IFA History - The years 2000-2009

100 years of IFA: From the "Große Deutsche Funkausstellung" to the world's largest and most important trade fair for consumer electronics and home appliances

IFA, the world's largest and most important trade fair for consumer electronics and home appliances, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. IFA was first held in December 1924 as the "Great German Radio Exhibition" in Berlin. Since then, IFA has stood for innovation, technology and entertainment.

To mark this anniversary, the industry organisation gfu Consumer & Home Electronics GmbH, owner of the IFA trademark rights, is reviewing 100 years of technical development in the consumer electronics and household appliance industry. Episode eight deals with the years 2000 to 2009.

The first part of the following sections deals with the actual IFA in the respective year, the second part reports on the industry in general.

2000

There was no IFA in this year. And something else did not take place either: The Y2K problem, which had been hotly debated for months. It was feared that computer programmes would not be able to cope with the new numerical values when the new millennium dawned. There were similar fears for various types of technical products. The disaster did not materialise. Whether this was due to good preparation for the new year or the hype was simply exaggerated was another matter.

The first satellite receivers with hard discs to store recordings came onto the market. The Multimedia Home Platform MHP was presented as the basis for interactive television. The world exhibition "Expo 2000" took place in Hanover. Around 18 million visitors came to the Expo site.

2001

The 43rd "Internationale Funkausstellung" from 25 August to 2 September had 915 exhibitors from 40 countries and 367,000 visitors. The "digital evolution" reached a new peak, according to the organisers. This included digital television and radio as well as new digital recording media, photography, telecommunications and information technology and, of course, the new services and content made possible by digital technology. A wide variety of TV sets were presented, from the smallest screens to 70 cm (28 inch) LCD televisions and over 1.50 m (59 inch) plasma screens and high-power projection devices. The topic of home cinema gained importance right up to the high-end sector, with networking - in some cases wireless via radio connections - making great progress. The same applied to the connection of TV and Internet. Rapid access to Internet data via TV was demonstrated, as was the increased transmission of sound and images via the global network. "Digital" was also the buzzword in many other areas of the exhibition. This also applied to image recording. IFA 2001 went down in history as the first trade fair for "digital recording", regardless of whether this involved so-called "personal video" devices with hard discs or DVD recorders. Both innovations created attractive new possibilities for home cinema. In the audio sector, the replayable DVD and the Super Audio CD (SACD) became increasingly important. The hi-fi/high-end presentation was a particular magnet, for example with the world's most expensive high-end system worth around four million DM. Two special shows focussed on "Mobile Media" and the DVD. On 31 August, the 75th anniversary celebrations of the radio tower were also on the agenda.

In the first ten years up to 2001, the GSM networks gained over 500 million users. For the first time, there were more mobile phone connections in Germany than landlines. The "free encyclopaedia" Wikipedia was founded and 110 million computers were on the Internet. The first robot vacuum cleaners were introduced. Washing machines were equipped with so-called gentle drums.

2002

There was no IFA in this year.

The switchover from terrestrial TV transmission to digital terrestrial transmission in the DVB-T standard for Berlin was launched. Ovens with fully retractable doors came onto the market. The euro replaced the Deutschmark.

2003

The 44th "Internationale Funkausstellung" took place from 29 August to 3 September with 1,007 exhibitors from 36 countries. For the first time, the IFA had more than 1,000 exhibitors and almost 274,000 visitors. This year the IFA was shortened again, from nine to six days. Exhibitors from all sectors presented innovations en masse: LCD, plasma and projection TV sets, camcorders and mp3 players, tiny hard drive jukeboxes, multimedia mobile phones, PDAs and smartphones, communication technology for vehicles, high-end audio and digital cameras. Visitors also focussed on the many new possibilities of home networking. In the Technical-Scientific Forum (TWF), the possibilities of IP transmission, networking and home automation were discussed. The public broadcasters ARD and ZDF as well as a large number of private TV and radio stations reported practically around the clock on the impressive events under the radio tower. ARD and ZDF published an extremely positive summary: "We broadcast 17 programmes with around 24 hours of television 'live' from the exhibition grounds. In addition, there were 14 live radio programmes with over 32 hours."

