
Radio has always been a vital source of news and information when crises hit. California's public broadcasters have traditionally been prepared for nearly any eventuality, such as disasters like earthquakes, floods and wildfires. And now they must be prepared to inform listeners during a pandemic as well. In San Francisco, NPR member station KQED observed other stations in the U.S. where personnel were unable to access their facilities due to COVID-19 shutdowns, and took action to ensure remote access to their FM s Master Control Room and adjacent production facilities.
We had to ask ourselves what we would do if one of our staff members tested positive for the virus. How would we produce our daily programming if the facilities were off-limits? says Donny Newenhouse, Executive Director of Broadcast Engineering and Operations at KQED.
We knew we would need the ability to run our Master Control Room from a remote location. We also needed to remotely-control the three production studios where our daily call-in program, Forum', originates. All of these rooms have Lawo sapphire mixing consoles, so we called Lawo and asked - how can we do this?
There wasn't an off-the-shelf solution to remote-control the sapphire consoles and also control the integrated networked systems, but our engineering staff had some ideas, says Herbert Lemcke, Key Account Manager / President, Lawo Corp. Americas. A key aspect of the solution was to use KQED's spare sapphire mixing surface as a remote for the one in MCR by using CANBus-to-IP converters to connect to and control the station's console core and Nova73 router.
KQED's engineering space at Sutro Tower (the main transmission site for many Bay Area TV and FM stations) hosts the emergency remote setup, a solution already employed by KQED's television operations, which have a backup TV Master Control at Sutro. Using the sapphire surface installed at the tower site, KQED's operators can directly control the operation of the sapphire located in the station's MCR for complete control of all satellite feeds and local programming sources.
The second part of the project - creating a virtual studio at Sutro for operators to produce the daily Forum' call-in program - required a different kind of remote control. For this, Lemcke and Lawo R&D engineer Andreas Schlegel designed a touchscreen mixing console interface using Lawo's VisTool GUI Building software. This connects via IP from the Sutro Tower site to KQED's downtown studios, which should give complete access to all mixing functions and console resources in the station's three control rooms, including the codec pool, broadcast VoIP phone system, Dalet playout system - even talkback and mix-minus channels.
Lawo engineers were able to give KQED the solution they needed: the entire physical and virtual remote control solution was executed, tested and proofed in under a week's time, and reports from operators on the virtual studio implementation have been very positive.
With the combination of hardware remote control of Master Control, and VisTool virtual control of our studio mixing consoles, our contingency plans are in place and ready should we need them, says Newenhouse. But we hope we never will.
Most recent headlines
01/04/2025
USHER's London takeover is in full swing. After kicking off his sold-out run of shows at the O2 Arena to rave reviews, the R&B icon joined forces with Spoti...
01/04/2025
Innovative program empowers partners with growth, efficiency and collaboration
Herndon, Va., April 1, 2025 ST Engineering iDirect, a global leader in satelli...
01/04/2025
MELBOURNE, Fla., April 1, 2025 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) will release its first quarter 2025 financial results before the market opens on Thursday, Ap...
01/04/2025
Calrec Craft Interview: Aston Fearon, Sound Supervisor In this craft interview, Aston Fearon speaks to us about how his career in sound started, projects he'...
01/04/2025
MONT-SAINT-GUIBERT, Belgium Telestream has integrated intoPIX's JPEG XS technology into Telestream's PRISM waveform monitors, which Telestream says will...
01/04/2025
BURLINGTON, Mass. Avid has signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS), to deliver a cloud-based production framework that helps f...
01/04/2025
LONDON and NEW YORK The United Football League (UFL) has signed a new global partnership with sports broadcaster DAZN to broadcast every game of the UFL's 2...
01/04/2025
In a groundbreaking bid to streamline and democratize the production process, Netflix has laid out how it is developing a new Media Production Suite, that t...
01/04/2025
PHILADELPHIA Comcast Business has announced that it has completed its acquisition of Nitel, a U.S. managed services provider headquartered in Chicago, from inte...
01/04/2025
NEW YORK A team of research industry veterans, led by Tod Johnson have launched a new consumer insights and analytics platform, Tenetic, that offers both local ...
01/04/2025
V-Nova, a leading provider of compression solutions, today announced its inaugural participation in a patent pool, joining the Access Advance HEVC Patent Pool. ...
01/04/2025
Cinnafilm, a global leader in video optimization solutions, today announced that it will launch Tachyon LIVE, its groundbreaking live IP standards and format co...
01/04/2025
HighField AI, an advanced AI-powered solution designed to automate repetitive tasks within the media production workflow, today announced that it will demonstra...
01/04/2025
Globecast has expanded its use of Net Insight's Nimbra technology by deploying Nimbra Edge, significantly streamlining its media transport operations. This ...
01/04/2025
EdgePeak enables software architects and developers to design and build their own content delivery network (CDN) while reducing streaming costs, fighting video...
01/04/2025
Cinnafilm to preview the innovation at the 2025 NAB Show
Cinnafilm, a global leader in video optimization, has collaborated with NVIDIA to unveil a groundbreak...
