Scottish commercial broadcaster STV has undergone a full technical upgrade of its news production and sound control rooms and studio at its Glasgow headquarters.
STV’s broadcast channel reaches 3.2 million viewers each month alongside streaming service, STV Player and STV Studios, Scotland’s biggest production company.
When planning a technical and cosmetic upgrade of the busy production and sound control rooms, the STV team recognized that AoIP would enhance workflows and allow for future expansion. They worked with Lawo to explore the mc²56 (MKIII) audio production console.
The console runs the latest version of Lawo’s A__UHD Core (Phase 2), which helps the broadcaster save on space and power usage. The system also comes with the IP management platform HOME. Lawo also supplied a Mix Kitchen setup to increase the system’s flexibility and enable remote hardware control of the console.
STV chose Lawo’s A__mic8 stageboxes for the studios. Instead of a larger centrally located unit, multiple A_mic8 were installed in wall boxes distributed equally around the studio. RƎLAY Virtual Patchbay was also deployed for the SpotOn playback software, moving away from a separate AES-based sound card.
“We wanted to spend as much time with the Lawo equipment as possible before implementation to better understand how the new AoIP workflows work and integrate with our other sound systems and to be able to make the best use of the flexible and scalable workflows,”said Sam Dornan, channels operations manager of STV Central.
The project was scheduled to finalize in early June, when the STV control room would be ready for production. However, due to a technical issue, the station brought the audio console system online early to cover a series of live Scottish Parliamentary Election broadcasts in early May.
“This project serves to demonstrate the flexibility of IP technology in establishing infrastructures,” said Devin Workman, Lawo’s director of Audio Sales, U.K. and Ireland.
Lawo notes that the project represents the U.K.’s first on-air broadcast installation of its new A_UHD Core (Phase 2) and 48-fader mc²56 MKIII console.
