MBC Group has recently upgraded its audio infrastructure with Lawo AES67/RAVENNA IP equipment. The integration has been carried out in the group’s two control rooms and studios located in Dubai Studio City.

Acording to the company, one of the main reasons to apply this solution was flexibility: either control room needed to be able to serve either studio floor in a variety of I/O combinations. It involves two 48-fader Lawo mc²56 Production Consoles and shared I/O for the IP networked system, set up as a mix of A__stage64 and modular DALLIS Stagebox devices. Embedding and de-embedding of audio in/from video feeds is realized with Lawo’s V__pro8 8-channel video/audio toolbox. The user rights management system integrated in the Lawo consoles allows to protect the audio sources “reserved” by an mc²56 to avoid configuration changes from the other room’s console.

While most audio streams are exchanged via AES67/RAVENNA (IP), other signals are received via MADI. For reasons of continuity regarding previously installed audio gear, a Nova73 HD router provides a 4-port DANTE card.

The IP characteristic allows Lawo to provide remote hands-on training from Europe. They did it through the most difficult months of the pandemic and it has support across WAN-based remote fader and screen control that complemented a live video link. In a wider perspective, the same remote capability can be used by MBC operators to control on-location stageboxes during high-profile events.