Inspiration
Independent video editors often manage briefs, payments, editing, and delivery in separate tools. Timeline Studio connects a paid commission to the editing session, while keeping source media local and AI changes reviewable.
What it does
Enter a brief, duration, and canvas ratio. A local server calculates a fixed quote and creates a PayPal Sandbox order. After the buyer approves, the server verifies the completed capture before opening the paid brief in the AI editing assistant. The assistant proposes supported timeline edits; the creator reviews and applies them, exports a video, and attaches the actual MP4/WebM for authenticated download.
How we built it
We extended an existing React/Vite browser editor. A loopback-only Node service uses PayPal OAuth and Orders v2 against the sandbox API. Durable request identifiers and order reconciliation make retries safe. Local Ollama with Qwen3:4b provides real model inference. Conversation and clip metadata are sent to the local planner with consent; source media stays in the browser. Final delivery files are limited to 64 MiB and checked using SHA-256.
Working demonstration
The English video shows a USD 15 sandbox payment using test funds, followed by a real AI proposal to trim a 12.01-second portrait gift-box video to its first 10 seconds. The creator reviews and applies the proposal, exports a 720×1280 H.264/AAC MP4, attaches it to the paid commission, and downloads it. The exported and downloaded files have identical SHA-256 hashes. No live funds are involved.
Challenges and what we learned
An approval redirect cannot establish payment: capture status, currency, amount, order identity, and commission identity must be verified server-side. Retry identifiers must survive restarts. Model output also needs semantic validation and a human review step before timeline mutation. The project connects these payment and editing boundaries without uploading source footage to a remote model.
Hackathon progress
The browser editor and existing model adapters predate this hackathon. During the submission period we added the PayPal commission route, deterministic quotes, sandbox order creation and approval, verified capture, paid-brief handoff, and authenticated local final-file delivery. The free editor remains directly accessible at the root URL.
Run it
This is a working local prototype, not a hosted demo. Clone the competition branch and follow the complete prerequisites, sandbox credential configuration, Ollama setup, launch command, and reproduction steps in the judge guide. Use your own free sandbox app and buyer account; no private credentials are published. Original project source is MIT licensed.
Current scope and next steps
The prototype is single-process and local. It has no customer accounts, separate seller/buyer roles, public customer portal, escrow, payouts, or live-money integration. Duration is a brief rather than an automatic editing guarantee. Future work would add authenticated customer roles and a production service after validating the commission workflow with creators.
Built With
- node.js
- ollama
- paypal
- qwen3
- react
- typescript
- vite
- webcodecs
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