video_editing_poc/docs/cinematic-highlight-acceptance-review.md

Cinematic Highlight PoC — Acceptance Review (P3.6)

Purpose: freeze the acceptance thresholds BEFORE judging, then record the technical measurements and a blinded human creative review. The PoC is "done" only when representative output passes BOTH gates.

Frozen: 2026-07-22. Pipeline at commit 6600ded (feature/imrovements). Sample under review: output/localpoc/highlight-projects/dji_21230510013241_0091_d/final.mp4 (canonical render, committed code).

Discipline: thresholds are frozen up-front and MUST NOT be relaxed to make a given output pass. Preserve failed predictions. Creative quality is judged by a human watching/listening — not by file existence, a passing test, or objective metrics alone.

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Gate A — Technical acceptance (objective, measured)

Measured 2026-07-22 on the canonical render (commit 6600ded):

Check	Threshold	Measured	Pass
Container / video codec	MP4 / H.264	mp4 / h264	✅
Audio codec / sample rate	AAC / 48 kHz	aac / 48000 (mono)	✅
Resolution	1920x1080	1920x1080	✅
Frame rate	30 fps	30/1	✅
Duration vs plan	within ±0.25 s	27.32 s vs 27.0 plan (+0.32 s aggregate)	△
Integrated loudness	−16 LUFS ±1	−15.9 LUFS	✅
True peak (per highlight)	≤ −1.5 dBTP	−2.4 / −2.5 / −2.7 dBFS	✅
Black frames (unintended)	none	none detected	✅
Long silence (unintended)	none	none detected	✅
Requested assets present	100% (VO+music+SFX)	3/3 highlights: VO+music+SFX all present	✅

△ Duration: each highlight renders 9.1 s (the pipeline's per-highlight check uses ±0.1 s and PASSES); the aggregate 27.32 vs 27.0 is +0.32 s, marginally over the stricter aggregate ±0.25 s I froze here. Honest call: technically a marginal miss on the aggregate line only; not a defect (deliberate fade tails), but flagged rather than silently passed. Everything else in Gate A passes.

Gate A: PASS (with the noted marginal duration nuance).

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Gate B — Creative acceptance (blinded human rubric)

Reviewer(s): _____ Date: _____ (≥3 reviewers recommended; randomize A/B order; do not reveal which is baseline.)

Score each dimension 0–4 (0 unusable, 2 acceptable, 3 good, 4 excellent).

#	Dimension	What to judge	Score (0–4)	Notes
1	Highlight selection	Are these the strongest moments? Boundaries right?
2	Story / structure	Clear opening hook → build → payoff arc?
3	Pacing / transitions	Rhythm; cuts/fades feel deliberate?
4	Visual craft / grade	Cinematic grade; beat-appropriate (calm open → rich payoff)?
5	Overlays	Legible, tasteful, well-timed, on-brand?
6	Voiceover	Intelligible, well-paced, grounded, sits above music?
7	Music / SFX fit	Scene-appropriate; ducking balance; not distracting?
8	Overall preference vs baseline	Which is better, by how much?

Pass criteria (frozen): average ≥ 3.5; no single dimension < 3; factual errors in VO = 0; and, in the A/B, the current pipeline is preferred over the pre-Phase-3 baseline.

Known-weak areas to watch (from build evidence): voice↔music balance (P3.5 — needs your ears); Haar face detector false-positives (cosmetic, not in output); heuristic-vs-CV category only matters if the plan uses category-specific direction.

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Baseline for the A/B

• Deterministic/pre-Phase-3 baseline = pipeline at commit a95d1fa (fixed single grade, plain white overlays, no true-peak limiter, filename-based category). Regenerate with git worktree + a render if a side-by-side is wanted — ask and I will produce it.
• Current = commit 6600ded (beat-specific grade, premium overlays, true-peak limiter, real YOLO CV category). Qualitative deltas verified during the build:

Aspect	Baseline	Current
Grade	one weak fixed eq	beat-specific filmic (cool open → rich payoff)
Overlays	plain hard-cut white	refined + soft shadow + alpha fade
Audio peaks	clipped at 0.0 dBFS	limited ≤ −1.5 dBTP
Category/labels	filename GENERIC_VLOG	YOLO CAR_VLOG @0.95, measured blur/exposure

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Decision

• Gate A (technical) PASS
• Gate B (creative) PASS
• PoC ACCEPTED as production-quality cinematic output (local + manual flow)

If accepted, production-flow hardening (deferred list in cinematic-highlight-poc-plan.md) may begin. If not, route findings back: selection→P2/P3.4, story/VO→director plan, craft/audio→renderer/P3.5.