trax/docs/reports/06-product-vision.md

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Checkpoint 6: Product Vision Report

Product Vision: Trax Media Processing Platform

1. Core Product Identity

What Trax Is

A deterministic, iterative media transcription platform that transforms raw audio/video into structured, enhanced, and searchable text content through progressive AI-powered processing.

Core Philosophy: "From raw media to perfect transcripts through clean, iterative enhancement"

What Trax Is NOT

  • A streaming service
  • A real-time transcription tool
  • A video editing platform
  • A content management system (though it integrates with one)
  • A social media platform

Core Value Proposition

  1. Accuracy First: 99%+ accuracy through iterative improvement
  2. Batch Native: Process hundreds of files efficiently
  3. Clean Iterations: v1→v2→v3→v4 without breaking changes
  4. Cost Efficient: Smart caching and optimization
  5. Developer Friendly: CLI-first, protocol-based, testable

2. Feature Prioritization Matrix

Priority Feature Version Value Effort Risk Status
P0 - Critical
1 Basic transcription (Whisper) v1 High Low Low Week 1-2
2 Batch processing (10+ files) v1 High Medium Low Week 1-2
3 JSON/TXT export v1 High Low Low Week 1-2
4 PostgreSQL storage v1 High Medium Low Week 1
5 Audio preprocessing v1 High Medium Low Week 2
P1 - Essential
6 AI enhancement (DeepSeek) v2 High Low Low Week 3
7 Progress tracking v2 Medium Low Low Week 3
8 Error recovery v2 High Medium Medium Week 3
9 Quality validation v2 Medium Low Low Week 3
P2 - Important
10 Multi-pass transcription v3 High High Medium Week 4-5
11 Confidence scoring v3 Medium Medium Low Week 4-5
12 Segment merging v3 High Medium Medium Week 5
13 Performance metrics v3 Medium Low Low Week 5
P3 - Nice to Have
14 Speaker diarization v4 High High High Week 6+
15 Voice profiles v4 Medium High High Week 6+
16 Caching layer v4 High Medium Low Week 7
17 API endpoints v5 Medium Medium Low Month 2
18 Web UI v5 Low High Medium Month 3

3. Development Phases & Milestones

Phase 1: Foundation (Weeks 1-2)

Goal: Working CLI transcription tool

Milestones:

  • ✓ PostgreSQL database operational
  • ✓ Basic Whisper transcription working
  • ✓ Batch processing for 10+ files
  • ✓ JSON/TXT export functional
  • ✓ CLI with basic commands
  • ✓ Audio preprocessing pipeline
  • Enhanced CLI with progress reporting (COMPLETED)

Success Metrics:

  • Process 5-minute audio in <30 seconds
  • 95% transcription accuracy on clear audio
  • Zero data loss on errors
  • <1 second CLI response time
  • Handle files up to 500MB
  • Real-time progress reporting with time estimates
  • Live performance monitoring (CPU, memory, temperature)
  • Intelligent error handling with user guidance

Deliverables:

  • trax transcribe command working
  • trax batch command for directories
  • trax export for JSON/TXT output
  • Basic error handling and logging
  • Enhanced CLI with real-time progress reporting
  • Performance monitoring and intelligent error handling
  • Multiple export formats (JSON, TXT, SRT, VTT)
  • Advanced features (diarization, domain adaptation)

Phase 2: Enhancement (Week 3)

Goal: AI-enhanced transcripts

Milestones:

  • ✓ DeepSeek integration complete
  • ✓ Enhancement templates working
  • ✓ Before/after comparison available
  • ✓ Progress tracking implemented
  • ✓ Quality validation checks

Success Metrics:

  • 99% accuracy after enhancement
  • <5 second enhancement time per minute of audio
  • Proper punctuation and capitalization
  • Technical term correction working
  • Clear error messages

Deliverables:

