Swedish streaming service Viaplay has rebuilt its studios in Warsaw, Poland to include Lawo mc²36 and diamond mixing consoles, and Ravenna/AES67-native IP infrastructure products.
Designed as a fully IP infrastructure, the project included two new studios with separate control rooms for audio and video, as well as twelve sports commentator booths with six separate small audio control rooms.
Two Lawo mc²36 all-in-one production consoles were chosen for the main audio control rooms, both powered by Lawo A__UHD cores, which Lawo says, can each provide 256 DSP channels, 48 kHz and 96 kHz operation, and 864 channels of I/O capacity. IP-native with support for all relevant standards, they also feature redundant power supplies and ST2022-7 ‘hitless merge’ network link redundancy demanded by live broadcast operations.
Lawo’s diamond broadcast desks were installed in each of the six audio control rooms. The newest Lawo broadcast console, diamond scales from two to 60 physical faders and features a Virtual Extension touchscreen control and information option. The consoles are powered by three Power Core engines equipped with MAX licenses; these IP-native devices featured built-in RAVENNA and MADI interfaces plus expansion slots for analog, digital and DANTE interface cards, plus 96 DSP channels and 80 summing busses.
Viaplay offers diverse programming such as sports, comedy shows and movies. Following a period of growth, the company appointed LP Systems, Lawo’s partner in Poland, to implement the audio portion of the studio update. The technical upgrade was performed during June and July 2022 to be ready for the fall sporting season.
“All microphone inputs, sums, AUX lines and other signals are transmitted as RAVENNA / AES67 streams; only the speaker connections remained analogue,” says LP Systems’ Sales and Support Engineer Artur Jóźwik. “It’s a very flexible solution that enables Viaplay to combine any studio with any control room at any time. Everything works together seamlessly, without any additional routing needed.”
More flexibility is provided by Lawo VisTool software, which Lawo claims allows creation of customizable mixing tools for multi-touch displays. All of Viaplay’s diamond consoles are equipped with dedicated all-in-one PCs running VisTool, which power their Virtual Extension touchscreens. This enables operators to instantly visualize EQ curves, compression settings, DSP functions, routing setups, and integrate control of third-party software and devices.
All IP-native Lawo devices are connected and managed within the network by its HOME management platform for IP-based media infrastructures, using web interfaces with standard browsers. The RAVENNA / AES67 audio network is underpinned by Artel Quarra switches configured to provide a fully redundant networking environment. Integration with video systems is done using DirectOut Prodigy.MP processors in mirror mode for full system redundancy. These devices convert RAVENNA signals to MADI and vice versa, and help facilitate final DSP processing.
“Along with the VisTool controls in the audio control rooms, an additional VisTool computer is installed in the Master Control Room for quick access by the engineer,” says Bartosz Stawiarski-Lietzau, sales and support engineer for LP Systems. “All of the Power Core units and diamond surfaces can be monitored, diagnosed and controlled there, with audio streams monitored using Lawo RƎLAY AoIP Stream Monitor software.
“Like all complex broadcast operations, Viaplay has highly refined operational requirements. To meet these requirements, we needed to adjust the functions of mixing surface keys, customize control screens and match system functionality to workflow expectations. Lawo made it easy for us to meet – and exceed – customer expectations.”
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