Eee! This thread is full of mass confusion!
To answer your questions:
24/48 has 96 channels, but it shares faders with subs so you basically have 24 faders for 96 channels, which is a bitch. I know because we just purchased this board at my school. I highly suggest going for the 48/96, with 192 channels, it will make people's lives a lot easier.
I would suggest
Stage Technology as a place to
purchase. Make sure to ask about an educational institution discount and such.
I would highly recommend downloading the
ETC Express(
ion)
OLE to see if the syntax works for you.
If you want the Compaq PDA WRFU you will want to upgrade to Emphasis, which isn't so cheap, about $4-6k on top of the
console, plus monitors and such.
If you would like some examples of showfiles to run in the
OLE let me know and I'll see if I can dig some up. It always helps to be able to look at an existing creation to learn how it was created.
I also suggest to invest in the
desk lamps. I want the m so bad dealing with big outboard clip lights and such is a pain in the rear, not to mention the
outlet space you'd save.