  • --enhance flag for transcription
  • Enhancement configuration options
  • Quality score reporting
  • Progress bars in CLI
  • Enhanced CLI with comprehensive progress reporting
  • Real-time performance monitoring
  • Intelligent batch processing with concurrent execution

Phase 3: Optimization (Weeks 4-5)

Goal: Production-ready performance

Milestones:

  • ✓ Multi-pass implementation
  • ✓ Confidence scoring system
  • ✓ Segment merging algorithm
  • ✓ Performance metrics dashboard
  • ✓ Batch optimization

Success Metrics:

  • 99.5% accuracy with multi-pass
  • Confidence scores for each segment
  • 3x performance improvement over v1
  • Handle 100+ files in batch
  • <10% resource overhead

Deliverables:

  • --multipass option
  • Confidence reporting
  • Performance comparison tool
  • Optimized batch processing

Phase 4: Advanced Features (Week 6+)

Goal: Speaker separation and scaling

Milestones:

  • ✓ Speaker diarization working
  • ✓ Voice embedding database
  • ✓ Speaker labeling system
  • ✓ Caching layer operational

Success Metrics:

  • 90% speaker identification accuracy
  • <2 second per speaker analysis
  • 50% cache hit rate
  • 100% backward compatibility

Deliverables:

  • --diarize flag
  • Speaker statistics
  • Voice profile management
  • Cache management commands

4. User Journey Maps

Journey 1: Single File Processing

User runs: trax transcribe video.mp4
           ↓
System: Downloads if URL / Validates if local
           ↓
System: Extracts audio → Preprocesses → Transcribes
           ↓
Progress: [████████████████████] 100% Complete
           ↓
Output: Transcript saved to video_transcript.json
           ↓
User: Reviews transcript quality

Journey 2: Batch Processing

User runs: trax batch /media/folder --parallel 4
           ↓
System: Discovers 50 media files
           ↓
System: Queues and processes in parallel
           ↓
Progress: Processing 50 files [████░░░░░░] 23/50
           ↓
Report: 48 successful, 2 failed (with reasons)
           ↓
User: Re-runs failed items with fixes

Journey 3: Iterative Enhancement

User: Has v1 transcript → Wants better quality
           ↓
User runs: trax enhance transcript_id --version v2
           ↓
System: Applies AI enhancement
           ↓
Output: Shows diff between versions
           ↓
User: Approves and saves enhanced version

5. Success Metrics & KPIs

Technical KPIs

Metric v1 Target v2 Target v3 Target v4 Target
Accuracy 95% 99% 99.5% 99.5%
Speed (5min audio) <30s <35s <25s <30s
Batch capacity 10 files 50 files 100 files 100 files
Memory usage <2GB <2GB <3GB <4GB
Error rate <5% <3% <1% <1%
File size limit 500MB 500MB 1GB 1GB

Business KPIs

  • Adoption: Active usage by Week 4
  • Reliability: 99% success rate after v2
  • Performance: 3x faster than YouTube Summarizer
  • Cost: <$0.01 per transcript with caching
  • Scale: Handle 1000+ files/day by v3

User Experience KPIs

  • Setup time: <5 minutes from clone to first transcription
  • Learning curve: <30 minutes to master CLI
  • Error clarity: 100% actionable error messages
  • Documentation: 100% feature coverage
  • Response time: <1 second for all CLI commands

6. Risk Mitigation Strategies

Technical Risks

Risk Impact Probability Mitigation Contingency
Whisper memory overflow High Medium Early chunking implementation Add swap file support
AI API costs Medium High Aggressive caching strategy Local model fallback
Database performance Medium Low JSONB indexing, connection pooling Partition tables
Batch processing failures High Medium Robust error recovery Manual retry tools
Version incompatibility High Low Protocol-based design Version conversion tools

Product Risks

Risk Impact Probability Mitigation Contingency
Feature creep High High Strict version boundaries Feature flags
User adoption High Medium Excellent documentation Video tutorials
Accuracy expectations Medium Medium Clear metrics reporting Manual correction
Complexity growth High Medium Clean iteration strategy Refactoring sprints

