Creating a channel - AWS Elemental MediaPackage

Creating a channel

This guide shows how to create a channel to start receiving content streams. Later, you add an origin endpoint to the channel. This endpoint is the access point for content playback requests. We recommend that you spread out channels between channel groups, such as putting redundant channels in the same AWS Region in different channel groups.

You can use the MediaPackage console, MediaPackage API, or AWS CLI to create a channel. When you're creating a channel, don't put sensitive identifying information like customer account numbers into free-form fields such as the name or description field. MediaPackage doesn’t require that you supply any customer data. This includes when you work with MediaPackage using the MediaPackage console, MediaPackage API, AWS CLI, or AWS SDKs. Any data that you enter into MediaPackage might get picked up for inclusion in diagnostic logs or Amazon CloudWatch Events.

To create a channel

  1. Access the channel group that the channel will be associated with, as described in Viewing channel group details.

  2. Choose Create channel from the Channels list.

  3. For Name, enter a name that describes the channel. The name is the primary identifier for the channel, and must be unique for your account in the AWS Region and channel group. Supported characters are A-Z, a-z, 0-9, _ (underscore), and - (hyphen) with a length of 1 to 256 characters. You can't use spaces in the name, and you can't change the name after you create the channel.

    The name is the primary identifier for the channel, and it must be unique for your account in the AWS Region and channel group.

  4. (Optional) For Description, enter descriptive text to help you identify the channel.

  5. Choose the Input type that you want to use for your channel:

    • HLS input type requires your live encoder to produce HLS with TS streams and to ingest it onto MediaPackage using plain HTTP PUT requests.

    • CMAF requires your live encoder to follow the DASH-IF Live Media Ingest Protocol version 1.2, producing and ingesting CMAF streams using Interface-1 (CMAF Ingest, described in section 6).

      MediaPackage CMAF Ingest has currently been tested with MediaLive and the AWS Elemental Live encoder. A detailed specification of the MediaPackage encoder requirements for CMAF ingest is available upon request to live-encoder manufacturers who would want to validate interoperability of their solution with MediaPackage CMAF Ingest.

    Important

    Once you will have created your channel, you will not be able to change its input type. Certain features, like cross-region failover support, are available only on channels using CMAF ingest - and more upcoming features will also be available only with CMAF ingest. We advise you to leverage CMAF Ingest if you can.

  6. Choose your channel's IAM policy settings from the following options:

    • Don't attach a policy – Restrict access to only those who have access to this account's credentials.

      Choose this option if you're using AWS Elemental MediaLive in the same account as MediaPackage.

    • Attach a custom policy – Define your own policy and restrict access to as few or as many accounts and resources you want. Enter a valid JSON object with the same structure as other IAM policies. The policy should follow the standard security advice of granting least privilege, or granting only the permissions required to perform a task.

      If you're not using MediaLive, choose this option and define your policy.

    For more information about policies, see Resource-based policy examples.

  7. Choose Create.

    MediaPackage displays the new channel's details page.

    After you create a channel, MediaPackage provides two ingest endpoint domain URLs that are fixed for the lifetime of the channel. The channel is active and can start receiving content as soon as it's created. Provide this information for the upstream encoder stream destination settings. MediaPackage dynamically adjusts resources to increase capacity for your traffic.

    If you're using input redundancy and one of the inputs stops sending content, then MediaPackage automatically switches to the other input for the source content. For more information about how input redundancy works, see Live input redundancy AWS Elemental MediaPackage processing flow.

    While you create a channel, if you exceed the quotas on the account, you'll receive an error. The error will be similar to Too many requests, please try again. Resource limit exceeded. This error means that either you exceeded the API request quotas, or that you reached the maximum number of channels that your account permits.