High-tech, even under difficult conditions.
Radio ARD broadcasts from Vancouver and Whistler with Lawo consoles.
Rain in Vancouver and at Cypress Mountain. Fog in Whistler – so dense that the Alpine skiers had to put their training on hold for some time. Not an ideal start for the Winter Games that began with the opening ceremony on February 12. ARD and ZDF, Germany’s public broadcasters, both have control rooms in Vancouver’s International Broadcast Center (IBC), as well as a studio at the Mountain Broadcast Center (MBC) in Whistler. Both also run reports from the ‘Deutsche Haus’ (a national meeting point for athletes and guests from politics and society, the economy and media). ARD, the association of German public broadcasters, has 50 employees on-site, including 15 technicians and 35 reporters; broadcasts can be heard for about 18 hours a day, on 45 ARD radio channels, seven days a week. Also part of the team: Lawo equipment.
“One mc²56 console, five crystal consoles, a Nova73 HD core, some spare interface cards for the Nova17 and nine uninterruptible power supplies. Additional equipment comes from several different ARD locations,” explains Alexander Bols, technical director for ARD Radio in Vancouver. The main equipment was rented from Audio Broadcast Services GmbH (ABS). There are three main technical pillars supporting this set-up: firstly, Mitteldeutschen Rundfunk (MDR), Germany, who have overall control of ARD’s operations during the Winter Olympics; secondly, equipment from other ARD locations; and finally, the technology from third parties.
The equipment sourced from other ARD sites is pooled and reserved for similar large-scale events. It can be rented as part of a cooperation agreement between the departments responsible for managing ARD’s reporting and technical operations.
Tested and Approved
Prior to shipping all the equipment, it is set-up, configured and tested at the facilities of the company responsible. In this case, this took place at MDR in Leipzig during October and November 2009. While the equipment was available in its test setup, the on-site employees attended a training session, and production runs were rehearsed. Later, the equipment was packed up and sent on its long journey to the Vancouver and Whistler production venues. Overall, 8 tons of audio equipment were shipped from a total of six ARD sites. Well ahead of the games, technicians were flown in to set up the equipment at the IBC and MBC locations, as well as at all the venues.
“The mixing consoles are mainly used for two purposes – the crystals for post production of the radio broadcasts, and the mc²56 serves as the radio mixing console for the programme feed to Germany. On this console, the incoming signals from the venues are routed to so-called ‘venue busses’ and then fed to the appropriate programme line,” continues Bols.
Demanding Innovations
For the first time, a fully digitized production process is being used for ARD’s radio output. Until now, analogue signal processing was still sometimes used on their consoles. The three feeds to Germany are in stereo – in the past, they would have been mono. Naturally, this elaborate radio technology is always prepared well in advance of the particular event. In this case, planning began in the spring of 2007.
When asked why ARD made their decision in favour of Lawo products, Bols concluded: “Lawo made the most economical offer. Moreover, the technology fits well into the existing ARD infrastructure, which already includes several Lawo components. Last but not least, with Lawo we were best able to implement our plan for a redundant audio system environment based on a pure internal MADI structure.”
