A streaming channel is a dedicated URL for publishing live streams. It works similarly to a traditional television channel. Channels are consistent broadcasting locations for your content, making it easier for audiences to find and view your live events.
In this article:
Create a Live Channel
1. Open Live Streaming > Manage channels: This will bring you to the list view of the live channels.
2. Click on the Create live channel:
3. Fill in the information about the channel:
- Title: Displayed on the channel page to identify the content.
- Description (optional): It's not shown on the channel’s page, but it is useful metadata for search engine optimization.
- Select application: Choose the application to manage and view your live streams accordingly.
Available for managing multiple applications through the Admin Portal.
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Channel URL: Make the channel URL descriptive so that it is easily remembered and guessed by viewers. Insert the value that will be added to the pre-defined URL you see above the input field.
Channel URLs are permanent and cannot be overridden later.
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Privacy: select the privacy level for your channel:
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Public: Events created using your channel will be displayed on the Portal and accessible to everyone.
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Unlisted: Events will not be listed publicly. Only those with the direct link will be able to view the Event.
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Channel player splash image: A visual preview of your content. This image appears before the stream starts and can also be displayed when the player is embedded on other pages.
Live Sources and Settings
Select your preferred source type to view the corresponding settings options.
Default live source
You must assign a streaming server (Live source) to your channel. There are three types available:
- Ravnur Media Services (RMS): provides advanced streaming server control and low latency capabilities.
- MUX: Alternative streaming infrastructure with live closed captioning and reduced latency capabilities. Available by request only.
- HTTP live stream URL: Use a .m3u8 playlist manifest URL to create a generic live source and stream it to the player.
Default live sources can be overridden for specific events (e.g. an Event will take place in a different location and another streaming server is closer) when you schedule the Event.
Channel Settings
- Enable Q&A: Add a mailbox for viewers to contact you.
The “Enable Q&A” field is displayed only if you access from the Admin Portal.
- If you create a channel from the Portal, there is a Featured Channel option instead. It allows you to attach the Live Channel player to the Home page of the Portal.
- Allow embedding: allow your live stream to be embedded on other websites or web pages.
Post production settings
These settings allow you to customize post-processing options. You can change these settings at any time.
These settings will not appear if your selected HTTP Live Stream URL source.
Enable viewing of recorded event immediately. The recorded live stream will be published immediately after the live stream is over, and it will be viewable as a VOD. Before the encoding is complete, the video will be streamed from the live archive (used for the DVR functionality) and when encoding of the live archive is complete, the stream will be using the MP4 versions. The video will have an "available" status immediately and will be accessible to users on the portals even during the processing phase. For live events exceeding 24 hours, only the last 24 hours of the stream will be available in the recording.
Generate captions for the VOD asset. Selecting this will add automatic caption generation for the VOD to the processing pipeline. When you select this option, you need to select the language of the audio track.
Do not convert to VOD after stream completion. This option will not prevent the creation of VOD, as VOD is always created after stream completion. However, selecting this option will disable the creation of previews, thumbnails, and closed captions. For Standard Passthrough encoding, it will trigger transcoding into various qualities if not selected. For 720p- or 1080p-encoded streams, multiple quality versions are already pre-encoded and available immediately. If you do not need previews, thumbnails, and closed captions for non-Standard Passthrough VOD, disable this field to skip unnecessary transcoding.
Multiple channels
Create multiple dedicated channels to match your organizational structure and content variety. Each channel has a unique custom URL for easy identification and navigation.
Example of use
Perfect for organizations with standing committees: stream every Event on the same URL that is not shared by any other Event. You can also embed the channel on the committee’s webpage and thereby ensure that every live stream is also published on that page. It allows consistent content delivery to specific audiences.