touring system

[terrein]

I have been idly toying with the idea of creating a dedicated show cue system for touring.
Now my ideal scenario is a rack on wheels with 2x rack mounted pc's networked together, each with their own rackmounted soundcard (8+ outputs), both running the show in parallel, so switching between them would just be a matter of unmuting channels on the mixer.
other accessories in the rack would be a UPS, and maybe a multipin connector on the back of the rack to accommodate various snake lengths
I like the idea of using rack servers, with their dual power supplies, RAID disk arrays, hot swappable drives, etc. but have no idea how scs would run on a server OS? and would it be worth it (or feasible) to put win xp on a server. In any case I would imagine that I would have to add a PCI firewire card to any computer (would prefer firewire to usb). I have been using the presonus firebox successfully, so might tend towards something like the presonus firestudio as an interface.
Still all hypothetical at this stage but wonder what anyone's thoughts on a system like this would be.

As a side note, has anyone experimented with and/or had success with running remote desktop to program a show. Ie. sitting in the auditorium with a laptop networked to the show computer back at op?

[Boswell]

I use remote desktop with my lappy, it seems to work OK just with a small delay, I tend to use it for the Tech/1st dress rehearsal so I can sit in the auditorium (alongside the director) and get their comments and make edits as they are required. such as, more music for that scene change, fade it here, etc.

[Dngnkeeper]

Ive also had good luck with Ultra VNC for those without the Pro/Business versions of Windows.

Its great to be down in the house with the rest of the folks and not stuck in the booth.

[enigmatheatre]

HI
I have a system just like you are talking about. I have 2 Server rack mounted cases with 2 custom made pcs inside running xp pro. I use one external usb soundcard with an usb switch to change it from one pc to the other.

For the FOH control I have a vga splitter that takes the main pc display and converts it to cat5 cable. I also send the pcs network to FOH. All I have to do is run 2 bits of cat5 to and I have full local and remote control of the pc. I use Synergy on my laptop to control the mouse and keyboard. This is much better than remote desktop or vnc.

i have 2 amps in the rack which run the onstage fx straight out of the pcs.

I also have a snake that I run out to a projector which has cat5 for vga mains cable and an xlr for the serial connection to the pc.
I am not at work at the moment but i will try to get some pictures to help you out.

All my conections are made through xlr on the back of the rack. ie the cat5 is ethercon.

Greig.

[derick]

I also use an rack mounted pc with a slide out touchscreen and vga to Ethernet splitter.
The pc has 2 1Tb hard-disks in raid1
sound and midi comes from an Steinberg VSL 2020 PCI card (16 ADAT IN and OUT, 1 analog in-out, 1 SPDIF in-out)

The VSL is connected with two ADA8000 (or to the mixer adat in) via toslink (16 analog mic in and 16 balanced line out)

Commanded at distance (if necessary ) with remote desktop in wireless ad-hoc mode
(i command the light table and the mixer with midi)