Lawo Devises Remote Signal Monitoring Infrastructure for Colombia’s Caracol TV

Unusual times call for unusual measures. For several months, the broadcast community has lived in unusual times, and Lawo is actively working to help customers develop innovative technical workflows to keep operations running during lockdown, using remote solutions and online communication software.

Remote production has been a core piece of Lawo’s IP solutions for years thanks to involvement worldwide with TV and streaming productions of major sports or cultural events around the world. Now, remote FAT (Factory Acceptance Testing), training, and equipment demonstrations are a part of the portfolio as well.

Recently, Bogotá, Colombia’s private media company Caracol purchased a 48-fader mc²56 mixing console with DALLIS frame for their News Studio, another mc²56 for their new OB van, and a mc²36 console for their Studio 10 facility.

Caracol safety protocols during Covid-19 require that the company’s engineers be able to monitor and meter critical audio signals from home, so they contacted Lawo for a solution. On April 30, Lawo engineer Daniel Egea demonstrated remote monitoring solutions for Caracol engineers via two possible monitoring methods — one employing Lawo AoIP Stream Monitor software, and a second using RƎLAY VPB software. Both solutions use RAVENNA / AES67 connectivity to monitor the mc² consoles.

Since the demonstration of both setups met Caracol’s requirements, both software packages will be configured for long-term tests, and eventually will be a permanent part of their studio installation.

“The question for us was, how can the engineers both listen to and meter the audio signals while not on site?” says Egea.

The solution was an infrastructure that allowed the mc² console core to supply its audio signals to a facility computer. “Audio signals were supplied to the streaming network via the RAVENNA card in the core and collected from the network on a PC using AoIP Stream Monitor or RƎLAY VPB software. By accessing this computer via Teamviewer or Remote Desktop through a second NIC, Caracol engineers can now conveniently monitor the most important signals from home. This setup offers a very flexible monitoring situation and has simple, intuitive GUIs to quickly create a suitable monitoring overview.”