InBroadcast - May 2022 - 50

50
www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 12 - Issue 5 | May 2022
InFile
No Place like HOME
W
hen
HOME,
Lawo's
highly
intuitive IP management
platform, was launched just over
a year ago, one could have been
forgiven for assuming that its benefits,
including automatic
discovery
and
registration, orchestration,
streamlined operability, scalability,
security, and agility, would remain
exclusive to Lawo solutions. Given the
initial focus on the A__UHD Core and
mc² mixing consoles, it furthermore
looked like an audio-only affair. But
that was last year...
With the launch of .edge, Lawo's
SDI/IP Conversion
and
Routing
Platform, at NAB 2022, HOME already
welcomed its second HOME-native
video member after V__matrix, thus
proving that the convergence of
audio and video in real-world control
rooms had been factored into HOME
right from the start.
And there is more good news:
the decision to base HOME on
Dockerized
microservices
today
allows users to run it in a cloudready
COTS infrastructure. Moreover,
thanks to strong interest from other
vendors, HOME is no longer a private
affair.
Something to Write Home About
HOME was developed from scratch
to connect, secure, and manage
live production setups in IP-based
facilities. It
addresses
requirements
in modern media
production workflows where speed
and precision are of the essence.
In the wake of the skyrocketing
adoption of distributed, remote and
hybrid workflows, operators realized
that whatever they use to create
compelling content
is
and
essentially
just a tool to help them along the
way. HOME is the platform where
inter-related
customer
challenges
and
mission-critical workflows.
A discovery
common
enable
inter-dependent
products and services work together
in order to solve most
mechanism, for
instance, can only be of help if it
supports audio, video as well as
control devices and solutions. The
CTO of a leading broadcast service
provider describes
the dream
solution as follows: " You connect
everything, you push a button and
it configures itself. " This requires a
single mechanism and user interface.
essential
In an ideal world, no issues
HOME can even retrieve
arise when you add more
devices to a network. Yet,
given that real life works a
little differently, requiring
operators
to
a device that
" admit "
is
automatically
discovered and registered for the first
time is a sign of good housekeeping:
it gives you pause to double-check
and
correct
settings
that
might
conflict with other devices on the
network. This is exactly how HOME's
quarantine process works. It may
take a few seconds of your time, but
this may very well save you hours, or
even days, of troubleshooting.
One of the likeliest
issues used
to be duplicate IP addresses. This
is already taken care of by HOME's
built-in DHCP service, which
automatically assigns IP addresses to
devices and streams. On the whole,
even a hyper-dense platform like
.edge, can be up and running at full
throttle in a few steps.
Granular or Macro Control
Depending on the device's feature
set, HOME
and
swift
provides
stunningly
intuitive deep-dive
configuration, control and routing
parameters, which can be grouped
into macro-like, one-press operations
for fast configuration.
In .edge's case, for instance, each
SDI input transmits video, audio and
metadata to a bunch of internal IP
receivers (inputs of the IP network,
if you will). In line with the ST2110
standard, video, audio, control and
metadata essences
discretely for ultimate flexibility. This
used to make routing operations
time-consuming, because each SDI
input feeds one video, several audio
and one metadata IP receiver.
Essence grouping in HOME's user
interface enables operators to work
with single connection icons per
input/receiver and output/sender
for fast end-to-end routing. Unless,
of course, the operator decides to
only
transmit one audio essence
(without the video and control data)
to the desired destination. This then
requires a dive into the single IP
essence streams-and usually for a
very specific reason.
Housewarming Party
While HOME was launched with
support for Lawo's audio production
devices, a host of other Lawo devices
have been added over the course of
just one year. This was made possible
by a single API that allows detailed
control and monitoring of eligible
devices. As such, the API can easily
be installed on third-party devices,
which has already been done by
Merging Technologies
single-ecosystem control
for intuitive
and
management. This allows operators
to configure their audio interfaces
directly
are handled
from the console. Other
vendors will follow suit in the near
future.
information from NMOScompatible
devices through
an IS-04 registry and support
connection management
via IS-05
to provide at
least some basic management
functionality.
HOME-based systems have already
been used to great success at toptier
global sport events and in some
of the most advanced OB trucks,
theater and opera houses as well as
music production systems all over
the world.
The
recent
addition
of
Global
Snapshots, finally, allows operators
to capture the current device and
routing state of all audio and video
devices in the system, and to recall
those settings at a later stage. These
Snapshots even include the routing
states of NMOS-enabled gear.
Cloud Nine
HOME is built on microservices and
can therefore be containerized in a
Docker environment.
supports
scalability
nature for future
This natively
detached
from hardware constraints, and is
cloud-ready by
deployments.
At NAB 2022, Lawo's
HOME
instance ran in the AWS cloud, thus
proving that HOME can literally run
just about anywhere and manage
private and public
clouds, onpremise
installations-and a mix of
all of them. So when will you come
HOME?
https://lawo.com
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InBroadcast - May 2022

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