In Broadcast - August 2015 - 50


50

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 5 - Issue 8 | August 2015

InStudio

Korean National Broadcaster
Gears Up With Lawo mc² Consoles
A

s part of an ongoing modernisation
process,
Korean
national
broadcaster KBS (Korean Broadcasting
System) has chosen Lawo to supply and
install digital equipment - following the
earlier upgrade of KBS' master control
room with 16 Lawo Nova17 MkII routing

systems and VisTool workplaces for
visualisation and control. For the
broadcaster's news studio and a new
OB truck, KBS decided on two mc²66
digital audio consoles equipped with
latest RAVENNA/AES67 Audio-over-IP
interfaces. While the news studio has

The Lawo mc² console at KBS, Korean's national broadcaster

been on-air since the beginning of 2015,
the OB installation will be concluded by
August 2015. Soundfox International,
Lawo's partner in Korea for Broadcast
Audio & Video, is overseeing all of
these KBS installations.
From previous experience with
custom Lawo digital systems, and after
considering all relevant options, KBS
awarded the modernisation of their
news studio for KBS News1 (NS1) to the
German manufacturer in autumn 2014.
The project began in October, and an
mc²66 console was installed and ready
for news production in December. KBS
is highly satisfied with Lawo products
due to their operational stability and
redundancy options, as well as their
user-focused layouts. In this case, this
flexibility allowed the central control
section and master to be located on
the right-hand side of the desk as KBS
had requested.
Ho Gun Lee, KBS News Director,
stated: "The Lawo mc²66 system
is very stable and easy-to-use. The

reasons for selecting the mc²66
include its stability, and the long
history and expertise of Lawo as a
manufacturer. Another feature is
the simple and fast routing via the
console, and errors can be monitored
and analysed by the real-time display
of the current status of the whole
system through the central main
screen. In addition, errors are saved
in the log file, which is convenient for
maintenance control."
Besides modernising the fixed
installations, KBS is also modernising
its OB fleet. For this, a new mc²66
console is being set up, configured
and customised in Germany during the
summer to be delivered to KBS in early
August 2015. The concept includes
the use of Lawo stageboxes using
RAVENNA technology. In July, KBS and
Soundfox engineers will visit regional
German broadcaster Südwestrundfunk
(SWR) in Baden-Baden close to Lawo's
HQ to inspect the equipment and
installations.

European Debut For OB-BOX
Concept At IBC
A

t IBC, Hitachi Kokusai Electric will
stage a European debut of its
new OB-BOX concept, which is claimed
by the company to offer entirely new
levels of OB operational flexibility, costefficiency and technical performance
right up to ultra-HDTV capabilities.
Since its launch earlier this year,
Hitachi reports high levels of interest
amongst international broadcasters
and production companies in this
novel OB solution.
Hitachi's OB-BOX is a fully featured
modular OB facility which is delivered
to the customer and then mounted
onto a vehicle's chassis using a
proprietary fixing kit. This approach
significantly reduces the manufacture
and delivery time in any market
worldwide, since it removes the need
to source and ship an appropriate
vehicle for each customer.
The OB-BOX comes in three different
configurations which support four,
eight and 12 production cameras. The

option of a booth side extension adds
further flexibility to unit sizing. In
addition, an ability to connect two OBBOX units in a cascade configuration
adds more versatility and facilitates
many different sizes of OB unit up to
20 camera mobile facilities.
Each OB-BOX is specified, designed
and manufactured at Hitachi's
Istanbul-based facility to meet the
customer's exact OB needs. The
unit provides all of the video, audio,
transmission
and
infrastructure
capabilities needed to create a standalone Outside Broadcast facility.
The technical specification of the
unit is such that it will support any
broadcast signal from serial digital to
HD and even 4K production. Alongside
satellite and fibre connectivity, the
units integrate powerful Ethernet
connectivity, which provides the
production team with internet
facilities on site. At the same time,
OB-BOX
features
sophisticated

Hitachi Kokusai
OB-BOX concept
is envisaged as
three versions

Cloud capabilities, which enable the
users to send 4K content back to
the broadcaster's production centre
quickly and easily.
"IBC will be the first time that we
demonstrate OB-BOX in Europe but
already we're receiving a high level
of interest in this versatile and costeffective OB solution," commented
Cemal Yilmaz, General Manager of
Hitachi Kokusai Turkey. "It is the result
of a major development initiative at
our Istanbul headquarters, and the
customer response we have seen so

far indicates that this elegant 4K OB
facility will provide a flexible option in
many countries worldwide."
Building on its extensive OB vehicle
design heritage, Hitachi has ensured
that operational staff will feel at home
whilst working in the OB-BOX.
Attention has been paid to the
facility's internal design, monitor
and control systems, air conditioning
and weather proofing in order to
create a comfortable working space
irrespective of external environmental
conditions.
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.lawo.com/applications/broadcast-production/audio-consoles.html http://www.hitachi.com/
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - August 2015
