24/7 channels from files (playout)
Updated 09 Oct 2026Castreon can turn your files — films, episodes, clips — into a TV channel. The channel runs around the clock, like any other Castreon channel: same outputs (HLS, HTTP-TS, UDP, SRT…), EPG and alerts.
Available from Castreon 1.3.0, in the Pro and Enterprise plans. The day / hour schedule, live takeover, SCTE-35 markers and the as-run report are in Enterprise — see Schedule, live takeover and as-run report.
How it works
- Files go into the Library.
- You put them in a playlist.
- You create a channel with the Files (playout) source and pick the playlist.
Each file is prepared once for the channel (resolution, logo, subtitles, loudness), then aired without re-encoding: prepared files are joined one after another with continuous timestamps, so viewers see no pauses, black screens or jumps between titles.
The Library
The Library menu shows every file, by folder, with poster, duration and status (ready, preparing, queued, error, expiring soon).
New files come in three ways:
- Browser upload — the Upload files button, or drag the files onto the page. Uploads go in chunks and resume by themselves after an interruption, even for files of tens of GB.
- Synced folder — copy the files to the server (rsync, SFTP) into the storage location's folder. Castreon scans by itself (every 5 minutes by default; Scan now for right away) and takes a file only once it has finished copying.
- Another storage location — a disk or share mounted on the server (Settings → File-based channels → Storage locations; several storage locations are in Enterprise).
The file name gives the title, the year and, for series, the season and episode (Series.S01E02.mkv). Subtitles next to the file (Film.ro.srt) are found automatically and converted to UTF-8 (old diacritics are repaired). With your own TMDB key (Settings → File-based channels) Castreon fills in the title, description, genre and poster by itself.
For each file you can set the title, the description (shown in the EPG), the role (Title, Intro, Outro, Filler / promo) and the broadcast rights: Valid from / until. Outside that window the title is no longer scheduled, and a few days before it expires you get an alert.
Playlists
A playlist holds the files in the order you want (drag the rows) and a mode: Fixed order or Shuffle. Shuffle is stable for a whole cycle, so the EPG shows exactly what will air. From the playlist you can Add from library or Upload a new file directly.
Watched folder: link the playlist to a folder and new files in it are prepared and join the rotation by themselves — at the end, by name or by episode (S01E01, S01E02…). Whatever you move or delete from the folder leaves the playlist.
Playlist changes join the rotation without restarting the channel.
The channel
Under Channels → New channel, choose the Files (playout) source and the playlist. The channel's profile sets the resolution and bitrate. The Playout rules next to the playlist:
| Rule | What it does |
|---|---|
| Channel logo | the channel logo (PNG with a transparent background), burned into the picture in the chosen corner — size, margins and opacity are adjustable, with a preview |
| Intro / outro | a short clip (channel ident, “Up next”) before every title or every few minutes, and a clip after the title |
| Filler | a playlist of short clips that covers the gaps |
| Equal loudness | EBU R128: each file's loudness is brought to −23 LUFS (or another target) during preparation, in two passes |
| Burned-in subtitles | subtitles in the chosen language, written into the picture; the audio language |
| EPG | the 7-day TV guide from the real timeline, in /epg.xml and on the channel page |
The logo, equal loudness and subtitles change how files are prepared: the channel prepares them again and restarts once. The other rules apply on the fly.
Preparation
The preparation queue is in the Library, on the right. What is about to air is prepared first. On a server with an NVIDIA card, preparation runs on the GPU (NVENC); otherwise on the CPU, at low priority, so it doesn't slow down the other channels. Settings → File-based channels: how many preparations at once, retries, how long the report is kept.
Prepared files sit next to the originals, in .castreon/prepared inside the storage location. A damaged or missing file doesn't stop the channel: the title is skipped and you get an alert.
The channel page
- Now playing — poster, description, how long it has run, how long is left.
- Up next — with Play now on each title; Skip to next in the header.
- 7-day EPG — exactly the order that will air.
- The Playlist tab — the channel's playlist, editable in place.
After a stop or a restart — of the channel or of the server — the channel starts from the first title of the playlist (with a new order for a shuffled one) and the EPG is rebuilt from the start time. Restarts made by Castreon itself (after changing the logo, loudness or subtitles, or after an error) keep the rotation: the channel carries on where it was. Blocks in the day / hour schedule (Enterprise) still start at their time.
Alerts
File-based channels have their own family under Settings → Notifications — File-based channels: nothing to air, a skipped title (missing or damaged file), a failed live takeover, expiring rights, disk almost full.