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)
• 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
• 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

All 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
ENCODER_QUALITY	medium	Default video quality (low, medium, high)
ENCODER_SPEED	slow	Default encode speed (slower, slow, medium, fast, faster)
AUDIO_BITRATE_MONO	64	Opus bitrate for mono audio (kbps)
AUDIO_BITRATE_STEREO	128	Opus bitrate for stereo audio (kbps)
AUDIO_BITRATE_2_1	160	Opus bitrate for 2.1 audio (kbps)
AUDIO_BITRATE_5_1	256	Opus bitrate for 5.1 audio (kbps)
AUDIO_BITRATE_6_1	320	Opus bitrate for 6.1 audio (kbps)
AUDIO_BITRATE_7_1	384	Opus bitrate for 7.1 audio (kbps)
AUDIO_BITRATE_7_1_4	512	Opus bitrate for 7.1.4 Atmos audio (kbps)
ORGANIZATION	RabbitCompany	Organization tag in output filenames
INPUT_DIR	/data/input	Directory to watch for new media files
OUTPUT_DIR	/data/output	Directory for encoded output files
TEMP_DIR	/data/temp	Temporary working directory for encoding
LIBRARY_DIRS	(empty)	Comma-separated paths to media library folders (see below)

Web Dashboard

The dashboard at http://localhost:3000 shows:

• Job queue with file info, status, and progress
• Per-file settings (quality, speed, audio bitrates) editable while queued
• Live progress tracking through all encoding stages
• Results showing output file size and encode time
• Library browser for navigating and encoding mounted media folders

Library Encoding

Library encoding lets you browse your media folders directly from the dashboard and encode entire series or movie collections in-place. This is designed for use with Sonarr, Radarr, and Jellyfin. You can download remuxes through Sonarr, then select the series folder in Rabbit Encoder to re-encode everything.

How it works

1. Mount your media folders into the container as volumes
2. Set LIBRARY_DIRS to point to those mounted paths
3. Click Library in the dashboard header to browse your folders
4. Navigate into a series folder (e.g. Blue Exorcist (2011)) and click Encode Folder
5. All video files in the folder (and subfolders like Season 01, Season 02, Specials) are queued for encoding

What happens when a library file is encoded

• The encoded file is placed in the same directory as the source file
• The original source file is deleted
• Associated .nfo and thumbnail files (.jpg, .png) matching the source filename are removed so Jellyfin regenerates fresh metadata
• Files that are already encoded (filename ends with -{ORGANIZATION}.mkv) are automatically skipped

Example setup

services:
  rabbit-encoder:
    image: rabbitcompany/rabbit-encoder:latest
    volumes:
      - ./input:/data/input
      - ./output:/data/output
      - ./temp:/data/temp
      - /mnt/HDD/media/Animes:/Animes
      - /mnt/HDD/media/Shows:/Shows
      - /mnt/HDD/media/Movies:/Movies
    environment:
      - LIBRARY_DIRS=/Animes,/Shows,/Movies

Already-encoded detection

The encoder recognizes files it has already processed by checking the filename suffix. 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
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)

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
GET	/api/config	Get default settings
PATCH	/api/config	Update 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

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