Golf Channel Tees Up Lawo For Production

In 2016, The Golf Channel reached a decision to begin implementing a transition strategy for the future. Eric Gardner, Golf Channel’s senior director, Engineering & BOC says, “When we started this project, our objective was to overhaul our entire audio infrastructure while achieving IP-transport, pooled resources, ease of operation, and improved workflows. Lawo’s portfolio of products allowed us to design and build a comprehensive system that seamlessly encompasses audio, video, intercom, and commentary into a single vendor solution.”

64-fader mc256 consoles were installed in The Golf Channel’s primary production control rooms for live audio, with an additional three 16-fader mc236 consoles installed in hybrid live audio and post production rooms. In addition to the consoles, Lawo Commentary Units were installed in voiceover booths located throughout the Golf Channel campus.

Tying everything together is a Nova 73 audio router and eleven DALLIS audio I/O frames located in Golf Channel studios, control rooms, and equipment areas.

“The beauty of this design is that all the messy cabling only happens near the core or at the edge. RAVENNA allows for a sprawling audio network with clean home runs around our facility utilizing both fiber and copper,” Gardner says:

For additional flexibility, the Golf Channel also installed four Lawo V__pro8 audio/video processors to take the complexity out of video and audio channel mapping.

“The addition of four Lawo V_pro8 units gives us the flexibility to perfectly synchronize any of the eight inputs and outputs with a MADI audio matrix. Live video and audio monitoring is built into the HTML5 web GUI, and the flexibility to build program, auxiliary and camera paths in minutes rivals any other interface we use,” says Bob van Deering, Director, Systems Design & Transmission. The V__pro8 units are utilized as extra resources, with a dedicated unit per production control room and a fourth unit wrapped around the core video router.

“One feature that our Operations Team has been very excited about is the flexibility of Lawo’s custom functions.” says Dennis Milewski, Director, Systems Services. “Using the custom function of the mc² series consoles, the operators can program the console to do almost anything they can imagine. Currently, the custom functions are used for specialty audio monitoring situations, back-up microphone routing, and GPIO tasks like studio on-air lights, among many other uses.”