First official third-party Lightning accessories announced by Belkin - Page 2

 

The problem with USB is that it has been, and always will be, a computer-centric technology.  Given that it's a standard which Intel is behind, it's not hard to understand why they are pushing it.

 

The logic to control a USB bus is so complex that it's near impossible to do it in hardware alone (or would require some very expensive silicon).  Hence why you always need to be connected to a computer or computer-like device.  This prohibits the ability to, say, connect a camcorder directly to a TV and stream audio/video to it.

 

Obviously there's HDMI which can do that, but then you need two connectors: one to get the data off of the device (USB3) and one to stream audio/video to your TV (HDMI).  It would be nice to converge both of those into one connector if possible.

 

Think 4k video streams and you'll understand why TB has the bandwidth it does.

I'm sure, but iDevices don't benefit from that yet. Maybe in time, but this year is definitely not that time. A TB cable for an iPhone would be no faster than a USB cable for same iPhone because the bottleneck is inside the device, likely the flash chip. So why double or triple the cost of the cord and add needless complexity to the device? You can say that SSDs are faster, but they achieve that speed by banking 8 or 16 chips in parallel, whereas iPhones use one flash chip, iPads use two chips.

Too funny!

http://imranontech.com/2007/02/20/did-bill-gates-say-the-640k-line/

 

What about streaming a 4k video from your TB RAID to a hi-res iPad screen?  Goes directly from the RAID, across TB, into the video memory on the iPad (never hits the Flash storage).

If the dock is made of aluminum, it'll take all of ten seconds to remove the logo with some nail polish remover.

 

Not a fair comparison. What we're talking about here is the degree of overkill that is cost-effective.

 

My car will do 160 mph. The fastest I can drive is 100. A more expensive care will do 220 mph but I can still only drive 100. The additional cost yields no benefit in actual use.

 

As for the cost coming down, I haven't yet seen any evidence whatsoever that would lead me to believe there is likely to be any substantial improvement. In fact, the glacially slow and unenthusiastic rate of adoption leads me to believe it's never going to realize the economies of scale that will allow significant cost reductions. I was very enthusiastic about TB when it was announced, but I have a sinking feeling it's dead on arrival. Not because the idea is bad -- it's not, it's a freakin' GREAT idea -- but because peripheral makers just don't seem to be very excited about it. Too bad.

 

At 400Mb/s for 4K video, how many streams do you have to be running simultaneously to come CLOSE to saturating a USB3 bus?

 

Personally I *LOVE* the idea that one can put a PCI bus on a cable, but who's actually gonna do it in real life? The cost of peripherals is so high as to be prohibitive for all but the most esoteric applications. $1000 for a box that houses one PCI card is crazy. That's half the price of a complete workstation. Then there's 25-33% more per I/O device, $200 more per drive array, $30 more per cable... Does anyone besides Apple even MAKE a TB display? How much more will THAT cost?

 

 

TB certainly has advantages over USB3, but the speed of USB3 is enough to render most of those advantages essentially inconsequential to even most of the PRODUCTION community, never mind typical users. Sure TB is *better*, but it's better than something that is "already more than necessary and significantly less expensive."

 

Is it aluminum or plastic painted silver? If the latter, the nail polish remover will take the paint, too.

It would seem there are better ways to watch that footage. iPad is only 2k anyway.

 

Of course, and it will always be that resolution, always be an iPad, require no more than 640k, and simply be a faster horse.

 

And yeah, one could spend forever converting content which will likely be distributed in a standardized 4k format down to 2k if they really wanted to.  But it's more likely that they'll just stream at 4k and downsample at the point where it's rendered.

The hyperbole was unnecessary. Your suggestion as a possible reason to have Thunderbolt on an iOS device *now* doesn't hold water, grasping at straws, etc. If TB on iOS is to be, it will happen when it's ready, rather than be there right now just because it has to be there. It's a solution to a problem that might not exist for several years yet.

 

Jokes about USB and "theoretical" maximums aside, 400Mb/s is for a JPEG2000 stream, which doesn't include audio and is lossy at that bitrate.  For raw, uncompressed 4k video, you need 3.8Gbps.  So video editors will definitely want to opt for TB.  Videophiles will likely opt for a higher bitrate to gain some quality as well.

 

 

 

Again, I reiterate the point that USB is computer-centric because the bus mastering device needs some very advanced logic in it.  I defy you to find a way to do direct device-to-device data transfers (without a computer) using USB 3.0 -- it's simply not possible.

 

If I were a video editor (which I'm not), I would dream of just getting the camera, plugging it directly into my video editing hardware and starting editing right away without needing to copy the content somewhere else first or dealing with removable media.  But hey, people will jump through hoops day in and day out just to save a buck on a one-time cost.  It's why I laugh when I see a software company trying to getting the cheapest computers they can for developers, but end up paying for the cost of faster computers 100 times over in the extra time it takes to do development work over their lifespan.

 

If you go back to the original poster's point, you'll find that they were talking about the possibility of a Lightning port on 3rd party (non-Apple) devices.  My response was that TB is more likely due to the fact that it's an industry standard (not just an Apple technology).

 

I seriously doubt Apple will ditch their new, shiny Lightning port in favour of TB.  It's way more likely that they'd create a Lightning to TB adapter of some sort when the time comes.  So no, I'm not arguing that iOS devices will get TB, I'm arguing why TB would be a good choice for 3rd party manufacturers of high-bandwidth devices.

You lost me. In the first paragraph you say that TB is more likely but then in the next you say that it isn't.

Personally, I see Lightning being the connector going forward and everything we know about Lighting points to it being able to work with TB if and when a time should come that the device can handle and use that type of bandwidth.

