filmcraft/docs/gaps.md

# Where FilmCraft falls short of Premiere Pro

> **Last reviewed:** 2026-10-10 · **Last updated:** 2026-10-10 · **Change:** major (new file: ROADMAP's "Where we are lacking" re-measured against Premiere Pro 26.5.2 and the open issue list) · **Target:** Adobe Premiere Pro 2026 (26.5.2)

Every known shortfall, one entry each, ranked by what most stops an editor using FilmCraft for real
work. This is the work list: agents should prefer it over adding checklist items. Numbers are in
[target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md); estimates are Opus 5.5 agent-hours, calibrated there.
When you close or shrink a gap, update its entry, its parity doc and the revision history.

Summary by kind: **feature gaps** G1, G2, G12, G13, G18, G19; **UI / UX** G8; **file formats**
G2, G10, G13, G15; **codecs** G3, G10; **hardware** G5; **localization** G14; **stability and
platforms** G4, G9, G17; **performance** G16; **ecosystem** G11; **measurement** G1, G6, G7;
**web** G20.

| # | Gap | Kind | Blocks beta | Estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | Nothing compares our output with Premiere's | measurement | no, but every ready number depends on it | 40–70 h |
| G2 | Premiere's `.prproj` cannot be opened | file format | **yes** | 60–120 h |
| G3 | 10-bit and 4:2:2 camera media needs hardware | codec | yes | 30–50 h |
| G4 | Crashes at start-up, and no test CI on pull requests | stability | yes | 40–80 h |
| G5 | Hardware acceleration is partial | hardware | partly | 120–200 h |
| G6 | No real-world media corpus or workflow acceptance tests | measurement | yes | 40–70 h |
| G7 | No measured parity tool in CI | measurement | no | 10–20 h |
| G8 | UI fidelity: monitor handles, Effect Controls, docking | UI / UX | partly | 120–200 h |
| G9 | Windows and Linux at run time | platforms | partly | 50–90 h |
| G10 | Container and codec gaps on import | file format, codec | partly | 120–200 h |
| G11 | No plugin hosting | ecosystem | no | 200–400 h |
| G12 | AI features | AI | no | 150–300 h |
| G13 | Delivery formats | file format | no | 60–110 h |
| G14 | Localization: 8 of the 12 key languages missing | localization | no | 150–230 h |
| G15 | Interchange never validated in Avid / Pro Tools; slow XML import | file format | partly | 20–40 h |
| G16 | Performance reports on 0.5.0 | performance | partly | 30–60 h |
| G17 | Audio device and playback reliability | stability | partly | 20–40 h |
| G18 | Effects depth: approximations and missing behaviour | feature | no | 60–110 h |
| G19 | Speech to text off in release builds | feature, AI | no | 5–10 h |
| G20 | The web app shell | platforms | no | 40–80 h |

## G1. Nothing compares our output with Premiere's

- **Missing:** a fidelity harness. Every effect, transition, Lumetri control, blend mode, keyframe
  interpolation and audio effect counts once it exists; nothing renders the same project in
  Premiere and FilmCraft and compares frames or samples. Effects described as approximations
  count the same as exact ones.
- **Evidence:** catalogue tests check names and folders only. EffectCraft's live After Effects
  comparison (its gaps.md G1) found real bugs in features marked done on its first run.
- **Impact:** "ready for real work" stays an estimate; colour and effect differences surface only
  when a user notices.
- **Done when:** a corpus of original test projects (our own media), opened in Premiere through
  FCP7 XML / OTIO, rendered by both, with per-effect PSNR / ΔE and audio-sample scores reproducible
  from one command; Premiere output stays local in `plan/premiere/` (gitignored). Owner runs
  Premiere (installed). **40–70 h.** Doc: [target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md).

## G2. Premiere's `.prproj` cannot be opened

- **Missing:** import of Premiere project files. `grep -ri prproj crates apps` finds nothing.
  Today an editor must export FCP7 XML, AAF or OTIO from Premiere first, losing bins, effects and
  most metadata; there is no "Selection as Premiere Project" export either.
- **Impact:** the beta bar requires opening the target's main format; every switching editor's
  existing work is behind this.
- **Approach:** `.prproj` is gzip-compressed XML. Clean-room from projects we author ourselves in
  Premiere (the owner has `plan/premiere/fixtures/filmcraft_ref.prproj`): sequences, tracks, clips,
  in/out, speed, transitions, markers, bins, labels, then the common effect parameters (Motion,
  Opacity, Lumetri basic, Volume). Report what was not imported. Export later. **60–120 h.**
  Doc: [file-format-parity.md](file-format-parity.md).

