Never before have there been as many exciting broadcast and digital media innovations, technology premieres and product highlights on display under the historic Radio Tower of Berlin as during IFA 2006.

• At almost every booth, the large-screen, high-definition home cinema will be at center stage this year.

• The high-resolution television HDTV will see its break-through in Europe.

• HD-DVD and the Blu-ray Disc, two optical disc formats for high-definition packaged media, will be launched in Europe.

• Using new high-definition camcorders, video enthusiasts will be able to take their own pictures the way profes-sionals do.

• Mobile-phone based TV will take digital television ser-vices into the portable world.

• Interactive IPTV will deliver football games, movies and TV productions over high-speed internet into the living room.

• New computer architectures and novel chip generations will lead the concept of the media PC to an entirely new level.

In a nutshell: visitors attending the IFA in Berlin between September 1 and 6 2006, will truly experience a variety of fascinating innovations – presented live and first-hand.

High-definition television – TV technology for large-screen home cinema
At IFA 2005, HDTV has already been one of the most inspiring subjects of the show: with it, exhibitors and visitors have witnessed the start into a new era of TV technology. IFA 2006 will present HDTV in Europe ready for the market, as a media platform with a rapidly growing range of programmes and end-user equipment. HDTV at IFA 2006 means that the CE manufacturers will now present a highly interesting variety of receiver devices ready for volume production – from set-top boxes suitable for cable and satellite, to the completely equipped HDTV set with an integrated future-proof receiver unit. After the first huge decisive test of the new technology during the upcoming football World Cup in Germany, new and highly attractive HDTV programmes will be produced – featuring sports events, movies, documentaries and reports. Many of these new programmes will be presented on large screens at the booths of CE manu-facturers as well as media corporations: just as an “appetizer” for the public.
Moreover, HDTV has as a strong impact on the market of large-screen, flat-panel displays and home-cinema beamers. Also at IFA there is an impressive choice of large-screen LCD and plasma TVs, proving their HD capabilities with the “HD ready” quality seal. The trend is clearly moving to even larger screen sizes featuring even finer pixel resolutions. Whether LCD TV, plasma equipment or video beamer, more and more products can now display pictures of the highest possible HDTV resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels in progressive mode.

High-definition video – See Hollywood in its full glory
With IFA 2006, the term high-definition will become a synonym for outstanding video quality, since with the HD-DVD and the Blu-ray Disc two new optical recording media are making their European debut. Both systems feature multiple data capacity compared to the traditional DVD format. In addition, they offer luxury quality safeguards for high-definition video. These new discs also improve the ease of use: for example, interactive and transparent menues can even be accessed while a movie is displayed, or additional information downloaded from the internet can be added to a currently running programme. At IFA 2006 many player products for the new video media will be on show, and of course the major Hollywood studios will announce their releases aimed to this year’s season. Additionally, IFA 2006 will showcase a variety of HD recording media such as HD-DVD or Blu-ray blank discs for use in home PCs. Suppliers will also present novel hybrid discs for playback use with the new-generation players as well as with conventional DVD players.

Impressive sound from eight channels –
The acoustic addition to the high-definition display
Together with the high-resolution images, the sound of the home cinema also gets another push in quality. Both the HD-DVD and the Blu-ray Disc reproduce sound tracks of Hollywood movies with up to seven full range audio channels and an additional subwoofer channel for powerful playback of very low frequencies. New digital sound formats store the audio losslessly, without any change to the tracks produced in the studio and without any decrease in quality. This way, the sound quality reaches an extraordinarily high level, as yet unsurpassed by even the sound of most cinema theatres of today. For example, opulent music productions such as live recordings of concerts will then be experienced with a surprisingly live atmosphere. Manufacturers of A/V receivers and A/V amplifiers have already started to design new product generations for adequate treatment of the new packaged media’s high-definition audio. Visitors of IFA 2006 should watch out for these impressive sound novelties.
HDTV broadcasts are also fantastic sources for enjoying high-quality surround sound. Nearly all HDTV programmes – even the World Cup football games – will be broadcasted in digital 5.1 surround sound. So the audience can really experience what it is like to be in a lively stadium. In the near future, HDTV sound reproduction may become even more convincing, since the latest specifications of HDTV sets include the option of decoding even more than 5.1 channels possibly provided by future programmes.

