German location, studio and postproduction service provider ProSiebenSat.1 Produktion has undertaken extensive technical work in is control rooms, improving their capabilities and standardising on equipment choices. Key aspects of the upgrade fell to Lawo, who reconfigured the router card in the HD Core in one of the facility’s mc²66 mixing consoles to operate as an audio network for five control rooms. This reduces operating costs, as well as saving the space that would have been required for an external router. Three Dallis breakout boxes ensured that each room had the necessary inputs and outputs at its disposal.

In Control Room 8, a Lawo mc²56 MkII console with 144 DSP channels was installed to replace another manufacturer’s digital console. In order to have identical consoles throughout the facility, the mc²66 consoles in Control Rooms 7 & 9 have also been replaced with mc²56 MkII desks.

‘The Lawo consoles in the infrastructure work perfectly with Virtual Studio Manager from L-S-B, allowing video functions to be controlled from the mc²56 consoles,’ says ProSiebenSat.1 Produktion’s Joachim Hentschel.

Control Room 7 was the first of the control rooms to be equipped with a Lawo console – an mc²66 installed in 2006. A further mc²66 was also installed in the same year in Control Room 10, though later relocated to Control Room 9. These consoles – with ‘Classic’ user interfaces – are being replaced now by new generation mc²56 consoles, allowing almost all the existing I/O and HD Core hardware to remain in place.

As Control Room 9 is currently the least used, it is the first to be upgraded and it will provide a blueprint for the other rooms. The set-ups and snapshots produced here will be used in all of the other control rooms, so that Control Rooms 7 & 8 can be pu into operation immediately. This is an important consideration, the pressure of forthcoming productions means that little time can be spared for relocations and renovations.

With identically configured mc²56 mixing consoles and the ability to transfer set-ups and snapshots, production work can also be transferred between control rooms. It also means that sound engineers can move between room without having to adapt working methods or workflow, and with full data compatibility.

‘The mc²56 is extraordinarily intuitive to operate, so very little time is needed to familiarise oneself with it,’ Hentschel says. ‘ProSiebenSat.1 Produktion has had only positive experiences with Lawo and Lawo products in terms of quality, performance, reliability, redundancy options and service. It is also worth emphasising that working with Lawo is uncomplicated – the Lawo team is always responsive and searches readily and swiftly for solutions.’