It's Firewire2, it's twice as fast as the orignal firewire found on almost every new computer PC and mac. It comes standerd on all powermacs, and the 17" powerbook.
I'm frustrated by the PC world's inclusion of Firewire...
They just use the 4-pin connector, instead of the 6-pin connector used on ALL macs since day 1. Then there's companies like Dell who release new Centrino notebooks and don't include it at all
I don't care what they say, Apple is truly ahead of the game.
I am holding off on buying a digital video camera hoping that they will make a firewire 800 version soon.
Don't expect DV gear to shift to FW800 too soon. Not only are there hardly any computers that could actually use FW800 (hell, even 400Mbps-firewire is only slowly starting to become standard on most chipsets), but more importantly it would be pretty useless too: All current DV gear only transmits in S100 mode (i.e. 100Mbps). So unless you're talking about faster-than-realtime transfers of video data or better-than-DV resolutions, going from 400Mbps to 800Mbps would result in zero net benefit.
So then what is the problem that people have in transfering high rez video. I hear they can drop frames if the system is not fast enough. Is it the hard drive speed?
So then what is the problem that people have in transfering high rez video. I hear they can drop frames if the system is not fast enough. Is it the hard drive speed?
You might run into problems if you want to transfer video from a DV cam straight onto a FireWire hard disk on the same bus - with the current state of technology, the data would go from the cam via FW to the PC and then (via the same FW bus) to the drive, i.e. it would cross the bus twice, using twice (or more - collisions etc.) the net DV bandwidth. Given that a DV stream actually only uses around 3MB/s, I don't really think this could be a problem, but then again I don't have any FireWire HD to do a test myself.
Another point is that DV needs a constant bandwidth of ~3.5MB/s to the disk. If all the disk does is capture video data, you basically have long sequential writes, and any current drive will handle 3MB/s easily. If, on the other hand, you capture to a disk thats at the same time used by other processes or the OS (e.g. paging), you basically have a random access pattern, in which case transfer rates are much lower and frame drops might occur. That's why many people like to use a dedicated hard drive for capturing. Personally, I haven't experienced any such problems, even when capturing to my PB's internal 4200rpm drive. It might be more problematic on machines with too little RAM (which page more often and do less caching), but again I haven't personally tried it in such a situation.
In either case boosting the cam's interface to FW800 would have little positive impact, and given the rather tiny installed base of FW800 ports nowadays would most certainly not be worth it to cam manufacturers.
I'm frustrated by the PC world's inclusion of Firewire...
They just use the 4-pin connector, instead of the 6-pin connector used on ALL macs since day 1. Then there's companies like Dell who release new Centrino notebooks and don't include it at all
I don't care what they say, Apple is truly ahead of the game.
Guess what...The 4-pin connector was a late addition to the 1394 spec demanded by one company in the consortium...*cough* Sony.
Good news today is Dell is putting FireWire 400 standard on its revived top-of-the-line Dimension XPS series. Lagging behind a little though.
You might run into problems if you want to transfer video from a DV cam straight onto a FireWire hard disk on the same bus - with the current state of technology, the data would go from the cam via FW to the PC and then (via the same FW bus) to the drive, i.e. it would cross the bus twice, using twice (or more - collisions etc.) the net DV bandwidth. Given that a DV stream actually only uses around 3MB/s, I don't really think this could be a problem, but then again I don't have any FireWire HD to do a test myself.
It's generally not a problem on faster machines, but yes, isochronous data transfers in SBP-3 will be pretty cool. Plug in HDD to computer...plug in camera to second HDD port...video stream goes directly into HDD without actually going to the computer first...
The various other definitions in 1394.1 seem pretty cool too...
I'm frustrated by the PC world's inclusion of Firewire...
They just use the 4-pin connector, instead of the 6-pin connector used on ALL macs since day 1. Then there's companies like Dell who release new Centrino notebooks and don't include it at all
I don't care what they say, Apple is truly ahead of the game.
Comments
Originally posted by LiquidR
Too late, my ibook should be here Tuesday. Actually quite excited, my first mac and all.8)
Congradulations and welcome to the family!!!
And yes the bridge crap is getting old.
