. Set TRUST_PROXY=true when behind nginx (required for rate-limit accuracy).
4. Restart mam-api.
5. Visit the UI — first-run setup will appear if no real users exist yet.

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License

Proprietary — Wild Dragon LLC, all rights reserved.