Your own images in fascinating sharpness –
HD camcorder and digital cameras
Presently, even amateur cinematographers can take videos in high-definition quality und store their memories in a quality which until recently was only available to professionals. HD camcorders are today supplied in miniature format and serve as ideal and handy companions on trips, hiding their outstanding technology potential. During IFA 2006 an entirely new range of next-generation HD camcorders will be launched, built for using different recording media. Some of them operate with the already proven compact digital DV cassette, some store their HD videos on an integrated miniature hard disk, and others even use solid state memory.
Digital photographers will enjoy IFA 2006 as well, because also in the domain of digital still cameras the trends are towards even higher quality. This is not only in terms of resolution, where image sensors with eight or ten megapixels are used as standard, but also for more advanced optical systems with wide-aperture lenses and sophisticated image stabilizers, which avoid to a great extent the risk of blurred pictures. And there is yet another interesting trend. More and more manufacturers who limited their range to digital compact cameras in the past will announce their first launch of high-level SLR system cam-eras at IFA 2006.

Television in your pocket – The start of mobile TV
From Spain to Scandinavia: throughout Europe, 2006 is the year to launch novel TV and data services addressing mobile phones and other portable mini devices. In Germany, a pilot project has already started in the region around the city of Re-gensburg/Bavaria, and other test programmes will be broad-casted at the locations of the Football World Cup. Around the Lake Constance (Bodensee) another pilot project will be launched this year, including the adjacent regions of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. There are various technical standards available for broadcasting. In Germany DVB-H, DMB and UMTS are in use. For DVB-H broadcasting, the infrastructure of the digital terrestrial DVB-T can be applied which is already in place. DMB is a multi-media extension of the digital radio system DAB. UMTS is the latest mobile phone standard featuring high data rates.
At IFA 2006, the introduction of mobile TV will be accompanied by plenty of interesting product launches and demonstrations of the technology. Visitors can have a look at an entire new range of handheld devices ready for volume production. And during IFA’s mediapolicy congress programme (Medienpolitik@IFA), there will be wide discussion about how all the new digital services, such as mobile TV, can be coordinated throughout Europe.

Media content through the internet –
IPTV as the new entertainment platform
Throughout Europe, all the major telecom corporations are now speeding up their digital networks to serve as media-content ready infrastructures. So they pave the way for IPTV, an interactive television system based on the internet protocol (IP) over DSL networks. In France, IPTV services have already been established; in Germany IPTV will be launched this year – among other activities with broadcasting the “Fußball-Bundesliga” (national football club competition). So, IFA 2006 will also be the premiere event for this novel type of media platforms. Which programmes and services will emerge in the next couple of months? Where are they available? What kind of hardware will users need to receive them? How much will consumers have to pay? These and many more questions are in focus, awaiting detailed answers during IFA 2006.

The computer as a digital entertainment hub – New perspectives for media PCs
Compared to “classical” consumer electronics, media PCs have some specific disadvantages. Their powerful processors need cooling, often with noisy fans; their time-consuming boot and shutdown procedures lead to uncomfortable handling, and their sophisticated user interfaces do their best to put consumers off. All of this may change in the not-too-distant future. New generations of processors and chip sets are tuned for high efficiency, so they will not need noisy fans. Application-specific solutions in hardware and software reduce the time for start and termination to the cycle of a keyboard stroke. In addition, novel concepts of user interfaces consequently avoid any complication right from the start. All this may appear as utopian, but will become reality at IFA 2006 - at least the starting points. Fundamental new architectures of semiconductors and computers are on display in Berlin. In addition, it is expected that the first next-generation media PCs will demonstrate how close they are to the usual comfort of conventional consumer electronic products. An entirely new class of products can evolve from these innovations – the next generation of consumer and entertainment electronics using the best of the IT world at its core.