7. Competitive Advantages

  1. Clean Iteration Path: Each version builds on the previous without breaking
  2. Real Files Testing: No mocks, actual media files in tests
  3. Protocol-Based Architecture: Any component easily swappable
  4. Batch-First Design: Built for scale from day one
  5. Cost Efficiency: Smart caching and optimization strategies
  6. M3 Optimization: Leverages Apple Silicon performance
  7. Fail-Fast Philosophy: Clear, actionable errors
  8. Developer Experience: CLI-first, well-documented

8. Future Vision (6+ Months)

Potential Extensions

Version 5-6: API & Integration

  • REST API endpoints
  • WebSocket support
  • SDK development
  • Third-party integrations

Version 7-8: Advanced Processing

  • Multi-language support
  • Translation capabilities
  • Sentiment analysis
  • Topic extraction

Version 9-10: Platform Features

  • Cloud deployment
  • SaaS offering
  • Team collaboration
  • Custom model training

Version 11-12: Enterprise

  • On-premise deployment
  • HIPAA compliance
  • Advanced security
  • White-label options

Platform Evolution Path

Quarters 1-2: Core transcription platform (v1-v4)
Quarters 3-4: API and integrations (v5-v8)
Year 2: Cloud platform and enterprise (v9-v12)
Year 3+: AI platform expansion

9. Go-to-Market Strategy

Phase 1: Developer Tool (Months 1-2)

Target: Developers needing transcription Channel: GitHub, dev communities Message: "Fast, accurate, hackable transcription" Goal: 100 active users

Phase 2: Professional Tool (Months 3-4)

Target: Content creators, researchers Channel: Direct outreach, demos Message: "Production-ready media transcription" Goal: 500 active users

Phase 3: Platform (Months 5-6)

Target: Businesses, SaaS builders Channel: API documentation, partnerships Message: "Build on our transcription infrastructure" Goal: 10 enterprise customers

10. Definition of Done

Version-Specific Criteria

v1 Done When:

  • 95% accuracy on test suite
  • Processes 10 files in batch successfully
  • Zero data loss on failures
  • CLI fully functional
  • Documentation complete
  • All tests passing

v2 Done When:

  • 99% accuracy after enhancement
  • Enhancement templates customizable
  • Progress tracking working
  • All v1 features still work
  • Performance benchmarks met

v3 Done When:

  • Multi-pass improves accuracy measurably
  • Confidence scores reliable
  • Performance 3x better than v1
  • Backward compatible
  • Batch processing optimized

v4 Done When:

  • Speaker identification >90% accurate
  • Diarization adds value
  • Caching reduces costs 50%
  • All versions interoperable
  • Production ready

Final Success Criteria

The Trax project will be considered successful when:

  1. Technical Excellence:

    • Achieves 99%+ accuracy
    • Processes files <30s for 5 minutes of audio
    • Handles 1000+ files/day reliably
  2. User Satisfaction:

    • User-reported satisfaction >95%
    • Clear, actionable error messages
    • Intuitive CLI interface
  3. Operational Efficiency:

    • Costs <$0.01 per transcript
    • Minimal manual intervention
    • Self-documenting codebase
  4. Strategic Position:

    • Clear path to v5+ features
    • Growing user base
    • Extensible architecture
  5. Business Value:

    • Replaces YouTube Summarizer successfully
    • Enables new use cases
    • Foundation for future products

Executive Summary

Trax represents a ground-up rebuild focusing on:

  • Deterministic development through explicit rules
  • Clean iterations from v1 to v4
  • Batch-first design for scale
  • Real-world testing with actual files
  • Cost efficiency through smart architecture

The product vision emphasizes gradual, reliable progress over ambitious features, ensuring each phase delivers value while maintaining system integrity.


Generated: 2024
Status: COMPLETE
Product Vision Approved: PENDING