Support for new touch screen displays?

[Pimp Shanti]

Hey all, hey Bob

I bought myself a second hand Motion Computing LE1700 Tablet to use as a remote and I'm now completely sold on the idea of mixing with a stylus pen. Hugely intuitive, very accurate, has left/right click buttons right on the pen and avoids what I imagine to be a pitfall of capacitive multitouch like on the 3M screens: accidentally nudging faders with your palm or a stray finger.

The LE1700's stylus technology is by Wacom - probably the biggest (and oldest?) name in touchscreen technology. I took a look on Wacom's website to see if they have bigger display-only versions available for using on the SAC host. I found the Cintiq 24HD

In my mind, this + SAC is a match made in heaven. Everything from the customisable buttons on the left/right of the display (F-keys? Pot control?) to the clever multi-angle stand, it all seems perfect for SAC.

I then saw the Cintiq 24HD Touch which combines stylus and multitouch. It seems the multitouch side serves different functions to the pen so I'm wondering if you could use gestures for navigation around the SAC interface and the stylus for actual changes to the mixers. For example, using a 2-fingered swipe left and right to scroll back and forward through your monitor mixers. Or perhaps using a single finger on a Z-mixer to scroll left, right, up and down and only use the pen for adjusting the settings. The potential seems pretty exciting.

Bob - I know you've said in the past that you don't want to be coding to support every new touchscreen product that comes along; do you think they could work pretty well with your interface without you having to support it with code? Would you consider writing code for them if they needed it?

I don't think many (any?) touchscreen live mixers are using stylus pen input, but to me it seems perfect. Maybe this special combination of stylus and multitouch could prove to be yet another thing which sets SAC apart from the competition. What are your thoughts?

[Bob L]

Looks great... but people complained about the cost of the 3M screen... this one is more... I will be looking into more of this stuff as it becomes available.

As SAC reaches more and more of a higher level client base in the professional market, the cost of a screen like this will be no issue.

Bob L

[RobertV]

At my day job, we have a large number of cintiqs and although they are very nice to use, they tend to break down just after the warranty expires, the cost of sending the broken machines back to the supplier including insurance is considerable as they are big and heavy.

If you can pick one up on ebay and can check it out before handing over the dosh, good luck, otherwise knowing someone who knows how to fix them is a must, believe me they are an expensive hobby!

RobertV
shinustudios.com

[RandyHyde]

I don't think many (any?) touchscreen live mixers are using stylus pen input, but to me it seems perfect. Maybe this special combination of stylus and multitouch could prove to be yet another thing which sets SAC apart from the competition. What are your thoughts?

Microsoft Surface Pro.
Just wish the screen weren't so reflective.
Other than that, it looks like a relatively decent tablet for doing SAC stuff with. High resolution screen, so all the controls are tiny, but having a stylus solves that problem.

At $1,000 it's not cheap but it seems like it will do a great job. I'm waiting as long as I can before buying one myself (to see if there are any issues with a new product/product category) but I'll probably have one before the summer concert series starts. I really need to dump the HP TouchSmart I'm using right now (it's too heavy to use as a tablet for any length of time).
Cheers,
Randy Hyde

[Richard Rupert]

Microsoft Surface Pro.
<SNIP> I'm waiting as long as I can before buying one myself (to see if there are any issues with a new product/product category)...

And like every thing else "computer", the price will probably drop...

[tomcat]

love my surface pro! It has done an exceptional job at running SAC Remote. I've been wanting to post a comment on here about it and I just haven't gotten around to it.