Lawo’s RAVENNA Helps Cover World Cup Audio
Die Mannschaft, as Germany’s national soccer team is sometimes known, wasn’t the only German entity celebrating Sunday’s World Cup win over Argentina. The quadrennial event was also the largest installation to date of the RAVENNA AoIP audio-transport protocol.
The network deployed for the World Cup supported 240 RAVENNA-based LCU Lawo commentary units. In addition, each of the dozen stadiums hosting World Cup play had two Lawo mc256 consoles for the multifeed production and the ESF/main production, two Lawo crystal radio consoles for the unilateral and infotainment production, a Lawo Nova73 audio router, and multiple Lawo DALLIS I/O devices, as well as a V_pro8 eight-channel video processor for embedding/de-embedding. All 48 consoles were networked via RAVENNA.
At the IBC, another four mc256 consoles, four V_pro8 video processors and two Nova73 audio routers provided the infrastructure for mixing the 5.1 surround sound, which was produced as a remote production in the IBC for consistency, and the extended basic international feed (EBIF) show for the world feed.
As a result, providing 32 multilingual feeds required only two operators, according to Andreas Hilmer, director, marketing and communications, Lawo. “This was possible due to Lawo’s auto-mix feature, which is also capable of mixing surround, stereo, and mono sources.”
Other broadcasters also deployed Lawo consoles for the World Cup, including ESPN, which used a pair of mc256 consoles); Fox Sports, three mc256 consoles; and ZDF, an mc290 console.