SABC uses Lawo routers.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ with Nova73 HD and Nova17.

In a groundbreaking investment, the national South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) main control rooms in 10 SABC centres throughout the country will undergo major digitisation changes ahead of the Soccer World Cup in South Africa. Within this project, SABC will install two Nova73 HD routers and ten Nova17 matrices.

In structuring the deal, the SABC took into consideration the experience Lawo had gained in providing audio routing capabilities to the Soccer World Cup in Germany in 2006. SABC also decided to award the design of the national radio and television digital routing system to Lawo’s South African partners, Broadcast & Installation Engineering (B & I) and Harambe Technologies. B & I is responsible for the overall project and training management as well as the installation.

The main control centre is located at Auckland Park in Johannesburg and there are a further ten control centres throughout the country. Each of the two mirrored Lawo Nova73 HD routers in Johannesburg will have routing capacity of up to 8192 x 8192 switch points. The two routers run on Dual Star Self Healing topology which will repair itself and re-route any faulty feed via another back-up route. SABC regional main controls will boast a 384 x 384 input and output Nova17 router each linked to the main routing system in Johannesburg via a computerised scheduling and controlling Network Managing System. This system will use the current ATM transmission line backbone between regions and the main control in Johannesburg, which was installed recently by Harambe Technologies.

With this system in place, the SABC will be digitally ready to support all international feeds required for the successful broadcast of the Soccer World Cup.

Installations have already started. The first two Lawo routers for Johannesburg were delivered in October with the routers for the regions arriving within the following months. Lawo will send technical staff for training to the SABC.

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