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FAQs
  • How is Phenix real-time streaming different from off the shelf WebRTC?
  • How does Phenix scale WebRTC to millions?
  • What is the difference between a CDN and Phenix?
  • What is the difference between a Channel and a Room?
  • Does Phenix encrypt its Real-Time streams?
  • How does Phenix define Real-Time vs Low Latency?
  • How does Phenix compare with technologies such as CMAF?
  • On which cloud platforms is the Phenix platform deployed?
  • What is the recommended minimum hardware spec for devices to publish from a web browser to Phenix?
  • What WebSocket reconnect mechanisms are built into the Web SDK?
  • What are the benefits of the Phenix hardware encoder?
  • How does Phenix multi-bitrate transcoding work and how do I enable it?
  • What bitrates are used for encoding and publishing?
  • How does Phenix adapt to challenging network connections?
  • How does Phenix handle rapid join rates and broadcast size audiences?
  • Where can I see the status of the Phenix system?
  • When do sessions and sessionIds expire?
  • What is the digest field portion of the Auth token?
  • Which video players support Phenix?
  • Which capture devices are compatible with Phenix?
  • Where can I find documentation of the text chat feature?
  • What size and bitrate should I use for publishing?
  • Does Phenix provide a video player?
  • What effects will 5G have on Phenix?

What is the difference between a Channel and a Room and when should I use them?

Room

room

A Room can have multiple pieces of content, such as broadcast-type content and user-generated content (UGC). These content streams can carry the same content or can contain different content.

Some members can simultaneously generate and subscribe to content streams.

Channel

channel

A Channel is a specific type of Room. A Channel has a single piece of content, in one or more streams, from one or more Publishers (each encoder or contribution path is a different Publisher).

If there are multiple streams, each stream is assumed to have the same content. This is used for high availability, where content is contributed via multiple redundant pathways to ensure delivery.

A Side-by-Side Comparison

RoomChannel
Use case: many-to-many, few-to-many, one-to-oneUse case: one-to-many
More than one piece of content in the roomOnly one active piece of content at a time (at most one audio & one video & one data)
Typically used to create a group experience with more than one publisherTypically used to create a broadcast experience with a single publisher
Rich set of APIs for creating a wide range of experiencesSimplified set of APIs for publishing and viewing
Customers need to build stream selection logic on Client if multiple streamsChannel provides stream selection logic, including High-Availability (HA) logic
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