moved: FireWire 2

2

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  • Reply 21 of 45
    That's great, Eugene-- it doesn't change the fact that USB1 is a bottleneck. I don't know about you, but I welcome ANY speed increase in printing, scanning, downloading images from memory cards, etc. Again, the computing industry has chosen USB as it's standard peripheral interface. If Apple chooses to ignore that, then WE'LL be the ones who suffer.
  • Reply 22 of 45
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    [quote]Originally posted by Gamblor:

    <strong>That's great, Eugene-- it doesn't change the fact that USB1 is a bottleneck. </strong><hr></blockquote>



    It does change the 'fact' when he just told you that there isn't a speed difference.
  • Reply 23 of 45
    USB2 and Firewire2



    Whats the need.



    I bet if you look at the vast majority of Firewire Devices and USB2 Devices they are no where close to Maxing out what they are cabable at.



    What we need is faster IDE to F/W Bridges inside the boxes. Ever wonder why La Cie External firewire drives give the same proformance out of 5,400rpm drive as thier 7,200rpm models....the bridge can't handle any more



    CD-RW Drives won't get any quicket until IDE speeds are improved. Hence the invention/release of Serial-ATA until we see this on the back of CD-RW/HDD and bridges to firewire to support them there is no point in looking at FW2.
  • Reply 24 of 45
    [quote]It does change the 'fact' when he just told you that there isn't a speed difference.<hr></blockquote>



    Did you read the thread, or just his last post?



    That was for two printers, JLL. And I provided an example of a Firewire scanner that's twice as fast as it's USB1 counterpart. I think it's safe to assume that it would have the same speed advantages with USB2. There are plenty of devices which saturate USB1, and could use the extra bandwidth provided by USB2 or Firewire. Again, the simple fact is, USB2 is going to be used as a peripheral interface far more often than Firewire. Apple would be foolish to ignore that.



    Besides, the fact that there's no difference between USB 1.1 & 2 for his HP certainly suggests it's just got a USB1 port that HP has rebadged as USB2. (Actually they call it a "2.0 compliant USB port"...)
  • Reply 25 of 45
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    [quote]Originally posted by Gamblor:

    <strong>That's great, Eugene-- it doesn't change the fact that USB1 is a bottleneck. I don't know about you, but I welcome ANY speed increase in printing, scanning, downloading images from memory cards, etc. Again, the computing industry has chosen USB as it's standard peripheral interface. If Apple chooses to ignore that, then WE'LL be the ones who suffer.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    A very slight bottleneck. As a matter of fact, It just took me 10 minutes to print a 600 DPI 15 megapxel 300KB 2-color GIF via both USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 on that printer. USB 1.1 is not a bottleneck for all but the most expensive printers and scanners out there. If you're going to spend top dollar on a scanner or printer, you might as well spend the extra money and get the ones with the better interface.



    And you said it yourself, the best option is to get a dual-interface device, like my scanner and like many of the storage drives out there, not because USB 2.0 is necessary, but because it's a tiny little bonus.



    There is no real urgency at Apple for USB 2.0 integration. FireWire is already the better option. Nothing is stopping you from investing in USB 2.0 peripherals right now and then waiting for the speed increase later, especially if those peripherals have both USB 2.0 and FireWire.



    [ 12-29-2002: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
  • Reply 26 of 45
    [quote]As a matter of fact, It just took me 10 minutes to print a 600 DPI 15 megapxel 300KB 2-color GIF via both USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 on that printer. <hr></blockquote>



    Again, I'm not convinced your printer actually has a USB2 interface. The fact that there's no difference in your printing times kinda supports that, I think. Think about it-- does it really make sense that there wouldn't be any difference in speed if it was capable of the higher speed?



    [quote]USB 1.1 is not a bottleneck for all but the most expensive printers and scanners out there. <hr></blockquote>



    The scanner I mentioned cost about $170. Not the most expensive scanner by a long shot. C'mon-- it's a couple of days from 2003 for God's sake. Peripherals that can saturate a 1.2MB/s bus are a dime a dozen.



    [quote]There is no real urgency at Apple for USB 2.0 integration. FireWire is already the better option. Nothing is stopping you from investing in USB 2.0 peripherals right now and then waiting for the speed increase later, especially if those peripherals have both USB 2.0 and FireWire.<hr></blockquote>



    I agree there's no pressing need for Apple to rush out and add USB2 to every Mac. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that USB2 devices are so slow to show up. I'd hope Apple would get it on their machines before the end of '03, though.
  • Reply 27 of 45
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    72 megs of RAM in a scanner? Wouldn't it be cheaper to have a FireWire scanner with less memory and the same performance?



    Eugene you seem to be missing the point. Peerless mode means if FireWire replaces USB everywhere we can trade pics between two digital cameras, no computer involved. And Intel won't control everything.
  • Reply 28 of 45
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    [quote]Originally posted by Gamblor:

    <strong>

    Again, I'm not convinced your printer actually has a USB2 interface. The fact that there's no difference in your printing times kinda supports that, I think. Think about it-- does it really make sense that there wouldn't be any difference in speed if it was capable of the higher speed?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Use your head, dude. I was printing a 300KB document, it took 10 minutes before it printed. That's .5 KB/s. Yes, full saturation... This is barely an extreme example, I was printing a 600 DPI black and white flyer.



    And go to HP's website, the LaserJet 1200 is best described as a high-power full speed USB 2.0 device. And I don't know about you, but I just scanned a 100 MB 10000x3500 pixel 24-bit TIFF and it took over 2 minutes for the wand to make its pass over the document. That's less than 1 MB/s, and the theoretical bandwidth of USB 1.1 is 1.5 MB/s.
  • Reply 29 of 45
    [quote]Use your head, dude. I was printing a 300KB document, it took 10 minutes before it printed. That's .5 KB/s. Yes, full saturation... This is barely an extreme example, I was printing a 600 DPI black and white flyer.



