Canadian national public broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada has implemented two instances of Lawo’s Home mc² DSP app to manage up to 80 simultaneous live streaming events for its event-based digital services. The SMPTE ST2110-based setup replaces legacy single-purpose hardware, enabling the broadcaster to scale audio processing well beyond previous limitations.
The workflow allows CBC/Radio-Canada to instantiate processing channels for sports, entertainment, press conferences, simulcasts and other live events. A key task is standardizing non-aligned audio from venues before streaming to outlets such as Gem, CBC.ca, O&O, YouTube, FAST channels and other third-party platforms. Typical operations include remapping audio channels, increasing the gain of soft audio, adding off-tube commentary and downmixing 5.1 sources to stereo.
CBC/Radio-Canada selected Lawo’s Home mc² DSP after reviewing proposals from several manufacturers. The app’s CoMixer function enables the required number of audio shufflers, with 80 instances requested for streaming and linear channels. Each instance offers 22 audio inputs and 18 outputs, managed through VSM control panels — two panels display up to 40 mixes each. Scripts for XCS mixing cores and mapping files for VSM are used to individually map, adjust and balance feeds for each event.
We like the economy and dynamic scalability of the Home mc² DSP app
Frédéric Dorion, project lead, capital project management governance and engineering, CBC
Economy and dynamic scalability
Although up to three Home mc² DSP instances can run on a single 64-core CPU server, CBC/Radio-Canada hosts its two instances on separate servers for redundancy, allowing one to migrate to the other if needed.
“We like the economy and dynamic scalability of the Home mc² DSP app,” said Frédéric Dorion, project lead, capital project management governance and engineering. “With just two app instances and the built-in shuffling functionality, we can cover as many streaming events as we need, with convenient VSM panel control.”
Herbert Lemcke, Lawo key account manager, said the project demonstrates how the CoMixer feature — known primarily as a DSP processor for Lawo mc²-series, crystal and headless consoles — can be applied in new ways. “We are pleased to see it enabling users to get creative and explore new horizons,” he said.
François Legrand, senior director of innovation, governance and engineering at CBC/Radio-Canada, added that the Toronto-based ST2110 event streaming project “implements a solution from Lawo we trust.”
