A scalable encoding architecture is able to support multiple encoder versions without requiring new versions of the architecture to be generated and supported for each encoder version. An encoding profile template can be generated that includes the available settings for an encoder. A versioned schema can be generated that defines the settings for a particular encoder version. The schema can be persisted such that when a new channel or media stream is to be generated, the schema can be loaded and its values validated in order to cause the encoder to encode the media content using the appropriate values. An interface presented to the user to generate the template or channel can be dynamically generated such that only the applicable and/or relevant settings for a particular encoder version are displayed.