The sister of the ARD Mediathek, the Mediathek offers content of the first German TV channel, produced jointly by the regional broadcasters. It is challenging to organize and structure it in a consistent usable flow and to find the right balance of content. The level of complexity of the ARD Mediathek is slightly larger, as we have more content coming from various sources. The fundamental difference is that the ARD Mediathek includes content from a large number of both television and radio organizations that provide regional and national coverage, whereas the ZDF Mediathek involves one centralized national public TV broadcaster with several TV channels. Opening statements portals Franc Kozamernik (EBU Technical) André Berthold (ARD): The ARD Mediathek and ZDF Mediathek are two distinct and unrelated platforms, as they belong to two separate organizations. They are strong supporters of the future convergence of broadcast and internet platforms, and are actively participating in the HbbTV standardization efforts. What is most interesting is the optimism of the leading ARD and ZDF technology experts with whom I was able to discuss the future of Internet TV and television when visiting them in Mainz at the beginning of October 2009. Not only is the size of the Mediathek audience commensurate with the sheer size of the German consumer electronics market (which is the largest in Europe), it is also the complexity and the variety of different programme services and formats of the Mediathek systems that deserve the attention of the outside observer. And yet, it is one of the most vibrant and exciting Internet media developments not only in Europe but worldwide. Very little is known about Mediathek outside of Germany and, indeed, there is a lot of confusion surrounding it. “An elegant web application that makes you almost wish for a TV with Internet access.”į.The ARD and ZDF Mediathek André Berthold ARD Jochen Schmidt and Rainer Kirchknopf ZDF CATCH-UP RADIO & TV Following my interview with Anthony Rose about the BBC iPlayer in the 2008-Q4 edition, I thought it may be useful for readers of EBU Technical Review to learn more about another important Internet TV-related development – the German Mediathek. Monthly viewing rates continue to rise since the launch. The user can even give into his need to keep his options open: even when a program is playing, the user can browse through the navigation to see what else is “on”. All programming is seamlessly integrated and delivered in high quality H.264 format that can be viewed in full-screen mode for TV via the Internet that’s a really fun experience. The user doesn’t have to go through the extra step of choosing a video player, since we implemented the project in Flash and Flex. Once a user finds a program to watch, he simply presses play. There are various entry points - programs A-Z, missed programs, browse by topic or by category – which organize the huge amount of content and make it easy to navigate and use. In the new ZDFmediathek, the user is his own director of programming. And we wanted to present the best of two worlds as well as a new benchmark: The ultimate in TV viewing combined with all the advantages of a web application. ZDF, one of the largest TV stations in Europe, decided to update its online video portal.
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