Turkmenistan TV has commissioned a landmark building for its new headquarters. With a central 211m tower, the building also contains 13 television studios, 50 radio studios and a network of 50 video editing suites. Lead technology provider is Harris.
As well as asset management, servers, routers and graphics, Harris is also providing test and measurement, audio consoles and signal processing and distribution. As well as allowing the move to HD, the project will also allow Turkmenistan to launch an IPTV service, which will using Harris encoding. Within the massive building communications and monitoring will use IPTV, based on the Harris InfoCaster digital signage solution.
As a greenfield project, much of the core infrastructure uses file-based workflows. To provide the bridge between the video and the IP worlds Harris is using its Selenio convergence platform. Timescales are tight, with orders placed earlier this year and the centre due to go on air next month.
Enre Dagdeviren, general manager of Policom, said “When completed, this will be one of the best examples of modern broadcast technology within a state of the art television facility.”
The construction is being led by Turkish company Polimeks. Its subsidiary Policon is project managing the technical installation. Precise values are not being discussed, but we understand the dollar value to Harris is in eight figures.
Harris Morris, president of Harris Broadcast Communications, believes that, while this is a huge project it will not be the last from this part of the world. While most eyes are focused on BRIC countries as the big sources of growth, he believes this region is very important.
“There are some great pockets of growth that are not making so many headlines,” he said. “There is a lot of development in the ‘-istan’ countries which have a great deal of capital coming from natural resources that they want to put into communicating with their people.”