They just use the 4-pin connector, instead of the 6-pin connector used on ALL macs since day 1. Then there's companies like Dell who release new Centrino notebooks and don't include it at all
I don't care what they say, Apple is truly ahead of the game.
Originally posted by JC
I am holding off on buying a digital video camera hoping that they will make a firewire 800 version soon.
Don't expect DV gear to shift to FW800 too soon. Not only are there hardly any computers that could actually use FW800 (hell, even 400Mbps-firewire is only slowly starting to become standard on most chipsets), but more importantly it would be pretty useless too: All current DV gear only transmits in S100 mode (i.e. 100Mbps). So unless you're talking about faster-than-realtime transfers of video data or better-than-DV resolutions, going from 400Mbps to 800Mbps would result in zero net benefit.
Bye,
RazzFazz
Originally posted by JC
So then what is the problem that people have in transfering high rez video. I hear they can drop frames if the system is not fast enough. Is it the hard drive speed?
You might run into problems if you want to transfer video from a DV cam straight onto a FireWire hard disk on the same bus - with the current state of technology, the data would go from the cam via FW to the PC and then (via the same FW bus) to the drive, i.e. it would cross the bus twice, using twice (or more - collisions etc.) the net DV bandwidth. Given that a DV stream actually only uses around 3MB/s, I don't really think this could be a problem, but then again I don't have any FireWire HD to do a test myself.
Another point is that DV needs a constant bandwidth of ~3.5MB/s to the disk. If all the disk does is capture video data, you basically have long sequential writes, and any current drive will handle 3MB/s easily. If, on the other hand, you capture to a disk thats at the same time used by other processes or the OS (e.g. paging), you basically have a random access pattern, in which case transfer rates are much lower and frame drops might occur. That's why many people like to use a dedicated hard drive for capturing. Personally, I haven't experienced any such problems, even when capturing to my PB's internal 4200rpm drive. It might be more problematic on machines with too little RAM (which page more often and do less caching), but again I haven't personally tried it in such a situation.
In either case boosting the cam's interface to FW800 would have little positive impact, and given the rather tiny installed base of FW800 ports nowadays would most certainly not be worth it to cam manufacturers.
Bye,
RazzFazz
Originally posted by DHagan4755
I'm frustrated by the PC world's inclusion of Firewire...
They just use the 4-pin connector, instead of the 6-pin connector used on ALL macs since day 1. Then there's companies like Dell who release new Centrino notebooks and don't include it at all
I don't care what they say, Apple is truly ahead of the game.
Guess what...The 4-pin connector was a late addition to the 1394 spec demanded by one company in the consortium...*cough* Sony.
Good news today is Dell is putting FireWire 400 standard on its revived top-of-the-line Dimension XPS series. Lagging behind a little though.
Originally posted by RazzFazz
You might run into problems if you want to transfer video from a DV cam straight onto a FireWire hard disk on the same bus - with the current state of technology, the data would go from the cam via FW to the PC and then (via the same FW bus) to the drive, i.e. it would cross the bus twice, using twice (or more - collisions etc.) the net DV bandwidth. Given that a DV stream actually only uses around 3MB/s, I don't really think this could be a problem, but then again I don't have any FireWire HD to do a test myself.
It's generally not a problem on faster machines, but yes, isochronous data transfers in SBP-3 will be pretty cool. Plug in HDD to computer...plug in camera to second HDD port...video stream goes directly into HDD without actually going to the computer first...
The various other definitions in 1394.1 seem pretty cool too...
Originally posted by DHagan4755
I'm frustrated by the PC world's inclusion of Firewire...
They just use the 4-pin connector, instead of the 6-pin connector used on ALL macs since day 1. Then there's companies like Dell who release new Centrino notebooks and don't include it at all
I don't care what they say, Apple is truly ahead of the game.
Does the 4 pin makethe connection slower??
Originally posted by RANSOMED
Does the 4 pin makethe connection slower??
Nope. The only difference between the 6-pin and 4-pin version is that the latter doesn't provide bus power.
RazzFazz
Originally posted by RANSOMED
Does the 4 pin makethe connection slower??
No, just stupider.