Sydney & Auckland, March 2025 — Professional Audio & Television (PAT) and LAWO hosted their Technology Open Days for 2025 in Sydney and Auckland over the past fortnight. These highly anticipated events, dubbed “The Second Wave”, gave delegates an opportunity to get their hands on LAWO’s ever-expanding HOME Apps eco system, mc2 technology and radio products, as well as the chance to speak one-on-one with LAWO product experts, including the Senior Product Manager for Media Infrastructure – John Carter, who had made his way for these events all the way from the LAWO office in the UK.
Throughout the event, informative sessions about the latest LAWO technology were held, as well as hands on demonstrations of the capabilities of HOME Apps, .edge, LAWO’s mc236, mc256, and crystal consoles, VSM – LAWO’s broadcast control system, and radio products such as LAWO’s virtual radio console – crystal clear.
Leading the charge were in depth presentations about LAWO’s COTS-based HOME Apps eco system, which has expanded to a total of 10 Apps over the last 18 months, with further announcements anticipated at NAB 2025 in Las Vegas in April. To date, LAWO offers HOME Apps for a Multi-viewer, UDX Converter with HDR processing, Downstream Keyer (DSK), Colour Correction, Stream Transcoder, Graphic Inserter, mc2 DSP, Time Code Generator, Delay and TPG (Test Pattern & Test Tone Generator). Of course, LAWO’s edge devices such as .edge, the Power Core and associated I/O devices were also covered for the conversion baseband to IP and vice versa. LAWO’s Virtual Studio Manager VSM and its close integration into the HOME Platform as broadcast controller and user interface, was highlighted and demonstrated. Next on the agenda was the new LAWO DSP App, which offers the containerisation of an entire LAWO UHD core into a COTS-based server environment and showed the DSP can be hosted away for the various control surface such as the mc2 consoles or a side car such as a Crystal console when run in controller mode. But it didn’t end there, while talking about the new world of possibilities of audio, radio and the new virtual radio console from LAWO – the crystal clear – was demonstrated by Mike Heard from PAT, with a Power Core in Sydney and the console in Auckland.
“LAWO continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in broadcast technology,” said John Carter, Senior Product Manager for Media Infrastructure at LAWO. “Our collaboration with PAT to showcase these exciting products at these two events was a fantastic opportunity to connect with the Australian and New Zealand customers directly and have conversations to help understand their evolving wants and needs. We’re proud to help shape the future of the industry by enabling broadcasters to achieve even greater creativity and operational efficiency.”
In addition to in-depth demonstrations with hands-on-kit, there were international as well as local case studies, such as the Entain Christchurch Hub upgrade presented by Michael Tompkins (National Manager of Broadcast Engineering at Entain Australia & New Zealand). The day concluded with an open panel discussion which included all delegates, product experts, product managers, and of course our very own MC, Mike Heard.
Mike Heard, Senior Solutions Architect at PAT stated, “The feedback we received from attendees was incredibly positive. Our goal with these events was to not only demonstrate the advanced capabilities of LAWO’s technology, but to also showcase the new simplicity and speed to deploy a LAWO centric system. With the incredible local and international case studies available, broadcasters in our region can feel confident in adopting and integrating these solutions as we all move toward the second wave of broadcast technology.”
Delegates also had the chance to network with industry peers and LAWO’s technical experts, gaining valuable insights into the future direction of broadcast technology. As the industry continues to embrace new standards in IP, cloud, and automation, LAWO’s products are positioned at the forefront of this transformation.
The success of “The Second Wave” events mark another milestone in the ongoing partnership between PAT and LAWO. Both companies are committed to providing the highest level of service and support for the Australian and New Zealand broadcast communities, ensuring that local broadcasters have access to the most advanced and reliable tools in the industry.
Couldn’t make it? Get a glimpse of the action here on broadcast’s favourite tech news channel – the PAT Wrap.