    And go to HP's website, the LaserJet 1200 is best described as a high-power full speed USB 2.0 device.

    <hr></blockquote>



    Somehow, I just don't think a "high-power" printer would take 10 minutes to print a two color flyer...



    Find me a single reference on HP's website that says the 1200 is a "full speed USB 2.0" device. Every document I could find refered to it as having a "2.0 compliant USB port", which is a marketdroid weasle-speak way of saying you can plug it into a USB2 port, and it'll work.



    At any rate, I see your point about the printer-- it probably spends much more time crunching the page description into a raster than transfering the data.



    ...



    I'll let the issue of the scanner drop-- I can't find any detailed mention of the scanner I was talking about on UMAX's site. It was called the Astra 6450, and it appears UMAX doesn't make it any more. Doesn't bode well for Firewire peripherals...



    ...



    At any rate, one area where there's a definite benefit of Firewire/USB2 over USB1 is with card readers for digital camera flash cards. Read transfer rates are typically 3-5x what's possible with USB1 readers.<a href="http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/addonics_ultradd.html"; target="_blank">Here's a review at Steve's Digicams</a> for a USB2 card reader that has a read speed of higher than 6MB/s with one of the media types tested. Yeah, it's also available in a Firewire version, but at a $40 premium. Considering the USB2 version can be had for $60, that's a 2/3 price premium just for firewire. Is it worth it? I don't really think so, and I wish Apple would hop on the USB2 band wagon so the decision is a no-brainer.



    Oh, and on topic for this thread, I'm hoping Apple has Firewire 2 on board their new machines at MWSF. That is, if there are any new machines at MWSF.
  • Reply 30 of 45
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    [quote]Originally posted by Gamblor:

    <strong>



    Did you read the thread, or just his last post?



    That was for two printers, JLL. And I provided an example of a Firewire scanner that's twice as fast as it's USB1 counterpart. </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yes, I did read the whole thread, and I was referring to printers, but it seems that you found the reason as to why USB 1.1, USB 2, 10BaseT or 100BaseT doesn't matter:



    "I see your point about the printer-- it probably spends much more time crunching the page description into a raster than transfering the data."
  • Reply 31 of 45
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Like I mentioned earlier instead of spending money on scanner RAM why not spend it on FireWire, since they both speed it up?



    Eugene et al seem to miss the point of FireWire ubiquity: it brings the advantage of device to device connection, no computer involved. I assume with the economy of scale, that if everything used FireWire it'd be cheaper. And we wouldn't be paying Intel.



    Plus FireWire 2 and TCP/IP over FireWire bring new possibilities...
  • Reply 32 of 45
    x704x704 Posts: 276member
    [quote]Originally posted by Aquatic:

    <strong>

    Plus FireWire 2 and TCP/IP over FireWire bring new possibilities...</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Indeed that is interesting. With FW2 it'd be near 1000 BT speeds which would matter more for iMacs I suppose but may also be good for some PM users who want to network to some close macs & use their ethernet port for something like a cable modem without the use of a hub.



    Outside of this though FW2 has little point until we get a native FW bridge (unless we already have & I missed it ...). Perhpas this is why Apple has not released it yet.
  • Reply 33 of 45
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Something I haven't seen mentioned on this board yet is firewire's role in digital audio. Consumers are ready for higher definition audio formats than the standard compact disc. However, none of the formats have taken off because the RIAA won't let manufacturers include high bandwidth digital audio outputs. Instead, the signal must be converted to analog before leaving the player. This means that while listening to a CD, you can use an optical cord to an amplifier. However, to play a super audio CD, DVD audio, or one of the other competing standards, you need to have expensive analog cables from the player to the amp... Well no wonder people aren't buying these things.



    Fortunately, it seems like the industry is headed towards a firewire based interconnect for high definition audio. This will enable electronic devices to perform some form of copy protection. If this standard actually succeeds, firewire will be well entrenched into consumer electronics. Yes, the RIAA may have accidentally saved firewire!
  • Reply 34 of 45
    [quote]Originally posted by Aquatic:

    <strong>Like I mentioned earlier instead of spending money on scanner RAM why not spend it on FireWire, since they both speed it up? </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Read his post again - the 72MB RAM is in the printer not in the scanner.
  • Reply 35 of 45
    I'm looking at buying a TV that has firewire. It is the only connection that can transfer video AND sound to an HD TV. It will be the future of hardware connections.
  • Reply 36 of 45
    About firewire as a consumer audio protocol: I have seen A/D converters that uses firewire !!!

    If I am not misstaken Sony uses this protocol as digital transfer cable for SACD/DSD.

    Look at the yummi converters by DCS.



    <a href="http://www.dcsltd.co.uk"; target="_blank">web page</a>



    [ 01-04-2003: Message edited by: maclogic ]</p>
  • Reply 37 of 45
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
  • Reply 38 of 45
    Who cares ?



    If it's ready, Apple should put FW2 out NOW! , In any case ... they should also have had USB2 available a year ago! ... who cares who designed it ? It's becoming the standard, so let us have it!!!



    Also... for the argument about the printers and stuff, I've got to include this pic :



  • Reply 39 of 45
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    erm, ok...



    Anyway I'm betting PCs will have FireWire 2 first. Ack...that's the sound of egg on Apple's face!
  • Reply 40 of 45
    That poster is just tacky. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



    Firewire 2 will be the transfer solution of choice for HiDef video and sound. There are consumer HD cams waiting in the wings for this technology.
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