VCR ASCII Pipeline

Run repeatable ASCII-to-video pipelines using VCR’s ASCII tooling.

Core Commands

• Library discovery:
  • vcr ascii library
  • vcr ascii sources
• Stage render (.vcrtxt transcript):
  • vcr ascii stage --in <input>.vcrtxt --out <out>.mp4 --preset <preset> --seed <n>
• Capture source to MOV:
  • vcr ascii capture --source <source_id> --out <out>.mov --duration <sec> --fps <fps> --size <cols>x<rows>
• URL to white-alpha overlay:
  • scripts/ascii_link_overlay.sh "<ascii_co_uk_url>" -- --width 1920 --height 1080 --fps 24

Pipeline Workflow

1. Select source mode (library, stage transcript, remote/source capture, or URL overlay).
2. Generate a short preview output first.
3. Validate frame 0 is non-blank and transparency is correct (if alpha workflow).
4. Produce final render artifact (.mov/.mp4) and sidecar metadata if applicable.

Quality Checks

• Expected output file exists and is readable.
• For alpha overlays, foreground is white and background alpha is transparent.
• Timing/fps matches requested settings.
• Generated metadata (if emitted) contains expected source attribution.

Failure Handling

• Blank leading frames: enable/confirm trimming in URL overlay workflow.
• Source parse issues: switch to curated library:* source to isolate parser/input issues.
• Performance or backend issues: reduce duration/size first, then scale up.