01/04/2025
Leading video software provider Synamedia, will showcase its innovation-driven approach to solving the biggest challenges facing customers today and in the futu...
01/04/2025
AJA Debuts IP and 12G-SDI Innovations Ahead of NAB 2025
Brie Clayton April 1, 2025
0 Comments
New tools optimize media and entertainment and proAV wo...
01/04/2025
Bit Part Introduces bitbox mini, the Smallest and Lightest Solution for Ultra-Lo...
01/04/2025
IABM Unveils Bold Transformation at NAB Show, Prioritizing Member Value
Brie Clayton April 1, 2025
0 Comments
IABM is delivering a strategic transform...
01/04/2025
OOONA Introduces Multilingual QC Tool for Subtitling Workflows
Brie Clayton April 1, 2025
0 Comments
See OOONA on booth W4209 at the NAB Show, Las Veg...
01/04/2025
Adopting open standards, the solution aims to provide workflow standardisation, allowing for automation and other innovations across a diverse range of markets
...
01/04/2025
Submissions will be accepted up until 23:59 PST on 2nd April
By Jenny Priestley
Published: March 24, 2025 Updated: April 1, 2025
Submissions will be acc...
01/04/2025
The AI issue takes a look at how AI is reshaping broadcasting, including areas such as sports commentary and archiving and storage, plus we discover how Norways...
01/04/2025
Joining the company with more than two decades of experience forging and scaling alliances in the industry, Wastcoats role will support TVUs strategic developme...
01/04/2025
At the beginning of the year, Rich Welsh, senior vice president with Deluxe, was appointed the new president of Society of Motion Picture and Television Enginee...
01/04/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. and NEW YORK Charter's Spectrum pay TV operations are continuing its previously announced strategy of adding more streaming services to its ...
01/04/2025
HUNT VALLEY, Md. Sinclair, Inc. and its subsidiary, ONE Media Technologies, have announced that members of their leadership team will be participating in multip...
01/04/2025
01 04 2025 - Media release Bus Stop Films' first feature Boss Cat to begin production in June
Boss Cat cast (L-R): Olivia Hargroder, Penny Downie and Juli...
01/04/2025
PremiumBeat - Flexible, Unlimited Music For Creators
Brie Clayton March 31, 2025
0 Comments
Back in November of 2024, PremiumBeat made a bold move tha...
01/04/2025
MLB 2025: TNT Sports Chooses Remote Production for MLB Tuesday,' Upgrades C...
01/04/2025
SVG All-Stars: Francisco Contreras, Executive Director, Field Operations, FOX Sp...
01/04/2025
MILTON drones get a boost with Rohde & Schwarz SIGINT integration Rohde & Schwarz and MILTON have partnered to integrate advanced signals intelligence technol...
01/04/2025
Rohde & Schwarz presents comprehensive R&S ELEKTRA portfolio for reproducible, s...
01/04/2025
Create Complex Compositions with Unlimited Layers with FOR-A MixBoard Powered by ClassX...
01/04/2025
Article courtesy of Digital Production Germany
Read the article
Digital Production Germany magazine editor, Bela Beier, recently talked to Nara's Steve Br...
01/04/2025
Article courtesy of Digital Media World
Read the article
Light Iron uses Nara to handle file navigation, content streaming and information sharing workflow ef...
01/04/2025
Article courtesy of British Cinematographer
Read the article
DoP Don Burgess, VFX supervisor Kevin Baillie and colourist Maxine Gervais pulled their talents t...
01/04/2025
Polesi ski made a name for himself early in his career. Renowned for his attention to detail and ability to mix his creative and technical skills, Polesi ski st...
01/04/2025
visionOS 2.4 is available today, bringing the first set of powerful Apple Intelligence features that help users communicate, write, and express themselves on Ap...
01/04/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and...
31/03/2025
Ready, set, Party Time!' SBS News empowers young voters with a new politica...
31/03/2025
31 January, 2024
Company News
Tokyo, January 31, 2024 - Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501) today announced the following executive
changes to improve corporate value....
31/03/2025
MELBOURNE, Fla., March 31, 2025 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) has complete...
31/03/2025
Vice Admiral Jan Willem Hartman, commander of the Dutch Materiel and IT Command, and Chris Aebli, President, Tactical Communications, L3Harris Technologies, sig...
31/03/2025
The L3Harris team visited HMS GLASGOW, the first T26 Global Combat Ship, current...
31/03/2025
SEATTLE As the WNBA prepares to kick off the 2025 season, the Seattle Storm WNBA team has announced a multi-year deal with Sinclair's KOMO and KUNS station...
31/03/2025
Digital Nirvana, a provider of leading-edge AI-powered media solutions, today announced a global Alliance Partnership with Avid to bring advanced AI metadata c...
31/03/2025
BeckTV, a premier systems integrator for the broadcast media industry, today announced that Kate Gazdic has joined the company as a senior procurement specialis...
31/03/2025
MainConcept, a leading provider of video and audio codecs, has announced a series of key codec advancements that enable customers to realize significant time an...