Senta Transcoder

Alta can run transcoding jobs on a Senta server. Alta stores the jobs, starts and stops them in Senta, configures Senta to restart them after failures, and shows their status in the web interface. The transcoded stream is sent back to Alta as a UDP stream that you use as a regular receiver.

Requirements

• A running Senta server that Alta can reach over HTTP or HTTPS.
• The Senta API URL with port and an API key.
• At least one transcoding profile created in Senta. Alta reads the list of profiles from Senta.
• A free range of UDP ports on the Alta server for the transcoded output.

Connect to Senta

UI Navigation: Go to Settings → Senta Settings

Parameters:

• Enable: Turn the integration on or off. When disabled, no other field is required, and the Transcoding item is hidden from the top bar.
• Senta API URL with port: Address of the Senta API, for example http://192.168.1.50:8080.
• API Key: Key to access the Senta API.
• Output IP: IP address of the Alta server where Senta sends the transcoded streams.
• UDP Port Range: Ports from From to To that Alta assigns to the jobs. Default: 55000 – 56000.
• Protocol: Output protocol. Always udp, the field is read-only.

After saving, the Transcoding item appears in the top bar.

Note

The web interface checks the connection to Senta periodically. If Senta does not respond, the Senta is unreachable message appears in the lower-right corner of the web interface with the Open Senta settings button.

Transcoding Jobs

UI Navigation: Go to Transcoding → Create

The table shows all jobs with the following columns:

• Enable toggle: Start or stop the job.
• Name: Job label.
• Input: Source of the stream to transcode.
• Profile: Senta profile used by the job.
• Output: UDP address where Senta sends the result.
• Uptime: Job status. Waiting... means the job is enabled but Senta has not started it yet, Stopped means the job is disabled or not running, otherwise the time the job is running.

Create/Edit Transcoding:

• Enable: Start the job after saving.
• Name (required): Job label. It is also used as the name of the receiver if Auto create receiver is enabled.
• Input URL (required): Source of the stream: udp://, rtsp://, http://, https://, or an absolute path to a file on the Senta server.
• Select profile: Transcoding profile from Senta.
• Output path: Read-only. Alta assigns the first free port from the UDP Port Range and shows the address as udp://<output-ip>:<port>.
• Auto create receiver: Create a receiver with the Output path as source.
• Restart on crash: Senta restarts the job if it fails.
  • Restart time (seconds): Delay before the restart.
  • Restart limit (times): Maximum number of restarts.

Use the Transcoded Stream

1. Enable Auto create receiver in the job, or create a receiver manually with the Output path as source, for example udp://127.0.0.1:55000.
2. Enable the receiver. Alta creates it disabled, and does not create it if a receiver with the same source already exists.
3. Assign the receiver to a channel variant.

Tip

Create one job per profile and one channel variant per job to offer several bitrates for the same source.

Process Management

Alta owns the processes it creates in Senta, they are placed in the Alta group.

• When Alta starts with Senta enabled, it deletes all processes in the Alta group, creates a process for each enabled job, and starts them.
• When Alta stops, it stops and deletes these processes.

Caution

Do not edit or delete processes of the Alta group directly in Senta. Alta recreates them from its own configuration.