Toronto, Ontario, Canada – October 14, 2008 … After 18 years, the Unification of Germany finally came to age this year. Berlin celebrated Unification Day this year with a three-day party at the Brandenburg Gate and a ‘fan mile’. On the evening of October 3rd, festivities hit a peak with a free concert (broadcast live by RTLII), featuring the German pop bands Die Prinzen, Ich & Ich, Scooter, In Extremo, plus many more, who all performed on the stages at the Brandenburg Gate. At the same time, this concert was also a successful trial by fire for HD5, Berlin TV provider Betamobil’s new OB truck, equipped with a Lawo mc²66 console.
The mc²66 has a 24+8+16 fader configuration and provides a routing capacity of 8000 x 8000 crosspoints. As the audio router is integrated with the console, no additional routing matrix was necessary. The console offers redundancy of the control card, the PSU, and also, depending on the configuration, 192 DSP channels. According to Thomas Busch, Betamobil’s Technical Director, it was the mc²66’s comprehensive functionality provided in a compact frame that led to the purchasing decision. The console is extremely flexible in use, is easily reconfigurable and thus best suited for the broad application requirements of their OB truck. Thomas Busch put it in a nutshell, “All in all, a convenient tool” and, as a closing remark on the project, he adds, “From our first point of contact, right up to the first production on the mc²66, we had very fruitful and successful cooperation with the entire Lawo team!”
This project took one and a half years, with Betamobil using its own systems house to build the OB truck. The vehicle arrived in Berlin in a ‘rack-ready’ status, whereupon Betamobil completed the interior. The truck is 12 meters long, weighs 26 tons, and is equipped with twelve cameras. Thanks to a movable sidewall, the truck offers 17 work positions—three of them in the audio control room. Two optical fiber stageboxes allow complete integration of all audio signals.
About Betamobil
Since 1994, Betamobil have provided TV production facilities and live broadcasts of all types, especially news, outdoor events and sports (e.g. the winter sports broadcasts for ARD, a national group of German broadcasters). The service range includes live productions or recordings with up to twelve cameras, provision of a mobile edit suite on the production site, an ENG team, as well as satellite broadcasts, DVD productions and video projection facilities.
About Lawo
Lawo is a manufacturer of digital audio networking systems and consoles for a wide range of applications from small to large scale audio production in television and radio, post production, and live sound. Established in the 1970s, the company’s manufacturing center is located in the Rhine valley town of Rastatt, Germany. For additional information on Lawo’s mc²66 console and all Lawo products, visit the company online at www.lawo.ca.
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