In Broadcast - January 2021 - 46

46

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 11 - Issue 1 | January 2021

InStudio

Lawo VSM Controls Al Arabiya TV
News complex in Dubai

A

l Arabiya, 24/7 TV news
broadcaster for the Arabicspeaking world, recently modernized
the fourth floor of their facilities in
Dubai Media City.
The broadcaster, part of the
Saudi media group " Middle East
Broadcasting Center " (MBC), is
now equipped with state-of-the-art
production technology, controlled
by VSM (Virtual Studio Manager)
Broadcast Control System from Lawo.
The renovation also included the
interior design of all studios, editorial
areas and control rooms on this floor.
In the new look, all functional units
are grouped together in two mirrored
semicircular complexes, characterized
by a futuristic design in a full circle.
The system integration was carried
out by Diversified, who shortly before
the project started had taken over the
original system integrator TSL Dubai.
Lawo is no stranger to Al Arabiya
as it has used Lawo's VSM technology
already in the past years. In
this project, the TV broadcaster
progresses into a new dimension with
a comprehensive VSM system for the
control of the entire audio and video
infrastructure in the modernized TV
news complex. In addition, a small
radio studio has been created which
hosts a Lawo ruby with 12 faders that
is in service since the modernized

Al Arabiya TV Newsroom

broadcast facilities went on-air in
spring 2020.
" Al Arabiya management put more
load on the system engineering when
the decision was taken to expand the
news production workflow across
all studios, in the design phase the
engineering team was looking for
enhancing the system flexibility and
accuracy that ensures our system
redundancy and workflow expansion.
VSM was the winner that fulfilled the
goal; it became the core of the setup " ,
explains Raed Bacho, MBC's Senior
Broadcast Manager.
Due to the detailed preparations,
the project went according to plan.
The project was set on track when
the Lawo project team met with
representatives from Diversified and
Al Arabiya in mid-October 2019 for
discussing the concept and for the
technical kick-off.
Lawo's project
manager, Bernhard Brandner, is
very pleased with how the project
went: " The modernization works and
installations, which were started with
great commitment in November, were
completed on schedule with the final
configurations at the end of January
2020. " He continues: " The expertise
of the Diversified Team when working
on the development of the control
system greatly advanced the design
and implementation of the overall

Al Arabiya TV Studio

system. As project manager of our AlArabiya project, I could experience all
the trades working together hand in
hand so that problems could not even
manifest themselves. Everything ran
smoothly. "
Close to the finalization of the Al
Arabiya installations, the Lawo team
travelled to Dubai in February 2020 for
intensive operator training and project
acceptance. After the project was
successfully completed at the end of
February, Al Arabiya went on air from
the modernized premises on March
4th.
" The decision for Lawo was taken
on account of the good reputation of
the company and brand in the Arab
states, based on the quality of the
equipment and service, " explains

Suhail Ahmed, CEO of Diversified Dubai
and Project Manager for the Al Arabiya
modernization. " The reliability and
flexibility of the Lawo systems were
particularly decisive factors. These
features made it easy to immediately
meet any new requirements expressed
by our customer during the run of the
project. We were able to implement
these largely cost-neutral as VSM
already covers every aspect and we as
system integrator and our customer Al
Arabiya were very satisfied. A major
requirement of Al Arabiya was also the
ability to seamlessly scale the system,
as the customer wants to carry out
further modernizations and extensions
in the future. With Lawo's VSM, Al
Arabiya has certainly made the right
decision, " concludes Suhail Ahmed.
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