Validated against 168 real-world encode cases, continuously.

• DRM + HDR tone-map composed — 1.25×1.5 = 1.875×

  api refuses hdr.mode = tonemap pending the worker fix (worker#172): the tone-mapping filter cannot initialize on the shipped image, so the job can no longer be created

• HDR10 tone-map → SDR on H.265 1080p — pricing feature multiplier 1.5×

  api refuses hdr.mode = tonemap pending the worker fix (worker#172): the tone-mapping filter cannot initialize on the shipped image, so the job can no longer be created

• HDR10+ force on H.265 — output must carry PQ/BT.2020 10-bit AND dynamic HDR10+ metadata

  HDR10+ dynamic metadata (SMPTE ST 2094-40) is unimplemented: the worker encodes hdr10_plus through the same static-HDR10 branch as hdr10, so the output carries no per-scene metadata

• HDR10+ tone-map→SDR — priced 1.5× and delivered as BT.709 SDR

  api refuses hdr.mode = tonemap pending the worker fix (worker#172): libplacebo tone-mapping cannot run on the shipped worker image — the emitted `target_peak` option does not exist in the pinned ffmpeg build and the base image ships no Vulkan loader, so every tone-map job failed at ffmpeg (the `bt2390`→`bt.2390` identifier, worker#171, is fixed in 1.28.1 but not sufficient). Found by the 2026-09-15 real-worker runs; the job can no longer be created at all.

• HLG tone-map → SDR — pricing 1.5×

  api refuses hdr.mode = tonemap pending the worker fix (worker#172): the tone-mapping filter cannot initialize on the shipped image, so the job can no longer be created

• tone-map requested against an SDR source fails at probe with input_not_hdr

  api refuses hdr.mode = tonemap pending the worker fix (worker#172): the tone-mapping filter cannot initialize on the shipped image, so the job can no longer be created

• Retro-caption a hosted video — sidecar under the video prefix, attached with in_manifest=false

  retro-caption input: worker cannot read an HLS manifest input, and hosted videos keep no single-file source

• Real jobs, real workers

  Each case provisions real object storage (Cloudflare R2), submits through the public API exactly as documented, and runs on real Hetzner worker VMs. No mocks, no stubs.

• Media, probed

  Produced files are downloaded and inspected with ffprobe — codec, profile, pixel format, resolution, framerate, HDR and colour signalling are checked against what was requested.

• Manifests, parsed

  HLS and DASH manifests are fetched and parsed for variant count, audio and subtitle renditions, and DRM encryption signalling — proving a stream was produced, not merely priced.

• Pricing, recomputed

  The locked pricing snapshot returned on each output is recomputed from its components (codec, resolution, framerate, quality, feature, minimum) and checked for internal consistency.

• Artifacts, counted

  Thumbnails, sprite WebVTT tracks, and subtitle sidecars are listed from storage and counted against what the job asked for.

• Honest about gaps

  When the worker cannot yet produce a feature, the case keeps its true assertion and is tracked as a gap — reported, never quietly passed. Those gaps are listed in full above.

1. Input validation (rejections)

   38/39
   1 gap

2. Codec × container

   11/11

3. Codec settings

   10/10

4. HDR

   5/9
   4 gaps

5. Input formats

   8/8

6. Pricing

   7/8
   1 gap

7. Thumbnails

   8/8

8. Quality (VMAF)

   7/7

9. Streaming (HLS / DASH)

   7/7

10. Adaptive bitrate

    6/6

11. Content-aware encoding

    6/6

12. Presets

    6/6

13. Subtitles

    6/6

14. Watermark / overlay

    6/6

15. Audio

    5/5

16. DRM

    5/5

17. Path templates

    5/5

18. Captions

    3/4
    1 gap

19. Job lifecycle

    4/4

20. Clip

    3/3

21. Resolution

    2/2

22. Encoding pipeline

    1/1

23. Multi-output jobs

    1/1

24. Encode-failure handling

    1/1

Each value below is exactly what the API accepts on the wire. A value is validated only when a real job produces it and the harness asserts on the output. Values still in progress are not yet validated end to end — some are accepted-but-unproduced, others are gated at create.