After the hugely popular coverage of BBC's iPlayer, EBU's Franc Kozamernik has turned to Germany for a closer look at the 'Mediatheks' set up by the ARD and the ZDF. The interview is published as a new article in the EBU Technical Review series.



Independent platforms

The ZDF started experimenting with internet video in 1998, the Mediathek portal was launched in 2007 (at the IFA) and recently has been redesigned. All ZDF content is now available in one place, rather than scattered across different locations on the web. The ARD Mediathek started in spring 2008. Both plaftorms are completely separate and have different editorial policies. What they share is a strategic vision of the German public broadcasting organisations on how to use the Internet for content distribution. Jochen Schmidt (ZDF) explains: 'We have the same strategy concerning the future usage of PCs and standardized hybrid broadcast/broadband devices and, as you know, German broadcasters strongly support the HbbTV project. We both cooperate closely in this area with the IRT (Institut für Rundfunktechnik in Munich).'


Prototype of the ARD Mediathek for HbbTV-based devices

A community for students of German and discussions pertaining to the. Live or on-demand NDR( ARD channel for Northern. The documentaries are mainly focusing on Nazis, big machines, aliens, and the like.

Machinery

Shifts

The audience' interest in the portals has shifted from lunch-time to the evening and seems complementary to the usage of linear TV shows. André Berthold (ARD) stressed: '[We] have seen a 300% increase in audience numbers since last year.' But the viewing time is not the only thing that shifts. There is more interest among younger audiences. André explained that where the audience for the mainstream ARD programmes is mostly aged over 50 years, the ARD Mediathek shows an average of around 30 years. 'Younger generations no longer
have TV sets and instead use a PC to access TV services.'

The Technical Review article covers more than above topics. It also for example addresses the choice of bitrates and video codecs, the importance of open standards, and the impact of mobile devices on content distribution.

Since I am a bit of a sucker for German “Krimis” as well as some their excellent documentaries I like to watch ARD Mediathek IPTV. However there are several problems with this when you live at the opposite side of the world. ARD has a block for any films that are 15+ years outside of 20.00h-6.00h GMT+1. Which makes it pretty much impossible to watch at a reasonable time in Australia. I also like to watch these things on the plane which requires download of the media files.

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Install JSON Parser

sudo apt-get install jq

Download script

wget https://github.com/leogaggl/media/raw/master/download_mediathek.sh
chmod +x download_mediathek.sh

Usage

./download_mediathek.sh -f save_as_filename.mp4 -q 3 MEDIATHEK-URL

The -f and -q parameters are optional.
-f filename.mp4 (or full path + filename to save in different directory). Defaults to original filename
-q quality setting from 0 to 3 (where 0 is lowest and 3 highest quality). Defaults to highest quality

Please leave a comment if you find any issues or log an issue on GitHub.

NOTE (2014-07-06): If you are only interested in the Tatort series I suggest you look at this script by Felix Knecht (see comment below)