## G3. 10-bit and 4:2:2 camera media needs hardware

- **Missing:** our H.264 decoder is 8-bit 4:2:0 only (`crates/h264/README.md`: no High 10, High
  4:2:2, 4:4:4, lossless, interlaced field / MBAFF); HEVC has no 4:2:2 / RExt. Most mirrorless and
  cinema cameras record exactly these (Sony XAVC S-I / XAVC HS 4:2:2 10-bit, Panasonic, Canon
  XF-AVC, Fujifilm).
- **Evidence:** #626 (Panasonic Lumix 4K 10-bit 4:2:2 MOV). On macOS VideoToolbox decodes 10-bit
  4:2:2 H.264 / HEVC on chips that support it; Windows Media Foundation and Linux decline them, and
  there is no software fallback, so the clip fails. Premiere decodes them everywhere (and in
  hardware on Apple silicon, Intel and NVIDIA Blackwell).
- **Impact:** camera originals from most current cameras do not open on Windows or Linux.
- **Estimate:** H.264 High 10 + High 4:2:2 (chroma geometry, deblocking, transforms) 15–25 h;
  HEVC Main 4:2:2 10 (RExt subset) 15–25 h. Doc: [codec-parity.md](codec-parity.md).

## G4. Crashes at start-up, and no test CI on pull requests

- **Missing:** a launch that never fails, and CI that runs the gates.
- **Evidence:** open issues: macOS 12 Monterey aborts on a missing VideoToolbox symbol (#468,
  #661, #655), Intel UHD graphics (`igvk64.dll`, #512), Windows 11 does not run or fails after setup
  (#380, #582, #413, #477), crash on new project + import (#439), "it just keeps crashing" (#687).
  `.github/workflows/` holds release, packaging lint, FreeBSD and Windows ARM64 builds; **none runs
  `cargo test` or `cargo xtask ci` on a pull request**, so 243 PRs merged since 10-05 were gated by
  contributors' local runs (main needed "green again after the batch merges" on 10-10).
- **Impact:** a user who cannot start the app gets zero value; regressions land unnoticed.
- **Done when:** weak-linked or runtime-loaded OS symbols on old macOS, a software / safe-mode
  start when the GPU adapter fails, a PR workflow running `cargo xtask ci` on macOS, Windows and
  Linux, and a crash-report triage pass. **40–80 h.**

## G5. Hardware acceleration is partial

- **Have:** hardware decode on macOS (VideoToolbox H.264 / HEVC), Windows (Media Foundation /
  D3D11: H.264, HEVC, VP9, AV1) and Linux (VA-API and NVDEC: H.264, HEVC); hardware encode
  VideoToolbox H.264 / HEVC 8-bit, NVENC H.264 (Windows, Linux) and HEVC incl. Main 10 HDR
  (Windows); GPU compositing, blend modes, 34 effect ids incl. Lumetri basic / creative / vignette,
  GPU export rendering (#421).
- **Missing:** zero-copy decoded frames into wgpu (every frame is read back to the CPU and
  re-uploaded); VideoToolbox Main 10 / HDR HEVC encode and B-frames; ProRes hardware decode /
  encode on Apple silicon; Intel Quick Sync and AMD AMF encoders (and their 4:2:2 decode);
  VA-API VP9 / AV1 and VA-API encode; HEVC encode on Linux; AV1 hardware encode; ~48 of Premiere's
  ~82 accelerated effects (keys, masks, Lumetri curves / wheels / HSL, distortions, transitions);
  external video I/O (DeckLink / AJA, Mercury Transmit), control surfaces (EUCON / Mackie);
  a CPU fallback adapter renders everything on the CPU (#632).
- **Estimate:** 120–200 h (hardware we don't own needs a human). Doc:
  [hardware-parity.md](hardware-parity.md).

## G6. No real-world media corpus or workflow acceptance tests

- **Missing:** a pinned corpus of phone, camera and screen recordings (variable frame rate,
  damaged files, long GOP, odd containers, multi-track audio), each with an import → edit → export
  round trip checked against an ffprobe / ffmpeg oracle; scripted MCP sessions that do real jobs
  end to end.
- **Evidence:** export stopped producing frames with iPhone HEVC clips on Linux (#480); WebM shows
  black (#432); only the first audio track imported (#397, #416, #601; multi-stream support landed
  in #361, reporters not yet confirmed); bitrate target produced 6.1 Mb/s for 40 (#371).
- **Done when:** corpus fetched pinned and sha256-verified (as PhotoCraft's `cargo xtask corpus`,
  craftrules `standards/test-corpora.md`), runs nightly, ≥ 50 files. **40–70 h.**

