I can't believe this hasn't been put on, how can i use it as a nice running back up for a theatre show like ETC rack mount without a play, pause and back button. Please!
You plug in a touchscreen monitor and setup your view for however you want. It doesn't need physical buttons. If you want physical buttons, you attach a wing. Otherwise, just use the buttons on the screen.
The other way you could connect to it is with OSC and be in a different room to access it…again, setting it up however you want. Generally, the RackHog would be in some remote room (at least for most of the applications I would use it for).
I'm not sure I understand why you would want a single play, pause and back button. Can you elaborate???
Most theatre shows on a big level must now have a tracking back up for insurance purposes. Instead of having another full console next to you, i have run (on several shows) the ETC Remote Processor (www.etcconnect.com/product.overview.aspx?ID=22127) have it in a rack next to the desk (have seen it on several shows where they then have the media servers in the same rack) then ifthe console falls over you can just push the go button on the server while the main console re boots. Or from an install point of view it again can be used to trigger cue lists without having to have anything else attached.
But on my end, I still feel the same that a single touchscreen on a view can do the same thing, or have a button remote via OSC to do the same thing. I guess I'm just part of the school that I would make whatever I need for that particular show.
I agree with Ben, Its a very common practice to have on theater shows, purely down to cost and space at FOH. Having a wing is an option, however, as the nano dosn't fit into a rackmount (or into a rack draw) this is another full flightcase to tour and a bigger footprint in a normally very limited FOH space.
Possably being able to connect X Keys (xkeys.com/xkeys/xk16.php) to the rackhog (much like the Eos series of consoles do for the RPU) would provide a good solution, both for running the backup and for triggering events in an installation.
