Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg

Profile of the organisation

RBB is the public broadcaster for the federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg. It produces and broadcasts one television channel and six radio stations in addition to providing a range of interactive multimedia services including websites, mobile, teletext and HbbTV-based connected TV services. As part of the ARD (Association of Public Service Broadcasting Corporations in Germany), it contributes to several nationwide TV and radio channels and multimedia services. RBB hosts and manages the ARD Play-Out-Center which is responsible for the playout of the ARD Digital programme bouquet via DVB-S/T and the production and editing of SI data for all ARD TV and radio programmes. It has been producing and broadcasting interactive TV applications since August 2002. From its broadcast centres in the capital Berlin and the media city Potsdam-Babelsberg, plus various regional studios and offices RBB provides services for almost 6 million inhabitants in a transmission area of 30,000 km2. RBB employs approx. 1,500 staff and a large pool of free-lancers.

RBB has longstanding experience in EC co-funded research projects, gaining extensive knowledge in the creation of innovative formats and services, in content production and distribution and also in user experience testing of services. Recent activities concentrated on collaborative content production, personalized media, accessibility services and especially the future of HbbTV. RBB follows the most recent developments in interactive content authoring technologies, such as HbbTV, HTML5 and mobile platforms and can create prototype applications and content based on these technologies for different devices, including service enhancements towards mobile end devices and connected TV. Metadata formats for production and distribution are also within its research focus.

Role in the project

RBB will perform end user and broadcaster requirements analyses according to the needs of user-centered design processes. They will conceptualise and co-develop a service for SmartTV and connected devices and conduct an interactive user experience evaluation. Further RBB will provide live and archived content for the scenario implementation. Also RBB will contribute their experience from the coordination of the EC-funded projects Dismarc and EuropeanaConnect.

Key personnel

Bettina Heidkamp-Tchegloff coordinates multimedia research and development in EC and internal projects for RBB’s Department of Production & Operations.  She is currently Consortium Leader of HBB-NEXT and monitors RBB’s activities in the EC co-funded projects 3D Vivant, Linked TV, FI-CONTENT. To date she has led eight EC projects in the area of ICT. Bettina Heidkamp-Tchegloff holds a master’s degree in Media Studies, English and Modern History from Freie Universität Berlin. On completion of her professional journalistic training, she worked in journalism/PR and project management for a number of broadcast related EC co-funded projects before she joined ORB, RBB’s predecessor.

Jennifer Müller was awarded her degree in Photo Engineering and Media Technology from the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne in 2009. After completing her graduate thesis on novel solutions for access services at RBB she was invited to join the company as project engineer for its innovation projects. She is currently involved in EC projects LinkedTV and technical manager and work package leader in HBB-NEXT which is coordinated by RBB. Her particular expertise is access services and advanced HbbTV, especially application aspects and user-centred interaction paradigms. Jennifer was also involved in the COTV and DTV4All projects.