## G7. No measured parity tool in CI

- **Done:** `cargo xtask parity` measures menus (#781): our shipped menu bar (the tree the app
  builds, `examples/menu_tree.rs`) against a reference list of menu paths, by default the local
  `plan/premiere/menus.json`; presence and placement reported separately (same path, elsewhere,
  missing), app / Help / recent / account / macOS items out of scope, a markdown checklist, and
  `--min` to fail below a presence threshold. Without a reference it prints our inventory only.
- **Missing:** the other areas (commands, effects, transitions, panels, preferences, formats),
  fidelity tiers (exact, approximate, stub), a CI job, and a committed `docs/parity-checklist.md`.
- **Evidence:** the 92% menu figure in this pass came from an ad hoc label-matching script; it has
  not yet been re-measured with the tool.
- **Estimate:** 8–17 h left (the menu snapshot is local-only, so CI needs a committed, Adobe-free
  list of menu paths for `--reference`, or the check runs only where `plan/` exists).

## G8. UI fidelity: monitor handles, Effect Controls, docking

- **Missing:** on-screen transform handles for Motion / Transform in the Program monitor (#639);
  Effect Controls keyframe zoom bar, draggable divider, row lines (#640–#645); panel docking
  rearrangement (#493); clicking empty space to deselect (#683); filmstrip thumbnails (#614);
  marquee selection in the Project panel (#578); Freeform bins and middle-mouse pan (#579);
  Program monitor Button Editor (+) (#431); keyframe curves for Position (#448); transition
  editing controls (#577: Effect Controls has the transition's own timeline, drag to slide or resize;
  the A/B previews with Start / End sliders remain); track renaming (#654); window controls on macOS (#637); UI scale on
  X11 (#457).
- **Estimate:** 120–200 h. Doc: [ui-parity.md](ui-parity.md).

## G9. Windows and Linux at run time

- **Missing:** routine runtime testing off macOS. Linux playback stutter (#617), Wayland title
  bar (#433), case-sensitive extensions (#593), "Report an issue" link (#642), Windows bins cannot
  be left (#587), Sequence Settings won't open on Windows (#586, #351), old hardware (#491).
- **Estimate:** 50–90 h (overlaps G4's CI work).

## G10. Container and codec gaps on import

- **Have:** E-AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus) in MP4, MOV, Matroska and MPEG-TS (#647): independent
  substream, 1–6 blocks per syncframe, spectral extension. MP2 (MPEG audio layer II) in MP4 and
  MOV, sample-exact against ffmpeg (#800). OpenEXR stills and image sequences (#828): scan-line,
  uncompressed / RLE / ZIPS / ZIP, half / float / uint, RGB(A) or luminance, decoded to linear
  float frames and bit-exact against ffmpeg.
- **Missing:** MP2 at bit rates ISO/IEC 11172-3 disallows: mono above 192 kbit/s (ffmpeg's default
  for mono MP2 is 384 kbit/s) and stereo below 64 kbit/s; the bootstrap decoder (symphonia, also
  0.6) rejects every such frame, so the track plays silent: needs our own layer I/II decoder.
  E-AC-3 adaptive hybrid transform, enhanced coupling and the extra channels of 7.1 dependent
  substreams (played as the 5.1 core), AVI (#598; listed as an extension but no
  demuxer), WMV / ASF, DV / DVCPRO / DV100, MPEG-4 Part 2, FLAC in MP4 (#603), camera RAW (R3D
  incl. R3D NE, ARRIRAW, Sony RAW / X-OCN, Canon RAW, BRAW, ProRes RAW; #345, #383), JPEG 2000 /
  JPEG XS MXF, Cinema DNG; stills: PSD, EXR beyond scan-line RLE / ZIP (PIZ, PXR24, B44, DWA,
  tiled, multi-part, deep), HEIF / HEIC, Radiance HDR, AI / EPS, and the rarer
  DPX layouts (packed 10/12-bit, run-length, Y'CbCr; Targa and DPX stills and sequences import
  since #821, deeper than 8 bits kept at 8); transparent video (#402); Sony start timecode in
  `rtmd` (#460); stereo 3D flag (#500); MKV multi-audio (#601).
- **Estimate:** 120–200 h (camera RAW alone 60–100 h, and some SDKs have licences we cannot use:
  clean-room from public specs only where specs exist). Docs: [codec-parity.md](codec-parity.md),
  [file-format-parity.md](file-format-parity.md).

