sheathe

Pure-Rust HLS / DASH / CMAF media packager. A memory-safe, dependency-light alternative to Shaka Packager, built and validated against it as the reference oracle.

📖 Read the story: Packaging the World's Video in Pure Rust

Status: working VOD pipeline + encryption + a broad input matrix. probe and package demux MP4, MPEG-TS, raw elementary streams, and WebM/Matroska, then write playable CMAF segments + DASH/HLS manifests with correct codec strings. Video: H.264, H.265, AV1, VP8/VP9. Audio: AAC, AC-3, E-AC-3, MP3, FLAC, Opus. Text: WebVTT, plus CEA-608 caption extraction from H.264/H.265 SEI. Encryption covers all four CENC schemes (cenc/cens/cbc1/cbcs) with multi-DRM pssh and key rotation. The path to full Shaka Packager parity (the last codec/format gaps, real-corpus oracle diffs, live) is tracked in ROADMAP.md.

Why

Mature DASH/HLS manifest parsers exist in Rust, but a mature packager / origin does not. sheathe fills the Delivery lane: probe → ladder → CMAF segment → DASH/HLS manifests, with no C/C++ dependencies.

Workspace layout

Crate	Role	Shaka Packager analogue
`sheathe-core`	Media model: streams, samples, timing, errors	`media/base`
`sheathe-mp4`	ISO-BMFF / fMP4 / CMAF box writing + fragmentation	`media/formats/mp4` + chunking
`sheathe-ts`	MPEG-2 TS demux (PAT/PMT/PES) + audio codec parsers (AAC/AC-3/E-AC-3/MP3/FLAC)	`media/formats/mpeg`
`sheathe-es`	Raw elementary stream demux (Annex B, ADTS, AC-3/E-AC-3, MP3, FLAC)	`media/formats`
`sheathe-mkv`	WebM/Matroska (EBML) demux — VP8/VP9/AV1 + Opus	`media/formats/webm`
`sheathe-text`	Timed text: WebVTT input + CEA-608 caption extraction → `wvtt`	`media/formats/webvtt`
`sheathe-dash`	MPEG-DASH `.mpd` generation	`mpd`
`sheathe-hls`	HLS master + media playlist generation	`hls`
`sheathe-crypto`	Common Encryption (cenc / cbcs)	`media/crypto`
`sheathe` / `sheathe-cli`	The `sheathe` binary / its CLI library	`app` (`packager`)

Install / build

cargo install sheathe        # installs the `sheathe` binary
# or, from a checkout:
cargo run -p sheathe -- --help

Usage (target CLI)

# Package an MP4 into 6s CMAF segments with both DASH and HLS manifests.
sheathe package input.mp4 --out site/ --segment-duration 6 --dash --hls

# Inspect what sheathe detects (MP4, MPEG-TS, WebM, raw ES, WebVTT).
sheathe probe input.mp4
sheathe probe input.ts
sheathe probe input.webm
sheathe package input.h264 input.ac3 --out site/ --dash --hls   # CEA-608 auto-extracted
sheathe package input.webm subtitles.vtt --out site/ --dash

# Differential-test against Shaka Packager (when `packager` is on PATH).
just oracle input.mp4

Method

Per the workspace's revelo method: implement in pure Rust, then differential-test output (segments, MPD, playlists) against Shaka Packager on a sample corpus. Numbers and bitstreams that can't be validated against the oracle don't ship.

MSRV

Rust 1.85 (declared in Cargo.toml's workspace.package.rust-version). CI reads that exact value and builds against it, so the MSRV can't drift.

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0.

sheathe-cli 0.3.0