@hyperframes/engine

Seekable page-to-video capture engine using Chrome’s BeginFrame API.

The engine package provides the low-level video capture pipeline: it loads an HTML page in headless Chrome, seeks to each frame independently, and captures pixel buffers using Chrome’s HeadlessExperimental.beginFrame API. This is the layer that makes Hyperframes rendering deterministic.

npm install @hyperframes/engine

When to Use

Most users should NOT use the engine directly. Use the CLI (npx hyperframes render) or the producer package instead — they handle runtime injection, audio mixing, and encoding for you.

Use @hyperframes/engine when you need to:

• Build a custom rendering pipeline with full control over frame capture
• Integrate Hyperframes capture into an existing video processing system
• Capture individual frames (e.g., for thumbnails or sprite sheets) without encoding to video
• Implement a custom encoding backend (not FFmpeg)

Use a different package if you want to:

• Render an HTML composition to a finished MP4 or WebM — use the producer or CLI
• Preview compositions in the browser — use the CLI or studio
• Lint or parse composition HTML — use core

How It Works

The engine implements a seek-and-capture loop that is fundamentally different from screen recording:

1. Launch headless Chrome

   The engine starts chrome-headless-shell, a minimal headless Chrome binary optimized for programmatic control via the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP).

2. Load the composition

   Your HTML composition is loaded into a browser page. The Hyperframes runtime is injected to manage timeline seeking.

3. Seek to each frame

   For every frame in the video (e.g., 900 frames for a 30-second video at 30fps), the engine calls renderSeek(time) to advance the composition to the exact timestamp. No wall clock is involved — each frame is independently positioned.

4. Capture via BeginFrame

   Chrome’s HeadlessExperimental.beginFrame API captures the compositor output as a pixel buffer. This produces pixel-perfect frames without any screen recording artifacts.

5. Hand off frames

   Captured frame buffers are passed to a consumer — typically FFmpeg (via the producer) for encoding into MP4, but you can provide your own consumer.

This approach guarantees deterministic rendering: the same HTML always produces the identical video, regardless of system load or timing.

Configuration

import { resolveConfig, DEFAULT_CONFIG } from '@hyperframes/engine';
import type { EngineConfig } from '@hyperframes/engine';

// Use defaults
const config = DEFAULT_CONFIG;

// Or resolve with overrides
const config = resolveConfig({
  // ... custom options
});

Quality Presets

Preset	Use Case	Speed
draft	Fast iteration during development	Fastest
standard	Production renders with good quality/speed balance	Moderate
high	Final delivery, maximum quality	Slowest

FPS Options

FPS	Use Case
24	Cinematic look, smaller file size
30	Standard web video, good balance
60	Smooth motion, UI animations, screen recordings

Programmatic Usage

The engine uses a session-based API for frame capture:

import {
  createCaptureSession,
  initializeSession,
  captureFrame,
  captureFrameToBuffer,
  getCompositionDuration,
  closeCaptureSession,
} from '@hyperframes/engine';

// 1. Create a capture session
const session = await createCaptureSession({ fps: 30, width: 1920, height: 1080 });

// 2. Initialize with a composition
await initializeSession(session, './my-video/index.html');

// 3. Get the total duration
const duration = getCompositionDuration(session);

// 4. Capture frames
const totalFrames = Math.ceil(duration * 30);
for (let i = 0; i < totalFrames; i++) {
  // Capture to disk
  const result = await captureFrame(session, i);
  // result.path, result.captureTimeMs

  // Or capture to buffer (in-memory)
  const bufResult = await captureFrameToBuffer(session, i);
  // bufResult.buffer, bufResult.captureTimeMs
}

// 5. Clean up
await closeCaptureSession(session);

Browser Management

import {
  acquireBrowser,
  releaseBrowser,
  resolveHeadlessShellPath,
  buildChromeArgs,
} from '@hyperframes/engine';

// Acquire a browser instance (creates or reuses from pool)
const browser = await acquireBrowser();

// Get the Chrome binary path
const chromePath = await resolveHeadlessShellPath();

// Release when done
await releaseBrowser(browser);

Encoding

The engine includes FFmpeg encoding utilities with support for MP4 (h264) and WebM (VP9 with alpha):

import {
  encodeFramesFromDir,
  muxVideoWithAudio,
  applyFaststart,
  detectGpuEncoder,
  getEncoderPreset,
  ENCODER_PRESETS,
} from '@hyperframes/engine';

// Get format-aware encoder settings
const mp4Preset = getEncoderPreset('standard', 'mp4');
// { codec: "h264", pixelFormat: "yuv420p", preset: "medium", quality: 23 }

const webmPreset = getEncoderPreset('standard', 'webm');
// { codec: "vp9", pixelFormat: "yuva420p", preset: "good", quality: 23 }

// Encode captured frames to video
await encodeFramesFromDir(framesDir, 'frame_%06d.png', outputPath, {
  fps: 30,
  ...webmPreset,
});

