Brazil. Brazilian broadcaster Rádio Itatiaia, with a network of 52 affiliated stations in the state of Minas Gerais, has installed a new Lawo routing system to switch, process and distribute programming from its headquarters in Belo Horizonte.
Lawo's local partner, Rádio Partes, installed this system, which features Power Core mixing engines, Nova17 routing interfaces, and controls operable via custom touch screens designed with Lawo VisTool graphic control software.
Planning for the project began in 2018, with the goal of replacing an older digital router with a true AES67-compliant IP system that could work with IP equipment from various manufacturers, and that could be easily expanded to suit future needs. Itatiaia also wanted a system with DSP capabilities to enable on-the-fly processing of audio sources and being a network content provider, operational redundancy at all levels.
The vice president of Rádio Itatiaia, Cláudio Carneiro, explains that "The company that supplied our current mixing consoles does not have dedicated routing hardware, nor a system to achieve this. Lawo has increased experience and knowledge with audio routing arrays. In the search for a solution, we compared various suppliers, and in the comparison of similar systems Lawo's was more mature and ready to operate in the air."
All of Lawo's radio products employ an AES67 compliant RAVENNA network, so handling Itatiaia's entire set of IP, analog and digital audio sources was relatively easy to achieve. The system's redundant routing core uses two Lawo Power Core engines, each of which is attached to a Nova17 interface equipped in turn with redundant master cards. These are interconnected via MADI backbones with automatic port switching, offering complete redundancy in the unlikely event of a failure.
Control is also redundant, thanks to physical controls through rack-mounted KSC panels and touchscreen PCs with VisTool graphic control software. All hardware power supplies are also redundant, making the system extremely robust, even bulletproof. A PTP master clock synchronizes everything, and a Lawo A__mic8 unit is included that provides a backup PTP signal.
Routing control is performed from a central control room where this equipment is housed.
There is an adjoining position for the management of the system through an operator, this position is equipped with a compact mixing console, flanked by several monitoring screens, the matrix panels and a touch screen for the management and control of routing through VisTool. From this position, the operator can select which channels to send to the different affiliated stations within the Itatiaia network, apply DSP audio processing to the sources when necessary, create custom monitoring channels for the transmission studios and control all the codecs used for remote transmissions and for the coverage of sporting events.
"What was definitive for Lawo to get hold of the project was his commitment to cutting-edge technology," says Carlos Ávila Pereira of Rádio Partes. "Itatiaia's main goal was to be totally independent of a single manufacturer or system. As most manufacturers now support AES67, Itatiaia gained the unique ability to use its console network plus Lawo's routing network by working in an extremely secure compatibility and redundancy environment in a technical emergency."
"There are several factors that make this project truly unique," says Cláudio Carneiro. "The ability to integrate with our existing IP mixers as well as Dante devices and those using RAVENNA and/or AES67 is unprecedented. Other things that convinced us were the ability to operate the system using both touch screens and physical key panels and the complete redundancy of the system."
"Lawo's matrix has enormous flexibility and specifications suitable for operating in various types of work," he continues. "The control and operation software, VisTool, is extremely configurable which allows us to be at the forefront of technology, designing our own updates also contemplating future needs or modifying the interfaces according to the changing needs of users. This allowed us to develop a very flexible system that can be molded exactly to our technical and operational needs, fully customized."
Carneiro also praises Lawo's system designers. "I would like to highlight the great commitment of everyone involved in this project. Everything was carefully thought out... Lawo's engineers went out of their way to understand our needs and desires and always provided the best possible solutions. This may have been our first experience with Lawo, but it certainly won't be our last!"
