Kuwait TV goes digital with Harris Broadcast
Published: MEA
KUWAIT: Kuwait TV, the country’s official state-run television station run by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information, has selected Harris Broadcast’s distribution and over-the-air transmission technology as part of the region’s first end-to-end DVB-T2 implementation.
Kuwait TV has embarked on the transition from analogue to digital transmission in a bid to attract more of the population to watch local television over the air. The country will be covered using Harris Broadcast Maxiva ULX solid-state transmitters – ranging in power from 1kW to 2kW – in a single frequency network configuration.
‘We are proud of this regional first – leading our customers in the Gulf state toward a digital broadcasting future that reinvigorates the medium,’ said Mathias Eckert, vice president, EMEA for Harris Broadcast. ‘Kuwait TV selected the Harris Broadcast solution as they wanted a single vendor they could trust, and together with our local dealer Gatelink Communications Company, we proposed a best-in-class solution that was simple and robust. The integrated Harris Broadcast technology enabled Kuwait TV to rapidly address the market demands for top quality, high definition channels from its viewers.’
The network is fed from a single Selenio MCP3 platform at the headend. Fitted with 12 HD encoders and two multiplexers, the Selenio platform generates the DVB-T2 transport stream at the headend. This is fed to the three synchronised transmitters, providing service to the whole country.
‘DVB-T2 is a key component in rolling out high quality, high capacity over-the-air television in national markets like Kuwait,’ said Mr Eckert. ‘What we bring to the market is not only highly stable and power-efficient transmitters, but also a complete Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) solution using the Selenio media convergence platform as the encoder and multiplexer. The modular Selenio platform allows us to create a headend that is tailored precisely to the needs of the customer, then deliver a transport stream to any number of transmitters in an efficient single frequency network. We are sure that other broadcasters will follow Kuwait’s lead as they look to roll out high quality, high capacity DTT networks in the region.’