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Kylone Digital Headend


The complete broadcast headend in software. Reception to RF, transcoding to OTT, headend to the TV in the room: DVB and IP inputs, hardware-accelerated processing, IPTV, OTT and modulated outputs, a managed device fleet and central multi-site management, in one engine that is built to run unattended. Twelve pillars, each with the specifics an operator asks about.

In Detail

The specifics operators ask about, pillar by pillar.

Channel Protection · Stand-In

A channel never goes dark. And no receiver ever notices the switch.
  • Automatic backup the moment a source fails — one-to-one, or one source protecting many channels — with automatic return when the source is healthy again. No operator action in either direction.
  • Fallback and guard layers behind every backup, so a single dead source can never leave a channel dark.
  • Scheduled parking for planned windows, and audio-only substitution for alternate-language or commentary feeds, time-aligned per channel.
  • Stable on-air identity through every switch — set-top boxes, IPTV clients, and televisions on modulated DVB-C keep playing without a re-scan.

Source failures are a when, not an if. Kylone turns them into a non-event — for the operator, and for every screen downstream.

Headend

Every input. Every output. One engine.
  • DVB-S/S2, T/T2, C, ATSC and ISDB-T tuners; multicast, HTTP, HLS, SRT, RTSP and RTMP over IP; HDMI capture; file playout with seamless looping.
  • Simultaneous outputs from the same channels: IPTV multicast and HTTP, HLS, SRT, RTSP, DVB-C/T modulation and ASI.
  • A transport-stream engine engineered to broadcast measurement guidelines (ETSI TR 101 290): precise timing, CBR outputs, stable service identity on every path.
  • Configuration changes apply live — only affected streams are touched.

What usually takes a rack of separate products is one system with one management surface.

Transcoding

Three GPU families. One transcoding platform.
  • Hardware acceleration on NVIDIA, Intel QuickSync and AMD — mixed GPUs in one server, with automatic load balancing.
  • Profiles, not scripts: codec ladders, picture controls, logo and subtitle overlay, audio processing — all from the web UI.
  • What goes in comes out: EPG, subtitles and captions are carried through transcoding, not lost in it.
  • From a fanless edge encoder to a multi-GPU rack — same software, same profiles.

Modules

Processing as plug-in modules — open where it counts, custom where you need it.
  • Transcoding and HLS output ship as Kylone-built modules in NVIDIA and Intel QuickSync editions — all capable of running on CPU alone.
  • GPL-clean and fully redistributable: built and shipped in compliance with open-source licensing, sources published. Deploy without licensing anxiety.
  • Pre-processing, post-processing, output and standalone module classes cover any stage of the chain.
  • Need a stage of your own — provider-specific conditional access, bespoke processing? Kylone builds it as a custom module under contract. No limit on what a module can be.

OTT

Your headend is already your OTT origin.
  • Modern HLS with independent chunks and caching — ready for CDNs and packagers without glue middleware.
  • Adaptive bitrate from one profile set: up to six encoding variants per channel in one master playlist, so a phone on guest Wi-Fi drops to a lighter rendition and the lobby screen keeps the full one — the player chooses, the operator sets the ladder.
  • Multi-audio publishing the way your players want it — muxed, per-language renditions, or both — and subtitles as WebVTT renditions with language and name, from teletext pages, closed captions or the headend’s own captions.
  • High-capacity SRT in and out with multi-core listener scaling for the open internet.
  • RTSP with authentication, RTMP push, and a built-in web player for instant verification.
  • One channel lineup serves IPTV in the building and OTT beyond it.

Conditional Access

Professional CA, both directions — including standalone CI.
  • Hardware CAM support not tied to a tuner: clear any input — including IP-sourced streams — through standalone CI slots, multiple services per module.
  • BISS in both directions.
  • Protection through to the clients: encrypted delivery with DRM-aware STB and mobile apps.
  • Full EMM/ECM handling with stable PID identity — protected services behave exactly like clear ones.

Content owners ask hard questions about security. This answers them without adding external systems.

