Television Jamaica goes live with Comark end-to-end ATSC 3.0 solution

Tuesday, February 15th, 2022 
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Television Jamaica goes “LIVE” with an end-to-end ATSC 3.0 Solution from Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark

SOUTHWICK, MA — Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC (hereinafter “COMARK”), a manufacturer and supplier of DTV transmitters, encoding systems, and associated field services for 50 years, has announced that Television Jamaica (TVJ) is “on the air” with a fully integrated ATSC 3.0 solution from COMARK.

COMARK delivered an E-Compact air-cooled UHF transmitter system along with a Dielectric Communications panel array transmit antenna for this initial over-the-air service in Kingston. The E-Compact transmitter family features asymmetric broadband Doherty amplifier technology for maximum power efficiency. The E-Compact product line also features the EXACT-V2 IP Optimized DTV exciter that is fully compatible with ATSC 3.0. COMARK has deployed hundreds of E-Compact transmitter solutions around the world.

Comark Digital Services (CDS) provided the end-to-end “IP-enabled” workflow of ATSC 3.0 headend equipment. The CDS solution features the ATEME TITAN Live software-based encoding solution, which is configured with 4x HEVC encoded video services. Since the system is server based, additional encoding licenses can be added should more capacity be needed at any time in the future. The solution also includes Triveni Digital’s GuideBuilder® XM ATSC 3.0 Transport Encoder with NextGen TV signaling, NRT[1], and ROUTE[2] encoding capabilities . Triveni Digital’s ATSC 3.0 Broadcast Gateway system simplifies the implementation and management of revenue-enhancing ATSC 3.0 services for Television Jamaica. Finally, Television Jamaica is using Triveni Digital’s StreamScope® XM Analyzer for ATSC 3.0 testing and monitoring. CDS provided equipment integration, service level agreement, remote installation, and training services to the TVJ staff.

“TVJ came to COMARK in late November and questioned if we could deploy a complete ATSC 3.0 solution with an on-air deadline of January 31, 2022” states Joe Turbolski, VP of Sales and Marketing at COMARK. “We prepared the UHF transmitter and worked with our partners to line up the necessary equipment to make this happen. Using CDS, which was re- launched in 2018 to assist customers with the migration to NextGen TV, we continue to provide market-leading solutions with best-of-breed technology and system expertise for ATSC 3.0 projects.”

“We are proud to be part of a history making event in Jamaica by being the first local FTA station to be broadcasting in HD using the ATSC 3.0 technology and COMARK’s quick response to a very tight deadline was very instrumental in making this happen” states Michael P. Henlin, Chief Technology Officer at RJRGLEANER Communications Group.

1. NRT (Non-Real-Time)
It is content Delivery standard that has a backwards-compatible enhancement for digital TV broadcasting
2. ROUTE (Real-time Object delivery over Unidirectional Transport)
Its protocol is used to deliver content packaged in MPEG DASH Segment

Links: Comark; Triveni Digital; Television Jamaica