// Mix video with audio (uses Opus for WebM, AAC for MP4)
await muxVideoWithAudio(videoPath, audioPath, outputPath);

// Apply MP4 faststart for streaming (no-op for WebM)
await applyFaststart(inputPath, outputPath);

// Detect GPU encoding support
const gpu = await detectGpuEncoder();
// gpu: "nvenc" | "videotoolbox" | "vaapi" | null

WebM with VP9 Alpha

When encoding for transparency, use format: "webm" with getEncoderPreset(). This configures:

• VP9 codec (libvpx-vp9) with alpha-capable yuva420p pixel format
• -auto-alt-ref 0 and alpha_mode=1 metadata for proper alpha encoding
• -row-mt 1 for multi-threaded VP9 encoding
• Opus audio in the mux step (instead of AAC for MP4)

Streaming Encoder

For memory-efficient encoding without writing frames to disk:

import { spawnStreamingEncoder } from '@hyperframes/engine';

const encoder = await spawnStreamingEncoder({
  outputPath: './output.mp4',
  fps: 30,
  width: 1920,
  height: 1080,
});

// Feed frames directly to encoder
encoder.writeFrame(frameBuffer);
// ...
const result = await encoder.finalize();

Video Frame Extraction

Extract frames from source video files for injection into the browser:

import {
  parseVideoElements,
  extractAllVideoFrames,
  getFrameAtTime,
  createFrameLookupTable,
  FrameLookupTable,
} from '@hyperframes/engine';

// Parse video elements from HTML
const videos = parseVideoElements(html);

// Extract all frames from a video
const frames = await extractAllVideoFrames(videoPath, { fps: 30 });

// Create a lookup table for fast frame access
const lookup = createFrameLookupTable(frames);
const frame = lookup.getFrameAtTime(5.0);

Audio Processing

import { parseAudioElements, processCompositionAudio } from '@hyperframes/engine';

// Parse audio elements from HTML
const audioElements = parseAudioElements(html);

// Process and mix all audio tracks
const mixResult = await processCompositionAudio({ audioElements, duration, fps });

Parallel Rendering

import {
  calculateOptimalWorkers,
  distributeFrames,
  executeParallelCapture,
  getSystemResources,
} from '@hyperframes/engine';

// Check system resources
const resources = getSystemResources();

// Calculate optimal worker count
const workers = calculateOptimalWorkers(totalFrames);

// Distribute frames across workers
const tasks = distributeFrames(totalFrames, workers);

// Execute parallel capture
const results = await executeParallelCapture(tasks);

File Server

Serve composition files over HTTP for the browser to load:

import { createFileServer } from '@hyperframes/engine';

const server = await createFileServer({ root: './my-video', port: 0 });
// server.url, server.port
// ... use server.url as the composition URL
await server.close();

The window.__hf Protocol

The engine communicates with the browser page via the window.__hf protocol. Any page that implements this protocol can be captured by the engine — you are not limited to Hyperframes compositions.

// The page must expose this on window.__hf
interface HfProtocol {
  duration: number;                  // Total duration in seconds
  seek(time: number): void;         // Seek to a specific time
  media?: HfMediaElement[];         // Optional media element declarations
}

interface HfMediaElement {
  elementId: string;                 // DOM element ID
  src: string;                       // Media source URL
  startTime: number;                 // Start time on timeline
  endTime: number;                   // End time on timeline
  mediaOffset?: number;              // Playback offset in source
  volume?: number;                   // Volume (0-1)
  hasAudio?: boolean;                // Whether element has audio
}

Key Concepts

BeginFrame Rendering

Traditional screen capture records at wall-clock speed — if your system is under load, frames get dropped. The engine uses Chrome’s HeadlessExperimental.beginFrame to explicitly advance the compositor, producing each frame on demand. This means:

• No dropped frames — every frame is captured
• No timing dependency — a 60-second video does not take 60 seconds to capture
• Pixel-perfect output — the compositor produces the exact pixels it would display

For more on how this enables deterministic output, see Deterministic Rendering.

Seek Contract

The engine relies on the Hyperframes runtime’s renderSeek(time) function. When called, renderSeek:

1. Pauses all GSAP timelines
2. Seeks every timeline to the exact timestamp
3. Updates all media elements (video, audio) to match
4. Mounts/unmounts clips based on their data-start and data-duration

This contract is what makes frame-by-frame capture possible — each frame is a complete, independent snapshot of the composition at that point in time.

Chrome Requirements

The engine requires chrome-headless-shell, which is included when you install the package. It uses a pinned Chrome version to ensure consistent rendering across environments. For fully deterministic output (including fonts), use Docker mode via the producer.

Related Packages

Producer

Wraps the engine with runtime injection, FFmpeg encoding, and audio mixing for complete MP4 output.

Core

Provides the types, runtime, and linter that the engine depends on.

CLI

The easiest way to render — calls the producer (and engine) under the hood.

Studio

Visual editor for building compositions before rendering them with the engine.