By Kevin Hilton

Germany has several medal hopes, including the national basketball team, which has been boosted by the addition of Dallas Mavericks star Chris Kaman, who qualified for inclusion due to his great-grandparents being German. To cover his progress and that of his adopted compatriots there is a strong television presence, with public broadcasters ZDF and ARD sending out a total of 320 staff (variously technicians, producers and editors). Gearhouse Broadcast keyed much of their technical infrastructure, relying on vendors like Avid, EVS, and Sony to help get the German Olympic story out to German viewers.

For the Olympics ZDF and ARD have facilities at the National Sports Stadium (NST) for athletics, the National Aquatics Centre (NAC), the Rowing area (SRF) and the Equestrian Centre (HKS) in Hong Kong. These technical areas have been designed and installed for the broadcasters by systems integrator Gearhouse Broadcast, with two big studios at the German House, the main focus for the country's competitors and media representatives during the Games. 

The German House also includes a number of Avid editing rooms and two production control rooms. Elsewhere there will be a presentation studio at the NST, with unilateral cameras to concentrate on German athletes both there and at the other venues. Equipment provided by Gearhouse includes a Sony MFS 2000 vision mixer, two EVS LSM XT HD servers, two Sony PDW F75 XDCAM VTRs, four RDRG X210S DVD recorders, one Sony Grade 1 BVM D14H5E Grade 1 monitor, 11 Vurtix 23-inch and 17-inch TFT monitors, 20 CRT monitors (a mixture of Sony and JVC), a Pro Bel Halo 32x32 HD router, a Yamaha MC7 audio mixer and a Clearcom communications system. Gearhouse has seven engineers out in China to provide cover for the facilities, although ARD is using its own production crew. 

ZDF had to reduce the amount of space it was to occupy within the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) but still has 2,034 square metres on one floor, with ADR Radio taking 403 cubic metres. ZDF and ARD will be alternating 17 hours of daily coverage between two o'clock in the morning and six in the evening, with a hour and a half highlights programme at 8.15pm presented by sportscaster and talk show host Johannes B. Kerner and radio and TV presenter Katrin Müller-Hohenstein. There will be additional transmissions lasting between eight and 12 hours from Beijing on info.channel and ZDFdokukanal, which are available on cable and satellite as part of ZDFvision. 

ZDF is using 32 commentary lines, with 44 world picture circuits and 12 multilateral feeds provided by the EBU, which is also supplying a total of 125 four-wire circuits for communications. Material is being carried from Beijing to Mainz over a STM1 glass fibre connection, which is also carrying telephony and data. All of which has helped German viewers see Patrick Hausding and Sacha Klein take silver in the men's synchronised 10-metre diving event and Ditte Kotzian and Heike Fischer pick up bronze medals for the women's synchronised 3 metre springboard.

ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, which translates literally as Second German Television) is the national TV service and is considered to be the biggest TV network in Europe. It was created in 1963 and has its headquarters in the south-western Rhineland city of Mainz, bureaux in the 16 state capitals and a news and production centre in the country's capital, Berlin. As well as its main channel the broadcaster runs three cable/satellite services, KI.KA, arte, 3sat and Phoenix, in conjunction with other broadcast organisations, and has a digital platform, and ZDFvision, offering three services; doku channel, info channel and theater kanal. 

ADR is an association of regional public TV and radio broadcasters, established in 1950, and produces a national network called Das Erste (The First), which went on air in 1994 and replaced from other services along similar lines known as 'First German Television' to differentiate them from ZDF. The service is made up of: Bayerischer Rundfunk, Hessischer Rundfunk, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Radio Bremen, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, Saarländischer Rundfunk, Süüdwestrundfunk, Westdeutscher Rundfunk and international network Deutsche Welle. As well as its terrestrial channel ADR runs three free-to-air digital channels and is a partner in the cable and satellite consortium that also includes ZDF.