Lawo HOME: Super glue for broadcast

How many Lawo HOME Apps do you need for broadcast-grade glue?

Picture this: a recently appointed CTO contacts one of Lawo’s sales directors to touch base. During the conversation, he casually drops that his new outfit is considering building four all-IP OB trucks.

The two have known each other for years and already collaborated on two IP-based OB trucks during the CTO’s previous incarnation. Given the informal nature of this conversation – a call for tender will eventually have to be issued – the two take a high-level look at the technical infrastructure for an IP-based OB truck to be built in 2026.

Usual suspects

A lot has changed since they last worked on a project together: the HOME management platform now plays a pivotal role. FPGA-based video processing has given way to HOME Apps that run on COTS servers and top-notch audio DSP processing for TV and radio is no longer confined to Lawo’s A__UHD Core or Power Core. Both agree that the ability to run audio processing on the same servers as Lawo’s video processing apps means that less hardware needs to be carried around. Come to think of it, nine 1U servers cover all processing, management and control needs for an entire truck designed for up to 32 cameras.

Obviously, the tentative truck also requires gateways, ie input/output boxes for SDI (video and audio) and audio (MADI, AES3, analogue) sources, some of which are needed inside or close to the truck, while the others are installed further afield. The two agree that eight .edge units with between eight and 48 SDI inputs and outputs, five A__stage64 audio stageboxes and an A__madi6 gateway can cover even the most demanding productions.

A 48-fader mc²56 console with ‘OB-truck’ side panels is deemed a good fit. Given its on-board audio I/O section, additional audio connectivity inside the truck’s ACR may not be needed.

Audio and video processing

As stated earlier, Lawo’s HOME Apps platform allows users to run all audio, video and ancillary processing on the exact same servers. This may mean that the tentative trucks are no longer equipped with a redundant pair of A__UHD Core audio DSP processors because the HOME mc² DSP app does the same, and supports a variety of transport formats like NDI, SRT and Dante in addition to the ST 2110-30 format AoIP users have come to expect. Redundancy for HOME Apps, and hence for HOME mc² DSP, is taken care of by a platform-based system that triggers automatic app restarts where necessary.

The tentative trucks also need multiviewers. Two of the nine COTS servers would be dedicated to Lawo’s intelligent HOME Multiviewer app to accommodate up to 32 multiviewer heads.

Surprise suspect

One important ingredient for any production is ‘glue’. The term refers to a diverse range of processing functionality such as format conversions and signal customisations. Broadcast engineers are probably familiar with modular 3U devices that accept around 20 cards for up/down/cross conversion (SD, HD, 3G, UHD); interlacing/de-interlacing; HDR-SDR processing, RGB-YUV colour correction; audio and video delay; and audio shuffling.

The CTO is curious how Lawo is able to provide glueware. The answer comes as a surprise: Lawo’s IP equivalent for the most frequently used glue functions can be supplied by single HOME App – HOME UDX Converter. As any given project may require more glue routines than a single app instance can handle, the Lawo sales director suggests provisioning 16 HOME UDX Converter instances. All of them can live on two 1U servers rather than in three or four 3U devices…

Of course, in a HOME Apps context ‘provisioning’ means something else: users can either purchase perpetual licences for 16 HOME UDX Converter instances or work with a sufficient number of Flex credits. These are not tied to the HOME UDX Converter app as such and can also be used for other HOME Apps when not all UDX instances are needed. In this way, occasional specialist audio or transcoding tasks can be paid for with Flex credits that are already in the customer’s wallet.

How cool is that?

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