SEOUL—Maeil Broadcasting Network (MBN), a South Korean cable TV broadcaster, this month completed an upgrade of its new broadcast production facility with Lawo mc256 consoles A_UHD Core audio engine and multiple A__line AoIP stageboxes, the second large project its completed leveraging the company’s technology.
“Maeil Broadcasting Network regards IP as the broadcast technology of the future, and our goal is to be a fully [SMPTE] ST 2110-capable broadcast network within the next few years,” said Byonghee Gwak, technical director at MBN.
“This is why we wanted to integrate our broadcast production facility with our new studios and control rooms using an IP infrastructure right from the start. Another big plus is that, with our new flexible audio network, we can apply our workflows and change them at any time, easily modifying the whole setup via software configuration.”
MBN’s first installed Lawo radio mixing consoles for DMB radio and mc² audio production desks for MBN MONEY and the MBN News Center several years ago. Experience with Lawo’s technology led MBN to choose the company again to perform a technical upgrade of MBN control rooms A and B in the new production center, Lawo said.
The upgrade of the production studio includes two mc²56 MkIII audio production consoles with shared A__UHD core, external servers for MCX and Lawo’s HOME management platform for IP-based media infrastructures, as well as A__stage 80, A__MADI6 and A__digital 64 AoIP nodes, and an A__stage48 as studio stagebox, it said.
“Together with MBN, we developed a plan to upgrade the new production center to an IP facility and discussed the workflows our customer wanted to put in place,” said Choi Won, project manager at LG U+, which installed all of the equipment.
“After thorough consideration of various manufacturers, Lawo, with their IP-native, ST 2110-compatible audio production consoles, won by a clear margin. The powerful, super-compact A__UHD core provides DSP pooling and full redundancy so that a dynamic and flawless production process is guaranteed.”
MBN’s new technology is managed by Lawo’s HOME platform, which manages IP devices and makes adding new IP-connected audio I/O devices easy. The consoles automatically detect new devices and make them available at the touch of a button. HOME manages IP addresses, multicast ranges and VLANs and includes security features like access control and quarantining of unknown devices to protect a facility’s network, it said.
“We have already experienced the Lawo radio and mc² series mixing consoles over the years. We admire the innovative character, quality, reliability and stability of Lawo products and solutions, and the creative resource handling and efficiency that provides us with new and better ways of TV production,” said Gwak.
Lawo partner DYD (Dongyang Digital) handled delivery while the SI team of mobile network operator LG Uplus (LG U+) was responsible for planning, installation and commissioning. The project was completed in March 2022.
More information is available on the company’s website.