RF

IP headend in. Ordinary televisions out.
  • DVB-C and DVB-T modulation directly from the headend — broadcast-grade CBR, complete network tables, channel numbering that just works on off-the-shelf TVs.
  • The retrofit story: a modern IP headend over the building’s existing coax. No new cabling, no TV replacement.
  • ASI output for existing broadcast infrastructure.
  • With Channel Protection, even RF viewers ride through source failures without touching the remote.

Hospitality

From the headend to the guest experience.
  • Native integration with major hospitality TV platforms, and a managed Android STB fleet — OTA upgrades, themes, multi-language UI, welcome flows.
  • PMS integration for guest lifecycle automation; per-package content through service packaging; parental controls, timeshift, VOD and music.
  • Emergency alerts and messaging to every screen on Kylone's own set-top boxes and Android clients; digital signage and advertisement modes on the same infrastructure.
  • Headend-ready for any hospitality application: channel lists with numbers, logos and categories, a seven-day XMLTV guide, multicast and HLS delivery — discoverable, stable identifiers, no custom work. Read the integration guide.
  • One vendor from the satellite dish to the remote control in the room.

Captions

Text subtitles for channels that have none.
  • DVB subtitles to text: the broadcaster’s bitmap subtitles are read at the headend and re-issued as a teletext subtitle page, with the subtitle’s own timing and language — selectable on every TV and set-top box, and available as text on HLS.
  • Speech captions: GPU speech recognition on the audio track produces captions in the spoken language, translated to English, or both on two pages — assistive captions that follow the dialogue with a short delay.
  • Runs as a pre-processing module on the channel, so the page reaches every output at once: multicast, transcoded, protected, RF and HLS.
  • Multi-language line-ups: pick the subtitle track to read; twenty-seven OCR languages ship with the module. See the captions module.

Accessibility rules and international guests both ask for text on screen. This adds it without touching the source or the TVs.

Autonomy

Built to run unattended.
  • Self-healing by design: automatic source recovery, engine watchdogs, no-signal handling, scheduled windows — the system’s first responder is the system.
  • Central multi-site portal, automatic licensing, fleet upgrades.
  • Installed from the ISO as an appliance, or, where a compliance rule requires the operating system to be yours, onto an existing minimal Rocky Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux with the same management afterwards, with an installer package from Kylone. See why an ISO install.
  • Hardening throughout: two-factor authentication, account policies, audit logging, certificate management.
  • A decade of field-driven releases on one philosophy: stability is the feature.

Visibility

See everything.
  • Every stream fully transparent in real time: PIDs, stream types, descriptors, service trees, per-PID bitrates, continuity and transport errors, PCR behaviour, table timings, CA details, buffer depths.
  • Live per-stream logs, transcoder and GPU telemetry, and a standalone EPG viewer — in the built-in web monitor, no external tools.
  • The same XML information feeds are a machine-readable interface — wire stream health straight into your own NMS.
  • When something misbehaves at 3 a.m., the answer is on the status page — not in a support queue.

Most products show a bitrate and a colored dot. Kylone shows you the transport stream.

Management

Managed from the center. Transparent about what that means.
  • A full XML API — signed API-key access, every page of the web UI addressable by field name, documentation and reference clients on GitHub — and a central portal where customers hold their own accounts, see their own units, and reach them through remote access provided by Kylone free of charge: a private network of your own units on Kylone's infrastructure, no fee and no subscription, with Kylone engineers joining only at your request.
  • Connectivity is the support model, stated plainly: a Kylone engineer can be on your unit in minutes — with your account, at your request.
  • License validation is transparent: what it sends is enumerated in the EULA — version and feature usage. Never your content, never your viewers. A documented offline path exists for air-gapped networks.
  • The switch is yours: turn remote support access off in the web UI and the service on the unit stops — verifiably, not cosmetically.
  • Full sovereignty available: license the central portal for private deployment, entirely inside your own perimeter.

Every connected product phones home; few say exactly what for. Kylone puts it in writing — and gives you the switch.

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