church-api/.serena/memories/project_overview.md

Church API Project Overview

Purpose

The Church API is a Rust-based web service designed for church media management and streaming. The primary functionality includes:

• Media Management: Upload, organize, and manage church sermons and media content
• Video Streaming: Provide intelligent video streaming with adaptive codec support (AV1, HEVC, H.264)
• User Authentication: JWT-based authentication system
• Database Integration: PostgreSQL database with SQLx for data persistence
• Email Services: Automated email functionality for church communications

Tech Stack

• Language: Rust (2021 edition)
• Web Framework: Axum 0.7 with async/await (Tokio runtime)
• Database: PostgreSQL with SQLx 0.7
• Media Processing:
  • GStreamer bindings (0.22) for high-performance streaming
  • FFmpeg bindings (ffmpeg-next 7.0) - being replaced with GStreamer
• Authentication: JWT (jsonwebtoken) + bcrypt for password hashing
• Logging: tracing + tracing-subscriber for structured logging
• Testing: Built-in Rust testing framework

Key Features

1. Smart Video Streaming: Detects client capabilities and serves optimal codec (AV1 direct, HEVC, or H.264 with transcoding)
2. Hardware Acceleration: Uses Intel QSV and VA-API for efficient video processing
3. Chunk-based Streaming: Netflix-style 10-second segments for smooth playback
4. Caching System: Intelligent caching of transcoded video segments
5. HLS Support: HTTP Live Streaming for maximum compatibility

Architecture

• Services Layer: Business logic for transcoding, streaming, media scanning
• Handlers Layer: HTTP request handlers using Axum
• Models Layer: Data models and database entities
• Utils Layer: Shared utilities (codec detection, validation, etc.)

Current Performance Focus

The project is actively migrating from FFmpeg CLI calls to native GStreamer bindings to:

• Eliminate subprocess overhead
• Reduce buffering and latency
• Improve hardware acceleration utilization
• Enable better error handling and resource management