ARD, the German public broadcasters’ association tested new Lawo video streaming technology at Radio Days, held Nov. 5–9 at the Center for Art and Media Technologies in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The ARD Radio Days events were held in different venues within the ZKM facilities. The audience was presented with a program that included live radio dramas and interviews, alongside the presentation ceremony. In addition to being aired on radio, the events from Radio Days were broadcast via live audio and video streams on the Internet, and also recorded for later download from the broadcasting stations’ media centers.
Sascha Schwoll and Wolfgang Goetz, both from broadcasters within the ARD, used several Lawo V__link 4 Video-over-IP processors and crystal mixing cores, said the firm. There were four cameras in use, whose signals had to be sent to the control room, together with audio and communications signals. The signals were collected by the V__link4 and sent to the control room via a single 10-Gbps Ethernet connection. The signals were received by two more V__link4 units, and sent into a V__pro8. This pro8 functioned as a pre-positioned video matrix because the mixer can only handle four video signals.
“In the conventional way of working, we would have used quite a lot of cables,” said Schwoll. He continued, “At Radio Days, this was done by using the crystal console that we have on site to convert the mic signals and to embed the GPI/Os. The intercom is controlled by the InterCom Tool that is integrated in the crystal. We took the audio signal from the camera operators, embedded them into the video signals — and we were done.”