 

In the first paragraph I'm talking about non-Apple devices, and in the second I'm talking about Apple devices.  TB is more likely in high-bandwidth, non-Apple devices because it works with both Macs and PCs (due to being an industry standard).

 

And yes, I agree with the second point: although Apple hasn't published any technical specs on the Lightning connector yet, I'm fairly certain that it can handle a large amount of bandwidth and be easily adapted to work with TB.

 

Preaching to the choir, brother! I know what you mean and agree. My comments are based on an assumption that USB3 can achieve about two-thirds of what the spec claims.

 

 

 

 

 

Not possible, but also not necessary. Once acquisition is complete the job of the camera is finished. The files need to move on to the computer anyway, so it's a non-issue. In what other application would you need super-high-bandwidth device-to-device transfers? Besides, we're not seeing that particular theoretical advantage of Thunderbolt being played out in the real world anyway so, at least so far, it's a moot point.

 

 

 

I agree and understand the dangers of false economy, but that's not what *I'm* talking about. My point is that production work as it exists today and, as far as I can tell, at least for the next few years, does not impose bandwidth demands that will make USB3 a bottleneck. When the next fastest part of the system can only run at one-quarter of the bus speed (BEST case), that's lots of headroom. Increasing the bus speed will not improve the workflow in any way whatsoever. It's not an example of cutting performance to reduce cost, it's a case of not paying more to achieve zero benefit.

Edited by v5v - 11/6/12 at 11:08am

I saw one reply saying Apple would never do anything so ostentatious. But notice this from an apple patent Recently approved and reported today:

"The invention describes a number of backlit visual display embodiments, all of which are based on a light source, a light guide, and some implementation of microperforations in the body of a device. Aimed directly at making a device more aesthetically pleasing, the technology can be used for status indicators, functional input elements like a keyboard or mouse, OR SOLELY FOR DESIGN SUCH AS A LOGO ." (Emphasis mine)

So, a future apple product with an illuminated logo?! (Remember, those words are apple's words, in the patent application).

Indeed.

OK.

I really like the idea of Thunderbolt, there are some things it's not the best technology for the job, at least yet. After nearly two years, I was hoping to see a much better variety of offerings.

What's sad is a large portion of the few options offered can't be in the middle of a chain because it lacks the second jack to allow chaining.

 

That should really be disallowed. Whoever's in charge should say, "Either put a second port on it or we won't accept it under the spec and you'll be taken to task for misuse of our technology."

Even worse, Buffalo's marketing copy mentions that Thunderbolt can be chained to six devices. However, only in the fine print do they mention that you can't chain off Buffalo's device for the lack of the second port!

 

That's the thing with USB: it always feels like those scam marketing campaigns which advertise one thing, but list another in the fine print.  Just list the real world speeds and limitations and let people make informed choices about what's right for them.

 

Really, it's a poorly designed bus with high amount of overhead and requires a complex controller to make it work.  However, because it came standard on every computer motherboard, and was "good enough" for most consumer applications, it became ubiquitous.  I wouldn't recommend it for pro environments though.  Most audio pros I know prefer Firewire (and are waiting for TB to mature).

 

 

 

NHK (Japan) has already been testing it for certain broadcasts for a while now.  I believe some parts of the UK Summer Olympics were also broadcast in 4K.  So yeah, I believe it will make it's way into broadcast in one form or another (i.e. not sure about the compression/format).

 

 

True, but you could use a dedicated video editing desk rather than introducing a computer into the chain (which is more prone to failure).  Obviously the video needs to go to a storage medium of some sort, but having a removable storage medium on a portable camera introduces another point of failure (re: data loss due to shaking, dropping, weather, misplacing, etc).  If you can go direct from the internal storage on the camera to the internal storage on the editing desk, that's a gain in prevention of possible data loss.  Obviously one can do that with USB3 too, but with an optical TB connection, it'd be much faster to do so for large amounts of video (re: the false economy point).

 

Also, think about streaming direct from a camera to a dedicated broadcasting device (rather than having to go through a computer first) for live broadcasts.  Optical TB would be able to do that with no compression and plenty of headroom to spare, plus allow for much longer cable lengths.  There are plenty of cases where removing a computer from the chain would make things simpler and less error-prone.

 

Obviously the TB devices for all of these scenarios aren't there yet (at least, AFAIK), and I'm not even certain that TB itself is like Firewire in the sense that device manufacturers can get ahold of custom chips which can control the TB bus (re: controlling the bus in hardware vs in software drivers which require a full-fledged computer).  With Intel behind it, it wouldn't surprise me if the complexity was the same as USB.

Edited by auxio - 11/7/12 at 8:01am

 

That's MOSTLY because USB can only support a few channels of I/O, leaving only Firewire or PCI for multi-channel work (like surround).

 

Surprisingly I've actually had fewer headaches with USB audio interfaces than I have with Firewire. Digidesign in particular has the most unbelievably annoying Firewire hardware connection I have encountered anywhere ever.

 

Also annoying is audio hardware manufacturers using Firewire 400 interfaces, thus cutting in half the speed of any Firewire 800 devices in the chain, but that's a side issue.

 

TB audio interfaces would be nice, but my money is on there being very, very, very few offerings. Vanishingly few.

Wouldn't that not happen if you put the slower devices at the end of the chain? FW800 is largely (but not exactly) dual channel FW400. As long as you don't put FW400 bottleneck *in between* two FW800 devices, I'd think you're good.

[Updated] It doesn't seem to work the way you describe in my circumstances. I just did a simple file transfer test and it took longer with the 400 device attached than it did with it disconnected, even with the 400 device at the end of the chain.

Edited by v5v - 11/9/12 at 1:04am

Huh, I didn't know that.