Channels are a combination of one or more sources that are prepared for output in the ZEN system. Each channel is assigned to a specific Channel Processing Broadcaster cluster. There are six types of Channels, each involving a different process in preparing the stream for output. The following is a description of the Channel types:
- Transcoded Channel – transcodes a single Source to multiple bitrates for output to an HTTP, S3, MediaStore or GCP Target.
- Pass-through Channel – no actual processing is done on the stream. A Pass-Through Channel with a single Source simply sends the Source to an output. A Pass-Through channel with multiple Sources creates redundancy by defining parallel streams from multiple Sources as a single entity. This ensures that if one Source becomes inactive the stream will be automatically transmitted from the parallel Source.
- Failover Channel – creates a Failover channel.
- AWS MediaConnect Flow - create and manage a completely new MediaConnect Flow in ZEN Master. A MediaConnect Source that was configured in ZEN Master can be assigned to the MediaConnect Flow Channel.
- AWS MediaLive Channel – create and manage a new AWS MediaLive Channel in ZEN Master.
By clicking More Options you can also choose:
- Adaptive Channel – combines multiple Sources to create a unified HLS stream for output to an HTTP, S3, MediaStore or GCP Target.
If you would like to create a new Channel with a configuration similar to an existing Channel you can use the Clone feature, see Cloning a Channel.