Creating and managing a channel¶
A channel is what you serve to the viewer: sources, processing, archive and playback under one name. Central stores the channel's configuration; the channel runs on a streamer — which one, central decides by itself. This page walks the life cycle: create, find it in the list and read its state, edit, disable, delete.
Create a channel¶
On the Channels screen, type a name into New Channel Name and press Create. The channel is created enabled, and its page opens — it has no sources yet; adding them is your next step.
The name is also an address: it becomes part of the playback URL, /streaming/v/<name>/index.m3u8. Stick to Latin letters, digits, hyphen and underscore; spaces and special characters do not belong in a URL.
The full walk from an empty installation to a playing channel is in the Quick start.
Find it in the list¶
The Channels screen shows every channel of the installation, one row per channel, statistics re-read every few seconds. The Search by name field filters the table as you type.
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Channel Name | A link to the channel's page |
| Sources | The input chain: one dot per source, in priority order |
| Status | The channel's state indicator, see below |
| Layout | Whether the channel's placement has reached the streamers |
| Input Resolution | The class of the active input: SD, HD, FullHD, 4K |
| Input Bitrate | The measured bitrate of the active input |
| DVR | How much archive is actually recorded, with a recording health indicator |
| Viewers | The channel's active sessions; zero shows as a dash |
| Actions | ▶ opens the channel in the built-in player in a new tab |
In the source chain the dot's color is the input's health:
- Green — the source is working.
- Hollow green — a verified standby.
- Yellow — the source has degraded.
- Red — the source is dead.
- Hollow gray — never checked yet.
The active input is ringed. Clicking a cell leads to the matching tab of the channel: the chain — to sources, the layout badge — to layout, DVR — to the archive, the viewer count — to sessions.
The Layout column answers "did the streamers carry out the placement decision":
- applied — yes;
- delivering — decided, not yet confirmed;
- stale — a streamer still runs an old version;
- rejected — a streamer refused, the reason is in the tooltip;
- unplaced — no streamer got the channel.
The decision itself — which channel runs on which streamer — is made by the layouter; its page shows when the last run happened, how it ended and why the channel is exactly where it is.
Statuses¶
- Green — on air: the source is locked, the streamer serves the stream.
- Yellow — a transient state: the channel is enabled but the stream has not started yet — for example, it was just created or waits for placement.
- Red — the channel cannot play: none of its sources delivers data.
- Gray — the channel is disabled.
Separate from the indicator is the amber highlight of a whole row: the channel is alive but not running the way it was meant to — the active input has degraded, or the channel fell back from its primary source to a lower-priority one. A red dot at the head of the source chain is the failed primary. How the switching works and how to tune it is on the input failover page.
How edits apply¶
Clicking a channel's name opens its page: tabs with the settings, and in the header — Save, Cancel, Delete.
- Edits on any tabs accumulate in the browser until you save. A tab with unsaved changes carries a dot.
- Save is only active when there are changes, and submits them all at once. If some value fails validation, the page names the exact field, and nothing is applied.
- Cancel rolls back everything unsaved.
- A saved configuration does not take effect instantly: central delivers it to the streamer, and a few seconds later the channel runs the new way.
While you have no unsaved edits, the page re-reads the configuration from central every few seconds — a change made by a colleague shows up on its own. The background sync never overwrites your unsaved edits.
Disable without deleting¶
The Enabled switch lives on the basic settings tab. A disabled channel stops: sources are not ingested, viewers get nothing, and in the list the channel shows gray. The configuration stays intact — switch it back on and the channel comes up the same.
The switch is an edit like any other: without Save the channel keeps running.
Delete¶
The Delete button in the header of the channel page, with a confirmation. Central removes the channel from the configuration, the streamer stops ingesting and serving. The stop is not instant: for a few more seconds the streamer may keep serving the stream while it winds down.