## G11. No plugin hosting

- **Missing:** VST3 / Audio Units, OpenFX, Premiere / After Effects plug-in APIs, UXP panels
  (#325).
- **Impact:** many professional editors depend on third-party effects and audio plug-ins.
- **Needs:** an owner decision (FFI under the `unsafe` rule, AGENTS.md §0.3). **200–400 h.**

## G12. AI features

- **Missing:** Object Mask (Premiere 26.0, #406, #694), Generative Extend (needs a large video
  model; not reachable locally), media-intelligence search, caption translation, model-based
  Enhance Speech, Auto Reframe beyond heuristics, auto colour, Auto-Tag Audio Types.
- **Have:** local Whisper transcription (off in releases, G19), Kokoro-82M text-to-speech
  narration (#278), scene edit detection, colour match.
- **Needs:** openly licensed models we can ship. **150–300 h.**

## G13. Delivery formats

- **Missing:** AV1 export (software or hardware), MPEG-2 / DVD / Blu-ray, DCP, JPEG 2000 MXF,
  AS-10 / AS-11, XDCAM HD MXF, P2, compressed (ZIP / PIZ / DWA) OpenEXR, MP3 and AAC-only audio,
  ProRes 4444 / XQ in the export UI (#342; the encoder has the profiles), interlaced encoding,
  smart render, HEVC software encoder (HEVC exists only where a hardware encoder does).
- **Have:** PNG, TIFF, BMP, JPEG, Targa and DPX (10-bit) image sequences (#779); OpenEXR
  sequences (half float, linear, uncompressed; #806).
- **Estimate:** 60–110 h. Doc: [file-format-parity.md](file-format-parity.md).

## G14. Localization: 8 of the 12 key languages missing

- **Have:** Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and French (#498) catalogs cover ~99.6–100% of
  the ~3,500 cataloged strings; Portuguese (Brazil) and Ukrainian ~10% (menus).
- **Missing:** Hindi, Arabic (no RTL interface layout; Arabic titles reported broken, #395),
  Indonesian, German beyond menus (#490), Korean (#508; needs Hangul fonts in craft-fonts),
  Vietnamese, Portuguese beyond menus; Premiere also ships Italian and Russian. Engine errors,
  CLI and MCP stay English. No language has a recorded native-speaker review.
- **Estimate:** 150–230 h. Doc: [localization-parity.md](localization-parity.md).

## G15. Interchange never validated in Avid / Pro Tools; slow XML import

- **Missing:** AAF and OMF exports have never been opened in Media Composer or Pro Tools; FCP7 XML
  / OTIO import of a Premiere sequence took 97 s / 66 s for three media files (#461); `file.import`
  merges into existing project content in headless round trips (#592).
- **Estimate:** 20–40 h (needs a human with Avid / Pro Tools, both installed on the owner's Mac).

## G16. Performance reports on 0.5.0

- **Missing:** steady UI under load. Constant lag after 0.4 → 0.5 (#525), ~100% CPU (#523). AV1
  software decode is ~4 fps at 1080p single-threaded; 8K is not real time.
- **Done:** Render (Effects) In to Out renders only the frames between In and Out, as partial
  previews named by segment hash and relative frames, instead of every segment In/Out touches
  (#424); Render Audio still renders whole audio segments.
- **Estimate:** 30–60 h. Doc: [performance.md](performance.md).

## G17. Audio device and playback reliability

- **Evidence:** Asus Xonar DX output broken (#605), no audio (#602), audio cuts out with
  overlapping clips (#336), buggy audio (#410), Linux stutter (#617). No ASIO; cpal only.
- **Estimate:** 20–40 h.

## G18. Effects depth: approximations and missing behaviour

- **Missing:** Warp Stabilizer is 2-D (Premiere's is 3-D subspace), Morph Cut has no face tracking
  (and occlusion edges are soft), Lumetri HDR-aware maths, multicam paging beyond 16 angles,
  redesigned 26.0 mask tools (constrained lines; an on-monitor corner-roundness handle).
- **Have:** Optical Flow time interpolation synthesises motion-compensated in-between frames (dense
  coarse-to-fine Lucas–Kanade, CPU; #780); Morph Cut morphs the subject along that optical flow
  instead of cross-dissolving (CPU; #805); Transform shutter angle motion blur (#415); Ultra Key
  Setting applied as a parameter preset (#458); rectangle and polygon masks round their corners
  with circular fillets (`masks.add` `cornerRadius`, `masks.roundCorners`, every path keyframe;
  #813).
- **Estimate:** 60–110 h.

## G19. Speech to text off in release builds

- **Missing:** the `whisper` feature is off by default and in releases, so Transcribe Sequence,
  text-based editing and auto captions need a source build.
- **Estimate:** 5–10 h (model download UX, licence check).

## G20. The web app shell

- **Missing:** file access, WebCodecs decode, audio in the browser build beyond what exists;
  image-sequence export downloads drop frames in Chrome (#378).
- **Estimate:** 40–80 h. Doc: [web.md](web.md).

## Revision history

| Date | Change | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-10 | major | Created from ROADMAP.md's "Where we are lacking" (2026-10-05); re-ranked against Premiere 26.5.2 and the 188 open issues; added `.prproj`, 10-bit / 4:2:2 camera decode, launch crashes and missing PR CI, localization, delivery formats |