Gemstone/S Application Example – HbbTV Playout System

The last two weeks we had two elections here in Germany – one in Schleswig-Holstein and last weekend in Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf. As mentioned in an earlier posting we already used Gemstone/S as our database during the election for the broadcaster SWR and we played out results and graphics for an internet based application. The…

The last two weeks we had two elections here in Germany – one in Schleswig-Holstein and last weekend in Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf.

Television Tower next to state parliament in Düsseldorf

As mentioned in an earlier posting we already used Gemstone/S as our database during the election for the broadcaster SWR and we played out results and graphics for an internet based application. The model is defined using PUM, source code is created for Topaz, Sencha ExtJS and Python3.

This weekend we did a similar application for the broadcaster WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk), but not for their Internet presence, but for an HbbTV hybrid add-on service during their program on sunday and 14 days later (so its still available via their WDR TV channels).

Persons at the broadcaster were able to enter results via an browser based data-enter application – and the results were stored in Gemstone/S and transferred to the system producing the animated TV graphics. Application as usual – API oriented, browser based.

Input Application written in Sencha ExtJS

The structure of the application was pretty similiar to the one of last autumn – main logic is located in the Gemstone/S database, several independent topaz processes are inserting election results, preparing graphical repesentations of the results and even do an automatic publication of the results without interaction.

The system is managed via a browser based UI (written in Sencha ExtJS), communicating via an API with the database. External applications were otherwise written in Python3.

Management Software written in ExtJS

The system was actually running in parallel on two different systems at some hosters – producing the same results independently.

Current HbbTV at the WDR television broadcaster

The end-user application (running on the TV sets) was written in “low-level” Javascript (WITHOUT any larger libraries like jQuery) to make is runnable on even the most slowest TV set available on the market :-)))

Final Results shown in HbbTV
Voters moving from one party to another

Response to “Gemstone/S Application Example – HbbTV Playout System”

  1. Elections and Gemstone/S again | Schrievkrom

    […] the systems were used as described here and here […]

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