I agree with @DJ_Boothe on the spacebar, because they keyboard should not affect current playback on the device.
In the list I suggested above the keyboard is used in a way that it is a big step forward to quickly navigate through the SC5000, but doesn’t affect play controls.
indeed but if you “thought” you were in a search but weren’t
It’s a bit like having too many big red stop buttons in an evevator… one on every wall… sooner or later, someones gonna lean on one accidentally.
It’s like on the supported implementation of the external USB keyboard for the DN-S1200, HD-2500, HS5500 etc - No playback controls were unmasked, only around 10 of the function keys, for changing between String/Normal Search, Changing Time between Elapsed/Remain, Back, Add To Hot List, Arrow keys, Enter and then A-Z and 0 to 9 - oh and Tab.
By all means add 4 USB keyboards when you buy your 4 x SC5000 Primes… But I’d consider prising off the spacebars 
Still, it shouldn’t 
This mistakes are very to easy to make… Seen it many times before.
Hope this list makes sense though…
I am unsure of the need for a keyboard or even a debate on it.
The SC5000 has a very capable touchscreen keyboard already available on each player. What would lugging about 2 extra usb keyboards achieve? (Maybe i’m missing something here)
And then if you want to use the keyboard for shortcuts to the players functions why the heck buy the players in the first place?
I’m sorry i am at a total loss to understand why this is a request from people to support an option that serves zero functions over what is already superbly available on the players themselves
Oh and i am sorry but the phrase “not everyone likes a touch screen keyboard” is not a valid reply as well if that was the case you wouldn’t have a smart phone or do you carry around a USB keyboard for all the function of sending messages.
Sorry I am not popping at anyone but I just don’t get the whole USB keyboard debate going on
The “good” ole Numark D2 Director had USB keyboards support, but it would only react to library related issues. There were NO control functions available as shortcuts. So even slamming the keyboard with your flat hand would show some weird things on screen perhaps, but you could simply not interrupt or otherwise manipulate a running track.
Well for starters when the keyboard is called up on screen, a lot of things that were previously visible will be hidden.
Say you’ve got a track playing, then you decide to search for something and call up the on screen keyboard. Can you still see the remaining time of the playing track? I don’t know, as I’ve not seen anyone do that, but it could be an issue.
Then there’s the space limitations on a screen. A real keyboard has all the keys available at all times. An on screen keyboard doesn’t. You have to faff around with separate keys for caps and for numbers.
As for your smart phone argument - well I for one didn’t actually want a touch screen phone. I much prefer one with keys - but, unfortunately the market is saturated with touch screen phones. it’s almost impossible to buy a “normal” phone these days.
Perhaps no NEED, but it could be handy though… And if you don’t want it, just don’t plug it in 
Just some achievements an USB keyboard could add on top of the onscreen board.
And for the need of 2 (or 3 or 4) extra keyboards I suggested a shortcut to tell your setup which player should listen to the keyboard, so you might only ‘need’ to use one if they can pull that off… Or off course still you can use zero if you like…
Did you do this using your own SC5000 Brichi? Or, in a store perhaps? Either way, just to advise, the use of an external keyboard, plugged into an SC5000 is neither supported, nor recommended at this point
Until now, I didn’t understand why Denon didn’t officially stated support for the keyboard with SC5000. But seeing these last few replies in this thread - people just cannot be pleased. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. 
Hi Paul, I did this on my own SC5000
Why are there working shortcuts if a keyboard isn’t supported ? Someone had to program this shortcuts in the firmware.
It would be more a case that someone would had to have programmed blocks or masks in order to stop the USB chipset from recognising a USB keyboard.
I’m curious, after all the initial flurry of “I’d like to use an external USB keyboard” is anybody now using one with their Primes ?
I’m a little confused here @Gee_DenonDJ… This topic here is about Engine Prime, which supports keyboard shortcuts (as seen in the tooltips since the release and later on in the full list of shortcuts)
The discussion on “I’d like to use an external USB keyboard” was on the SC5000 (Can you use a USB Keyboard? - Media Players - Engine DJ Community).
Over there was the following statement by Paul:
I also suggested a keyboard shortcut list in that topic, but never got a reply from Denon on it…
So to answer your question: NO, I don’t plug in a USB Keyboard in the SC5000 yet because it’s not supported/recommended, YES I hope I can in the future (and yes, I still hope to get an answer or feedback from Denon on my suggestion) and YES I use keyboard shortcuts in Engine Prime, since they are in and supported.
Indeed, my apology… I was looking searching through a lot of threads yesterday and must’ve clicked the Nth+1 search result, instead on the Nth, and typed in the question to the wrong topic. Now corrected - thanks for highlighting that.
one year after, and no shortcut for seach on external keybord…
Just imagine…if Denon built the Engine OS with linux ideology and most everything had shortcuts…you could then plug in a programmable keyboard (or half keyboard) like the ZSA moonlander, and you could program the keyboard by assigning the shorcuts wherever you would like…
As well, you could use the extra keys as slicer or as sampler buttons…oh my, so much could be done! Programmable keyboards, especially the good ones and open source ones also allow layers, with different keys and colours, so this would greatly help if slicer, extra hot cues, sampler buttons were used…
I think I will try to plug in my moonlander into the go and play around with it.
As to the worry of unintended consequences…we’re not children. We are adults and would test these things out on our own to ascertain this works as intended…I hardly see what is the big worry…like others said…if you are so afraid, don’t plug it in…for the rest of us - plug it in and go nuts!
One last thing. As I mentioned programmable keyboards that support layers…the layers can be programmed to only allow certain keys to work on each layer. Thus, you could configure a ‘library search mode layer’, ‘sampler layer’, etc. Switching between layers is easy and would eliminate issues you could trigger a certain functionality (like pausing playback) while searching (although I hardly think it makes sense Denon would allow a spacebar to trigger a playback pause from search…that makes no sense…)
Great discussion; cheers