A dynamic TV is a News, Sport or other TV which every day has many new files that should be broadcasted. Also it is a common case to use virtual (or dimmy) files that are not available at the moment when they should be scheduled into the playlists. A typical example is a TV channel that has news or live show at 8 P.M on live and broadcasts the same news or live show at 10 P.M (repeated broadcast via a video file). The Sport TV channels are other example for dynamic TV – it is a common case for them to broadcast live sports events and to repeat them in the evening. There are several challenges how those new files will be accessed by the playout:

1. Playing the majority of the daily content via network is not a good idea. If the network experiences problems, the result will be seen directly on air.
2. It is not a good solution that the new video files are copied manually by the TV Staff directly on the playout. The playout HDD could be overloaded and the output could be affected if several persons start simultaneously copying. Usually, the new files are done by different departments and the cooperation to start only 1 copy at a time is hardly achieved.
3. When many persons of the TV Staff have direct access to the playout HDD they could delete the needed files by error. Only the playout operators should be able to manipulate directly the video files.
4. The virtual files have not set the exact duration. When they become available, often it is required that the operator confirms their In/Out position. For example, a recorded sport event needs to be played from file In position 00:02:23 till Out position 00:40:45 (segment 1), then the same file on segment 2 from 00:46:20 till 01:14:23. This is a common activity, but when there are many such files everyday and one operator is responsible for several channels, it is required automation to avoid errors.
5. The local HDD soon fills up and the operator should manually delete the old video files.

FileManager is a module that completely solves those questions. The TV staff copies the new files on a NAS (Network Attached Server) and the FileManager primary functions are:

1. Checks for new files on NAS and copies them to the playout local HDD.
2. Notifies when the new file is found, but their In/Out positions are not confirmed.
3. Reads XML Segment files that set the In/Out position. Those XML files are done from the person that produces the video file and removes the need of  the playout operator to type them manually, this avoids a lot of errors.
4. Auto deletes local video files when the HDD is full (deletes only files that were not used more than 14 days).

The FileManager works on the playout server and doesn’t require much. The TV channels need just to have a NAS server where to copy the new files.

The File Manager is a MUST have module for all dynamic TV!