An automated playlist chaser (APC) improves the recovery time and
robustness of playlists to component failures and/or human errors in a
content sourcing and editing environment. Following detection and
correction of an error in a content sourcing subsystem controlled by a
playlist, the APC retrieves a last known good playlist from a playlist
archive and automatically builds a new playlist for resynchronization of
the subsystem. Building the new playlist involves iteratively solving for
the first new program segment entry in the new playlist and the new
"on-air time," "start-of message," and "duration" attributes for the
entry as a function of a reference time (e.g., the present time of day),
the original on-air time for the entry, the subsystem recovery time, the
APC processing time, and the queuing delay of the audio-video source for
the program segment.