docs(specs): correct the spike's crash and ABR findings

Three corrections to the Linux native-video spike, each of which reverses
something recorded earlier in the same session:

- The crash is unexplained. It was first blamed on hwdec=auto-safe's Vulkan
  failures, on a misreading of the logs — those are two per run at start-up,
  not per-frame, and every clean run has the same two. A 300s soak on
  auto-safe survived. So did 240s of automated fullscreen toggling (~120
  transitions) and 240s of continuous resizing (~2000 reallocations). Three
  hypotheses, none reproduced. Recorded rather than dismissed: an
  intermittent fault nobody can reproduce is worse to inherit than a
  deterministic one.

- G5 drops to amber. It looked and felt smooth, but the only SIGSEGV observed
  came from the only session in which fullscreen was exercised, and the spike
  has no lifecycle handling at all — it never frees the render context. An
  implementation must bind that to the GL context's lifetime regardless of
  what caused this crash, because Android already paid for that lesson as
  DR-184.

- Finding 3's premise is in doubt. "The webview path already has real ABR via
  hls.js" was never checked against the URLs this app builds:
  get_video_stream_url requests a single rendition, the frontend has no
  level-handling code at all, and a quality switch is implemented by
  re-opening the stream. If the playlist is single-variant there is no
  adaptation to lose. The decisive test needs a live server and is recorded
  as unrun.

Also records hardware decode working through the render API (nvdec-copy
engaged), and that hwdec=vaapi silently fell back to software on this box.

docs/specs/linux-native-video-spike.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Spec: Linux native video — bounded compositing spike
 
-**Status:** **Run 2026-08-21 — G1-G6 green except the Tauri-tree half of G1.**
+**Status:** **Run 2026-08-21 — compositing works; G5 carries an open crash.**
 The compositing claim it set out to test is falsified on Linux. See "Result".
 This file stays open until the implementation spec exists; ABR is unresolved.
 **Requirements:** none allocated. This spike produces a decision record, not
@@ -186,7 +186,7 @@ mpv's render API with an update callback, frame-gated repaints and
 | G2 webview paints transparently over it | ✅ green | `with_transparent(true)` alone. No window-level transparency was used or needed. |
 | G3 mpv renders into our FBO | ✅ green | `vo=libmpv` + `mpv_render_context_create` with `MPV_RENDER_PARAM_OPENGL_FBO` into the FBO GTK binds. |
 | G4 HTML over video | ✅ green | Opaque panel and a translucent control bar both drew over moving video. |
-| G5 resize / drag / fullscreen | ✅ green | No flicker, no gap, no misalignment. Fullscreen juddered until frame pacing was done properly — see trap 3; it is smooth with `report_swap` in place. |
+| G5 resize / drag / fullscreen | 🟡 **green on appearance, suspect underneath** | No flicker, gap or misalignment, and smooth once frame pacing was correct (trap 3). But the only crash observed came from the only session where fullscreen was exercised — see "What is still open". |
 | G6 X11 **and** Wayland | ✅ green | Identical on both; `GDK_BACKEND` flipped between runs. |
 
 **Finding 2 of [playback-backend-unification.md](playback-backend-unification.md)
@@ -244,9 +244,12 @@ which is the least efficient hardware path. An implementation should evaluate
 zero-copy VA-API on the iGPU (after confirming the driver is installed) before
 accepting `auto`.
 
-`hwdec=auto-safe`, the default this spike started with, probes Vulkan video
+`hwdec=auto-safe` probes Vulkan video decode, which this GPU does not support.
-decode, which this GPU does not support. It failed per-frame and logged
+It logs two `Failed setup for format vulkan` / `no frame!` pairs at start-up and
-`no frame!` on every frame. Do not ship `auto-safe` here without checking that.
+then settles on `nvdec-copy` — the same place `auto` lands. A first reading of
+these logs mistook the start-up pair for a per-frame flood; **it is not**. Every
+run, clean or crashed, contains exactly two. `auto-safe` is not implicated in
+anything.
 
