DNF Controls today announced that its 3040P-L Playlist Playout Controller is being used by the Harbor Plaza, Conn., facility of Ascent Media during playout of NFL Sunday Ticket and ESPN GamePlan, two sports subscription television packages that supply professional and college football fans with hundreds of games over the course of the season.

Ascent uses 15 3040P-Ls to package live feeds from each game with commercials and feature shows specific to the teams playing in that game. Ascent also uses DNF's Playlist Transfer Tool to create playlists on a computer, and then quickly and easily transfer them into the 3040P-L controllers for playout.

"We needed an easy-to-use device with a small footprint to play back content from a video server using a playlist," said Ken Breitenstein, automation specialist at Ascent Media. "We employ freelance operators for our Sunday Ticket and GamePlan broadcasts, and wanted an all-in-one package that is easy to learn and operate. The 3040P-L fits our needs very well, and its performance in this year's football season has been excellent."

DNF's 3040P-L Playlist Playout Controller consists of DNF's ST400 controller with a large LCD display and Playlist Playout software. It controls one playlist per channel on up to five channels, for a total of 2,000 elements. In addition, the controller features a one-source VTR channel. The 3040P‑L makes it fast and easy to create playlists, play them, and modify them during playout.

DNF's Playlist Transfer Tool is a Microsoft^® Windows^® PC-based application that allows users to create a playlist using any text editor, and then transfer it to the 3040P-L over a serial link.