In order to enrich its capabilities for dedicated audio production and broadcast of both sports and music – and especially for large-scale sports tournaments such as the forthcoming 2022 Winter Games in China (taking place in Beijing, Yanqin and Zhangjiakou) – Beijing Television (BTV) has turned to Lawo IP equipment for its Electronic Field Production (EFP) requirements.
For its first purely IP mobile EFP system, the broadcaster purchased a third-generation 32-fader mc²56 production console with 288 DSP channels as main desk, along with an mc²36 All-in-One console with 16 faders as backup, plus five A__mic8 and seven A__digital8 AoIP stageboxes from Lawo. The consoles provide 512×512 (mc²36) resp. 8196×8196 (mc²56) routing capacity with redundant router boards and integrate Waves SoundGrid, additionally providing both MADI and IP RAVENNA/AES67 compatible interfaces.
BTV’s move to full EFP operation comes shortly after China Central Television (CCTV) took a further step towards an all-IP production environment with the recent installment of three IP-based Lawo mc² consoles. As with the CCTV project, the system integration was handled by Lawo’s partner NDT, who also designed the system using the typical spine-leaf IP switch network involving a couple of CISCO switches.
