ScaleEngine Channel is a web-based playout management system that streams playlists directly from the ScaleEngine CDN to your viewers.
The channel system allows you to manage and stream high quality loops of pre-recorded content dir ectly from our CDN to your viewers. Scheduled changes transition smoothly on a running stream, so yo u can edit playlists and schedule different content for different days and times while keeping your streams running 24 hours a day.
The Playlist system creates streams from loops of video (or audio) arranged in an ordered list. It checks for changes to lists every 5 minutes (00, 05, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 minutes past the hour, exactly) and will transition to the beginning of the new or changed list immediately at that time.
Functionality:
We create a "fake live" Stream from List Names. Our channel system checks for Updated, Active, Scheduled List Names every 5 minutes (00,05,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50, and 55 past every hour).
Such Lists play your source files and/or streams in the specified order on a Stream. If set to Repeat, they will loop, which is the usual use case.
Lists will always start from the beginning any time they are updated, or become the active List Name on a stream.
A stream will transition to any List Name if a List Name on that stream is Updated, Active, and Scheduled.
Lists contain either VOD assets found in your sestore account, or live streams, or both. An active scheduled list will start playing in order from the beginning, and will loop over and over, creating the continuous "fake live" streaming channel.
One stream can be made to play several lists, scheduled for different days or times. You can create several List Names (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.) with the same Stream name, and show the content you want for that time of day, or that day of the week.
| Terminology | Description |
|---|---|
| Channel: | A channel is a playlist playing out its content on a stream name. |
| List: | The List is an ordered collection of content, with a Name, that plays on a stream. |
| Application: | This is your channel origin application. Our video CDN pulls the stream from this source to get it to your viewers. |
| Stream: | The channel stream is identified by its name, and is in all cases, a live stream. |
| Going Live: | You can cut in Live using two methods. One way is to schedule a live stream in your list as the first item, and to update the list. After the 5 minute transition point, you will be live. The other method is to create a second list, set to play on the same stream name, and set to fallback. When it finishes, the second active list will start playing again from the beginning. |
| VOD consistency: | We cannot emphasize this enough. It is very important to look at the file browser analysis of your content and to ensure that your content has the same profile, bitrates (approximate) and dimensions, to maximize the compatibility with player devices.. |