With a weekly audience of 12m listeners across Malaysia and 90 news broadcasts in four languages each day, Astro Radio is a non-stop station that demands flexibility and reliability from its studio mixing consoles. Updating and expanding its present facilities, and keeping an eye on the future, Astro recently chose Lawo Virtual Radio Consoles for its new studios.
‘We’re seeing more and more broadcasters interested in virtual consoles,’ says Lawo Director of Virtual Radio Projects, Michael Dosch. ‘They’ve watched the IT world gain cost benefits from virtualisation, and they realise they can also save money and gain flexibility by upgrading from physical consoles and peripherals to a virtual studio infrastructure. In fact, some broadcasters are telling us they can save thousands by building a virtual radio environment.’
Astro Radio’s Lawo system is comprised of DSP-based Compact Engines, which mix audio and provide I/O, and touchscreen Virtual Consoles powered by Lawo Vistool software. A Lawo Nova 29 router bridges the new system with Astro’s legacy routing gear.
Bala Murali Subramaney, Astro Radio’s Vice President of Engineering and Technology believes that touchscreen-controlled ‘virtual’ consoles allow his team of engineers to construct custom mixing interfaces which ease and enhance workflow. Using touchscreen controls, operators can route and combine inputs from external sources, mix audio, record and edit interviews, then send their productions to air – all without touching a physical fader.
Besides the benefits of intuitive touchscreen interfaces, Bala points to the economy of the Lawo system – each Compact Engine serves two studios. Additionally, the Virtual Console software runs on the same touchscreen PCs that are used used for audio delivery, significantly lowering equipment costs.
‘The Virtual Radio Console is designed to replace and reduce the cost of purchasing and maintaining a physical broadcast console and associated parts,’ Bala says. ‘Not only are we able to run ten studios on five Compact Engines, we’ve also saved on the purchase of a separate PC for virtual consoles in each news studio.’
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