You have all made some very good points, but there are two that I'd like to specifically highlight:
1) As Mike mentioned, if you have a *full* tracking backup solution, your backup desk will be doing the exact same thing as the primary and can be affected by the same software instabilities. If you have an application problem that causes a crash on the primary desk it may have the exact same problem. Improving stability will not only help the console, but it will help the backup solution.
2) Keep in mind that every piece of hardware that you add is an additional potential failure point. If you are converting from DMX to ArtNet and merging DMX universes, every converter, merger, DMX cable, and Ethernet cable is a link that can fail and cause a problem with your system. The more complicated your system is (even if it's made complicated to try to offer redundancy), the more places you can have problems.
You have all made some very good points, but there are two that I'd like to specifically highlight:
1) As Mike mentioned, if you have a *full* tracking backup solution, your backup desk will be doing the exact same thing as the primary and can be affected by the same software instabilities. If you have an application problem that causes a crash on the primary desk it may have the exact same problem. Improving stability will not only help the console, but it will help the backup solution.
2) Keep in mind that every piece of hardware that you add is an additional potential failure point. If you are converting from DMX to ArtNet and merging DMX universes, every converter, merger, DMX cable, and Ethernet cable is a link that can fail and cause a problem with your system. The more complicated your system is (even if it's made complicated to try to offer redundancy), the more places you can have problems.
