Verizon upgrades studios to IP with Lawo
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Renamed Verizon Media Studios (formerly Oath Inc) early in 2019, the renovation and new buildout to the facilities will serve all Verizon Media brands, including Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Huffpost, Yahoo News, RYOT, Engadget, Tech Crunch and Makers. It encompasses live broadcast and pre-tape studio content with shared resources across different locations.
With DSI/Blade Media acting as the main contractor, the upgrade covers three studios; Control Room 1 and Control Room 3 are used for a daily eight-hour live Yahoo Finance broadcast and ancillary shoots, while Control Room 2 is a general-purpose studio for all other of Verizon brands. These have been equipped with three Lawo mc²36 consoles and a Nova37, accompanied by four Lawo A-mic8 microphone interfaces. The intention is to add two further A-mic8s in the near future.
With work begun in 2018, these studios are currently operational with Stage 2 of the project to follow, bringing additional live studio spaces into play.
“We are scaling globally and the ease of interconnectivity, strong system engineering team and customer service that Lawo provides has made planning for the future exciting and easy to understand,’ says Dan Brantigan head of audio at Verizon Media Studios. “I’ve been exceedingly impressed with Lawo’s willingness to customize based on client needs, and everybody there seems genuinely excited to work through hurdles and even teach programming and intricacies that other console manufacturers would normally shy away from.”
Among the many benefits of the new installation that Brantigan identifies are scalability and customization, alongside ability to work with new IP-based workflows while interfacing seamlessly with all legacy formats. “Also, all our A1s love the ease of use and sound of the consoles in general,” he adds. “Signal flow with RAVENNA has been especially eye opening and is now a format I want to use as much as possible in the future.”
Brantigan concludes: “I went with Lawo because of the experience I had using them in the past. I was impressed with the sound of the consoles foremost, but getting deeper into the workflow possibilities the decision is being reinforced on a daily basis.”
(Jim Evans)