 ### What is still open
 
@@ -255,15 +258,72 @@ decode, which this GPU does not support. It failed per-frame and logged
   Tauri's existing webview into an overlay. Low risk — the same widgets, one
   extra reparent — but unproven, and it is the only place Tauri-specific
   behaviour could still bite.
-- **ABR — unchanged and still the blocker.** Nothing here addresses finding 3.
+- 🔴 **ABR — finding 3's premise is in doubt.** Finding 3 says mpv would regress
-  What has changed is that the direct-play/transcode split is now worth designing
+  streaming quality because "the webview path already has real ABR via hls.js".
-  rather than moot.
+  Three pieces of evidence in this repo suggest that is **not true of the URLs we
-- **One unexplained SIGSEGV.** A ~180s run crashed in a *decoder* thread
+  actually build**:
-  (libavcodec -> `av_log` -> libmpv's log handler -> libc), not in the GL or
+
-  compositing path, while `hwdec=auto-safe` was failing its Vulkan probe on every
+  1. `get_video_stream_url` (`repository/online.rs`) requests a *single*
-  frame. It did **not** reproduce across five subsequent runs (2x45s, 3x20s) on
+     rendition — one `VideoBitrate`, one `MaxStreamingBitrate`, one `MaxHeight`.
-  `no`, `auto` and `vaapi`. Cause unconfirmed; recorded rather than dismissed.
+     Jellyfin transcodes to what it is asked for; it does not build a ladder.
-  Anyone implementing this should run a multi-hour soak before trusting it.
+  2. The frontend contains **no level-handling code at all** — no `hls.levels`,
+     no `LEVEL_SWITCH`, no `currentLevel`. The `abrEwma*` options in
+     `VideoPlayer.svelte` are default tuning with nothing to act on. hls.js is
+     serving as an HLS *demuxer* (WebKitGTK cannot play HLS natively), not as an
+     adaptation engine.
+  3. That function's own comment describes a quality switch as **rebuilding the
+     URL** — "every path that re-opens a stream (quality switch, transcoded seek,
+     audio-track switch)". Manual selection by stream re-open is what you build
+     when there is no adaptation, and mpv can do the same thing.
+
+  **The decisive test has not been run** and needs a live server plus an API key:
+  count `#EXT-X-STREAM-INF` lines in a real `master.m3u8`. One line means there
+  is no ABR to lose and this blocker disappears. More than one means finding 3
+  stands and the work below applies.
+
+  If ABR does turn out to be real, it belongs in **Rust**, not in mpv, and there
+  are three designs in increasing cost: pick the variant at open; re-open at a
+  new bitrate on sustained throughput drops (this is the quality-switch path the
+  app already has, so it is nearly free); or run a local proxy serving mpv a
+  synthesized single-variant playlist while swapping renditions underneath. The
+  middle option is almost certainly sufficient.
+
+  Either way the **direct-play path still does not exist** — every video play
+  currently goes through the HLS transcode endpoint. Building it is the real
+  project; the compositing work proven above is the smaller half.
+- 🔴 **One unexplained SIGSEGV.** A ~180s
+  run died in a *decoder* thread (libavcodec -> `av_log` -> libmpv's log handler
+  -> libc). No Tauri, wry, WebKitGTK, GTK or GL frame appears anywhere in the
+  stack, so the fault is on the mpv/ffmpeg side of the process rather than in the
+  compositing seam.
+
+  Three hypotheses were tested and **none reproduced it**:
+
+  | Hypothesis | Test | Result |
+  |---|---|---|
+  | `hwdec=auto-safe`'s Vulkan failures | 300s soak on `auto-safe` | Survived. Also based on a misreading — the failures are 2 per run at start-up, not per-frame. Dead. |
+  | Fullscreen transitions recreating the GL context under mpv's render context | 240s soak, ~120 automated transitions | Survived, no core dumped. |
+  | Continuous resize thrashing the GL framebuffer | 240s soak, ~2000 resizes | Survived, no core dumped. |
+
+  **The crash is therefore unexplained.** It was observed exactly once, in the
+  only session a human interacted with, and did not recur in ~13 minutes of
+  targeted stress across the three most plausible causes. It is recorded here
+  rather than dismissed precisely because nothing explains it: an intermittent
+  fault that nobody can reproduce is worse to inherit than a deterministic one,
+  not better.
+
+  The underlying concern stands regardless of which test eventually reproduces
+  it. A SIGSEGV in an unrelated thread is characteristic of memory corruption,
+  and this spike never calls `mpv_render_context_free` and never tears down on
+  `unrealize` — it has no defence against the GL context being recreated beneath
+  the render context. That is DR-184 on Android restated: a surface outliving its
+  player. An implementation must bind the two lifetimes together whether or not
+  this particular crash is ever explained.
+
+  **Therefore G5 is recorded green on appearance only**, and this crash is the
+  single largest piece of unfinished business in the spike. Do not read the green
+  gates above as "safe to build on" until it is explained or a long soak clears
+  it.
 - Long-run stability, seeking, track switching, HDR, and multi-window were not
   exercised at all.
 

docs/specs/playback-backend-unification.md

@@ -111,6 +111,17 @@ The webview path already has real ABR via hls.js. Moving video to mpv would be a
 **downgrade** on every platform — no graceful degradation on weak networks, and
 quality changes requiring teardown and reload.
 
+> **Premise in doubt (2026-08-21).** "The webview path already has real ABR"
+> was not verified against the URLs this app actually builds.
+> `get_video_stream_url` requests a *single* rendition (one `VideoBitrate`, one
+> `MaxHeight`), the frontend has **no** level-handling code (`hls.levels`,
+> `LEVEL_SWITCH`, `currentLevel` appear nowhere), and this repo implements a
+> quality switch by *re-opening the stream* — all of which point to a
+> single-variant playlist, i.e. no ABR to lose. The decisive test is counting
+> `#EXT-X-STREAM-INF` lines in a real `master.m3u8`; it needs a live server and
+> has not been run. See
+> [linux-native-video-spike.md](linux-native-video-spike.md).
+
 ### 4. Crossfade is architecturally blocked on mpv
 
 mpv's audio chain is single-stream. FFmpeg's `acrossfade` is an `N→A` filter