UAE on track for HDTV broadcast in 2009

by Steven Kim posted Aug 11th 2008 at 7:03PM

In case you haven't heard, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is on a spending spree fueled by its goal to become the country with the bestest of everything. Naturally, that claim includes broadcast HDTV, right? Well, as we've seen in the U.S., there's more to getting HD off the ground than the infrastructure. Lots of channels with little content does not a happy HD populace make, and those are exactly the growing pains that UAE is experiencing. The country has spent some $5-billion on HD infrastructure that has been ready to roll for some 2.5-years, but it's been a, um, desert in terms of content. The market rollout with respect to HD-media is reversed from the situation we had in the U.S. -- the UAE is seeing HDM spark HD broadcast -- but it's still all about content. Our advice is to rely on early adopters until content reaches critical mass, and then the market will catch on. And trust us -- it's worth the wait.

Filed under: Industry, Blu-ray, OTA

Tags: broadcast, uae, united arab emirates, UnitedArabEmirates

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

badwan @ Aug 11th 2008 7:40PM

I think its time for me to move over there, since the economy is going down in US!

Neutral

Doc @ Aug 12th 2008 9:22AM

FYI, they are spending their cash like it's on fire because they are 2-3 years from being completely out of oil... That's why they are trying to make themselves the vegas of the middle east, so they can have tourist coming to visit and then they can make some money post oil.

Neutral

DEEZNUTZ @ Aug 12th 2008 11:00AM

That was smart of them. They acted on that knowledge and invested in their future beyond Oil. Hope it pays off for them in the long run.

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