Lawo technology powers Brazil’s Rádio Itatiaia
- Details
Lawo integration partner Rádio Partes installed the system, which features Power Core mixing engines, Nova17 routing frames, and custom touchscreen controls designed with Lawo VisTool Unlimited graphical control software.
Project planning began in 2018, with the goal of replacing an aging digital router with a true AES67 system that could work with AoIP equipment from a variety of manufacturers, and be easily expanded to accommodate future needs. Itatiaia also wanted a system with DSP capabilities to enable audio shaping of sources on-the-fly, and, being a network content provider, operational redundancy at every level.
Rádio Itatiaia’s vice president, Cláudio Carneiro, comments: “The company who made our mixing consoles does not have dedicated routing hardware, or a system to accomplish this. Lawo has greater expertise and know-how with dedicated routing matrices. While we looked at other vendors, when compared with similar systems Lawo’s was more mature and ready to serve us.”
All Lawo radio products employ AES67-compliant Ravenna networking, so accomodating Itatiaia’s array of AoIP, analog and digital audio sources was easily accomplished. The system’s redundant routing core utilises two Lawo Power Core engines, each of which is paired with a Nova17 routing frame equipped with dual, redundant mastercards. These, in turn, are interconnected via mirrored MADI backbones, with automatic failover from the primary to the secondary system in the unlikely event of a fault.
Control is redundant as well: physical controls via rack-mounted KSC key panels, and touchscreen PCs with VisTool graphical control software. All hardware power supplies are redundant as well, making the system virtually bullet-proof. A PTP grandmaster synchronizes everything, with a Lawo A__mic8 unit providing backup clocking.
Routing control is handled from a central control room whose racks contain the routing core equipment. The adjacent operator’s position, with a compact mixing console, is flanked by monitoring screens, the router’s key panels, and a touchscreen for VisTool routing control screens. From here, the operator can select feeds to send to the Rede Itatiaia network’s affiliate stations, apply DSP audio processing to sources, create custom monitor feeds for on-air studios, and control the bank of codecs used for remote broadcasts and sports coverage.
“What won Lawo the order was their commitment to leading-edge technology,” says Rádio Partes’ Carlos Ávila Pereira. “Itatiaia’s main goal was to be totally independent of a single manufacturer or system. As most manufacturers now speak AES67, Itatiaia now has the unique ability to use the console network plus the Lawo routing network as backups for each other in the event of a technical emergency.”
