About FKT

FKT

FKT (Fernseh- und Kinotechnik) is the German specialist magazine for broadcast technology, published ten times a year as the official organ of the Fernseh- und Kinotechnischen Gesellschaft (FKTG). Since its first issue in 1946, the magazine has reported on the current developments and innovations in broadcast technology — with the focus on electronic media — for the FKTG's members and the interested readers who follow the technologies and applications of the broadcast field. It is published by the Berlin specialist publisher Schiele & Schön. As the journal of one of Germany's oldest technology associations, the magazine is the German-speaking broadcast industry's institutional memory: the engineers' record of how television and cinema technology evolved from the postwar reconstruction to the streaming age.

Overview

FKT appears ten times a year as the association journal of the FKTG — the official organ of the organization, the magazine that carries the society's voice to its members. The sold circulation is 2,290 copies (media information 2019); the ISSN is 1430-9947. The readership is the FKTG's membership — the scientists, engineers, and technicians of the television and film industry, nearly 2,000 persons plus more than 110 supporting international companies, the largest network of its kind in the German-speaking area of Europe — and the interested readers who inform themselves about the broadcast field's technologies and applications and the society's activities. The ten-issues-a-year rhythm gives the magazine the space for the engineering depth: the research results, the standards discussions, and the technology analyses that the practitioners need, beyond the daily news cycle.

The coverage centers on the current developments and innovations in broadcast technology, with the emphasis on electronic media: the production, transmission, and distribution technologies, the standards, and the research results that move the industry — the engineering journalism that serves the practitioners, the technical depth that the general media cannot provide. As an association journal, the magazine combines the specialist journalism with the society's communications — the reports on the FKTG's activities, the conferences, the regional technology workshops, and the university network's work, the society's life documented alongside the technology's progress.

History

The magazine's first issue appeared in 1946 — the postwar beginning of the German broadcast-technology press, documenting the reconstruction of the television and cinema technology in Germany, the engineering community's reassembly after the war. The journal became the official organ of the Fernseh- und Kinotechnischen Gesellschaft, which was formed on 9 October 1972 from the merger of the two predecessor organizations: the Deutsche Kinotechnische Gesellschaft (DKG), founded in 1920, and the Fernsehtechnische Gesellschaft, founded in 1952. The FKTG is one of Germany's oldest technology associations — the institutional continuity of the German cinema technology (since 1920) and television technology (since 1952) united in one society.

The society's essential goal is to offer all those working in the television and film industry — and all scientists, engineers, and technicians interested in these fields — a basis for the exchange of ideas and experience, and thus to promote these technology areas: the platform function that has defined the FKTG since 1972 and the DKG since 1920. The magazine has accompanied the industry's technological revolutions: from the analog television and cinema technology through the color television, the video technology, the digitalization, the high-definition and high-dynamic-range imaging, to the IP-based production and the streaming era — eight decades of broadcast engineering documented in the journal's pages, the continuous record of how the moving image's technology changed. The editor-in-chief is Martin Braun.

Coverage and Content

The magazine reports on the current developments and innovations in broadcast technology with the focus on electronic media: the production technologies, the transmission and distribution, the standards and formats, and the research and development results — the engineering topics that the practitioners need. The FKTG's biennial international specialist conference — the highlight of the society's activities, held at changing locations with around 500 specialists attending the four-day event — provides the material: the lectures, panel discussions, and demonstrations present new research and development results, discuss tendencies and further developments, and the highlight forum (introduced at the 1994 Nuremberg conference) shows the products built on the presented technologies, the research translated into the market.

The society's partnership with the SMPTE — the Oscar and Emmy Award-winning Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, the worldwide leader in motion-imaging standards and education founded in 1916 — exemplifies the international dimension: the SMPTE Forum 2015 in Berlin ("Entertainment Technology in the Internet Age: A European Perspective") was organized with the FKTG, covering the hybrid broadcast-broadband TV (HbbTV), the cloud rendering and its adoption for feature-film production, the open-source tools for rendering and transcoding, the open standards, the adaptive bit rates, and the EU and U.S. regulatory environments. The magazine documents this exchange for the German-speaking community — the bridge between the international standards work and the German practitioners, the journal that brings the SMPTE's world to the FKTG's members and the members' work to the international stage.

Organization and Ownership

FKT is published by Schiele & Schön, the Berlin specialist publisher. The journal is the official organ of the Fernseh- und Kinotechnischen Gesellschaft (FKTG) e.V. — one of Germany's oldest professional technology associations, with nearly 2,000 members and more than 110 supporting international companies, the largest network of its kind in the German-speaking area of Europe. The FKTG hosts conferences and technology workshops in the regional groups on a regular basis and supports scientific education through its network of more than 50 universities and advanced technical colleges in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland — the academic pipeline that connects the research to the profession.

The editor-in-chief is Martin Braun. The society's activities — the biennial conference with its 500 specialists, the regional technology workshops, the university network, the SMPTE partnership — provide the magazine's institutional context and much of its content: the association journal as the society's record and the industry's forum, the publication where the German-speaking broadcast engineers read about their own field's progress. The economics combine the members' subscriptions with advertising from the broadcast industry's manufacturers and service providers — the companies whose technologies the magazine covers. Circulation: 2,290 sold copies (media information 2019).

Digital Presence

The society's portal fktg.org is the magazine's and the association's digital home — the information on the society, the conferences, the regional groups, the university network, and the membership, the digital face of one of Germany's oldest technology associations. The SMPTE partnership's digital traces (the Forum 2015 program) document the international cooperation; the conference programs and technology-workshop announcements live online. As the association journal of one of Germany's oldest technology societies, FKT's digital presence serves the members' exchange: the conference programs, the technology workshops, and the society's news — the digital extension of the members' platform for the exchange of knowledge and experience.

For the broadcast technology community — the engineers, scientists, and technicians who build the television and cinema technology, the practitioners who implement the standards the SMPTE writes and the FKTG discusses — FKT's ten issues a year provide the specialist journalism of the field: the current developments and innovations in broadcast technology, with the focus on electronic media, documented since 1946 by the official organ of the society that has promoted the technology since 1972 — the German-speaking broadcast industry's institutional memory, from the postwar reconstruction to the internet age — and the engineers' journal for the technology's next chapter.