The changeover from picture tube sets to flat screens began, as did the switch to digital cameras. Both segments recorded high growth rates in the market. Nevertheless, the fierce price war in the industry in Germany was a cause for concern. Digital broadcasts (DVB-T) started in Berlin. Skype, a service for Internet telephony, was founded. At the end of the year, the first products with a digital interface came onto the market: the HDMI standard was the digital successor to the Scart connection and ensured uncomplicated transmission of picture and sound - for example from the DVD player to the TV display.

2004

There was no IFA this year.

The first HD camcorder was presented, as well as camcorders that used the DVD as a storage medium. HDTV programmes were broadcast in Germany from 1 January. The UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) standard was introduced as the third generation of mobile telephony. Facebook was launched.

2005

The 45th "Internationale Funkausstellung" took place this year from 2 to 7 September. 1.202 exhibitors from 40 countries presented their products to around 246,000 visitors. The flat-screen TVs were larger, so there was an LCD set with 82 inches (208 cm), a plasma screen with 102 inches (260 cm) and a DLP rear-projection TV with 70 inches (177 cm) on display. TVs that were prepared for the presentation of future HDTV transmissions were allowed to carry the "HD ready" logo. For the evolution in the TV sector, an "HDTV Sportsbar" was set up at the IFA, in which HD images on around 30 monitors from various manufacturers conveyed a unique stadium atmosphere. With "SlimFit" TVs, the traditional picture tube sets took on the flat competition. They were only two-thirds the depth of a traditional CRT TV. A pocket-sized digital video recorder and the world's smallest hard disc-based 20 GB camcorder were presented as world premieres. In addition, a car radio with FM, medium and long wave as well as DAB and with mp3 recording capability was presented. The world's most expensive hi-fi system, a million-dollar combination of everything true hi-fi fans dream of, was once again on show. Radio programmes in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound quality and interactive digital television with a return channel via SMS function were launched. "Digital Lifestyle Shopping" was the name of the world's first integration of a Universal shop into a computer operating system. The Blu-ray disc with a storage capacity of 100 GB was presented. The flat screen technology SED (Surface Conduction Electron Emitter Display) was to combine the advantages of classic picture tubes with those of current LCD and plasma displays. Convergence was another buzzword at this IFA, especially in communication electronics. There were already smartphones on display that could store a wealth of business data as well as music and photo archives on a three gigabyte hard drive. Some exhibitors even showed prototypes of "future mobile phones" that could receive television-like multimedia services. Digital compact cameras now had at least four million pixels, some models already had eight to nine megapixels. Digital picture frames displayed digital photos on their LCD screens. A circular display that was as easy to read as a flat billboard, the digital advertising pillar, was on show in the Technical-Scientific Forum.

The dynamic market development of the consumer electronics sector and the outstanding results of IFA 2005 had encouraged gfu, as the owner of the IFA brand rights, and Messe Berlin to further develop the IFA concept and to organise IFA annually in future. This decision was announced on 26 October in Berlin's Rotes Rathaus in the presence of the then Governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit.

HDTV experienced its breakthrough thanks to the football broadcasts. The first data flat rate in the German mobile phone market was offered. There were two anniversaries for television this year: 80 years ago, in 1926, the Telegraph Technical Reich Office carried out the first television experiments in Germany and 75 years ago, in 1931, Manfred von Ardenne (1907-1997) presented fully electronic television to the public for the first time in the world at the 8th Radio Exhibition in Berlin.

Continue reading IFA history - the years 2000 - 2009 - GFU

The history of the IFA can be found at gfu.de/ifa-berlin/100-jahre-ifa/.

Sources

The history of consumer electronics, Jochen Wiesinger

70 years of the Funkausstellung, Heide Riedel

From steam radio to multimedia, Claus Reuber