VOD-to-live control plane
Your video library, live 24/7 — without the control room
ChannelForge turns the videos you already have into always-on live channels on YouTube or any RTMP destination. Schedule once; it streams, heals, and keeps the log — unattended.
Free during the pilot programme. No credit card.
Watch Yoga & You
Loads the live HLS player
This is a real channel: Yoga & You, scheduled, streamed and monitored by ChannelForge — delivered straight from the HLS origin, nobody pressing buttons.
How it works
Three steps from library to live
Your files are referenced where they already live — never copied into someone else's silo. Each video is prepared for broadcast exactly once; after that, running a channel costs about 1% of a CPU core.
Connect your videos
Upload from your computer, or point at where they already are. Every file is analyzed and made broadcast-ready automatically.
Programme your channel
Group videos into collections, set the rules — ordering, bumpers, fixed time slots, no-repeat windows — and generate a week of schedule you can see as a TV-guide calendar.
Go live — and walk away
One click provisions your YouTube live stream, or paste any RTMP key (Twitch, Kick, Facebook, your CDN). Multiple destinations stream from a single pipeline.
Built to be left alone
What “set and forget” actually means here
Never dead air
If a file is missing or fails, the channel substitutes: the block's fallback, then your filler collection, then a standby slate. Viewers never see a black screen.
Schedules extend themselves
A running channel never runs out of programme. The schedule keeps rolling forward on its own — you regenerate only when you want the programming to change.
Self-healing streams
A supervisor watches every channel with a heartbeat. If a stream drops, it reconnects; if a worker dies, it's respawned; every incident becomes an alert, and recoveries close them.
Broadcast-grade records
An immutable as-run log records what actually aired — planned vs. actual times, substitutions, outcomes — exportable as CSV for sponsors and licensors.
Your files stay yours
Storage connections reference your buckets and folders — nothing is copied into a walled garden. Disconnect any time; your library is untouched.
Consistent, compliant output
Every video is normalized once — resolution, frame rate, loudness levelled to broadcast standards (EBU R128) — so your channel looks and sounds like one channel, not a playlist.
Who it's for
Made for people sitting on a library
Monetize your back catalog
Your older videos barely get impressions. A 24/7 live channel puts them back in front of the algorithm — live carousel, watch hours, new subscribers — while you keep making new content.
- Be live in minutes with Quick Start
- Vertical (9:16) and 60 fps channel profiles
- Per-programme viewer stats — see what to schedule more of
- Your logo on every frame; runs while you sleep
A channel without the playout suite
Community, devotional, regional and education broadcasters get real scheduling — fixed morning slots, weekly shows, interstitials — without racks of playout hardware.
- Daily & weekly time anchors (DST-aware)
- TV-guide calendar of the week
- As-run logs + per-programme viewers for sponsors
Every title on air, inside its rights
Aggregators and catalog owners run many channels from one library. Rights windows keep expired titles off air automatically; roles and audit trails keep the team accountable.
- Many channels, one library, one team
- Rights-window enforcement
- Owner/editor/operator roles + audit log
For channel operators & distributors
Supply broadcast-grade FAST channels
The same scheduling engine delivers standards-based channels to FAST platforms and distributors — not just to YouTube. A monitored HLS origin, a public programme guide, distribution agreements with a certification workflow, and a live operations wallboard — all set up from the dashboard, live today.
Standards delivery + public feeds
A monitored HLS origin with a stable per-channel URL, SCTE-35 ad breaks as HLS
EXT-X-DATERANGE cues, and WebVTT captions — plus public guide feeds a
distributor pulls directly: a DTD-conformant XMLTV guide, a
TV-Anytime rendering, and a now/next feed.
Agreements, certification & EPG
Generate a validated, versioned programme guide from the published schedule — it
regenerates as the schedule rolls and can be delivered to S3/SFTP/HTTP. Move a
distribution agreement draft → live through a certification checklist;
the origin only serves certified channels.
Operate & monitor
Run it all from the dashboard: a live NOC wallboard of fleet health, output probes watching manifest freshness and drift, an incident lifecycle, and signed, retrying webhooks for your systems. Optional primary/backup redundancy with automatic failover.
FAQ
The questions everyone asks
Does YouTube allow 24/7 streams of my existing videos?
Yes — streaming content you own the rights to is a normal, supported use of YouTube Live, and always-on channels are an established format. Monetization follows your channel's standing as usual. What you must not stream is content you don't have rights to; ChannelForge's rights windows help you enforce that.
Where do my video files live?
Wherever they already are. Connections to S3, Drive, Dropbox or SFTP only reference your files; direct uploads go to managed storage in your workspace. Broadcast-ready copies are prepared once and stored alongside.
What happens when something breaks at 3am?
The channel keeps going: missing media is substituted (fallback → filler → slate), dropped streams reconnect with backoff, dead workers respawn, and an alert email goes to your team. Every substitution is recorded in the as-run log.
Do I need to re-encode my videos every day?
No. Each video is normalized to your channel's broadcast profile exactly once. After that the channel streams by repackaging — about 1% of a CPU core — which is what makes always-on channels affordable.
Can I stream to more than YouTube?
Yes — any RTMP(S) destination: Twitch, Kick, Facebook Live, a CDN ingest. Multiple destinations run from a single pipeline, simultaneously.
Can I see how many people watch?
Yes. For YouTube destinations, ChannelForge samples live concurrent viewers and joins them with the as-run log — so you see average and peak viewers per programme, not just a channel-level number. That tells you what to schedule more of.
Can you deliver to a FAST platform or distributor, not just YouTube?
Yes. Alongside RTMP(S), ChannelForge outputs a monitored standards HLS origin with SCTE-35 ad breaks and WebVTT captions, plus public guide feeds a distributor pulls directly — a DTD-conformant XMLTV guide, a TV-Anytime rendering, and a now/next feed. Manage distribution agreements through a certification workflow, monitor a fleet NOC wallboard, and integrate via signed webhooks — all from the dashboard. Talk to us to run a pilot.
What does it cost?
ChannelForge is in its pilot programme: creators can start free, and broadcasters/catalog owners get white-glove onboarding. Email us for pilot terms.
Your library is a channel waiting to happen
Connect your videos, press Start, and watch it run itself.
Start free Read the guide