Thanks, I had seen that software, probably just what I want but really pushes the budget! I think I am sold on the free solution. Important bit for me is to get the hardware in and working. Software added features could come later!
Looks interesting but I think its just about cheaper for me to do Xserves. The 4 channel ingest is SD only and the dual is $10k, xserve with card is going to come out around $4k each and I have the advantage of having an out of hours 5 server render farm!
I have also managed to work out that VTR Xchange is applescriptable so I am just trying to work out how to run the scripts remotely. I think I can get some terminal scripts to do it.
Thanks for the prompt reply. I had somehow missed that bit of software. The machines are unlikely to have screens and will be capturing from cameras not VTRs so it looks like either remote desktop unless I can work out a way of getting applescript to control them all.