What happens between your prompt and the MP4
Four human decisions and one queue of background jobs. This page follows a single project from an empty brief to a downloadable file.
A run, step by step
1. Brief
On the create screen you enter the prompt and choose duration, aspect ratio and language. Optional style, tone, voice and brand kit fields sharpen the result.
2. Estimate
Before anything runs, Vidrava shows the estimated credit cost for the job. If your available balance is lower than the estimate, the start button is blocked.
3. Reservation
Starting the job reserves the estimated credits. Reserved credits leave your available balance but are not yet consumed, so nothing is spent on work that never happened.
4. Queue
The job is queued for the worker service. Every state change is recorded as an event, which is what the status page and the admin timeline read from.
5. Generation
Workers run scripting, storyboard, scene media, voiceover, subtitles and render in order, retrying transient failures without duplicating credit movements.
6. Settlement
On success the reservation is consumed and the ledger records the spend. On failure it is restored exactly once and the project shows that credits came back.
What the architecture guarantees you
Nothing renders in a web request
Web pages only read and write state. All generation and rendering happen in the separate worker service, so a slow provider never freezes the interface.
Retries cannot double-charge
Credit writes carry an idempotency key. A retried job or a replayed event reaches the ledger once, whatever the queue does under the hood.
Every transition is auditable
Draft, queued, reserving credits, scripting, storyboard, media, voice, subtitles, rendering, completed, failed and cancelled are all logged with timestamps.
Process questions
- How long does a run take?
- It depends on duration and scene count. The status page shows the current stage rather than a fake progress bar, and you get an email-free, refresh-safe view you can leave and return to.
- Can I cancel a running job?
- Yes. Cancelling stops the pipeline at the next safe point and returns the unconsumed part of the reservation to your available balance.
- What does 'generation failed — credits returned' mean?
- The job ended without producing a video and its reservation went back to your balance. The credit history line names the job so you can match it to the project.