SATA and Firewire belong in different universes because they were designed for completely different reasons. SATA was designed to be an internal storage technology. Firewire was designed to be an external peripheral technology. They both move data over networks but from a design and planning point of view they had very different goals.
eSATA was simply an afterthought to SATA and it shows. If they had considered an external option form the start, cable length and bus power simply would not be an issues now and need to be pegged on at a later date.
In the case of HANA still more problems had to be overcome. It's one thing to send data over ethernet from computer to computer (where there are ample resources at both ends and someone can administer traffic) but something completely different to send media to audio/video equipment of all kinds where resources will be extremely limited and non-upgradeable in a non-administered environment. In those situations things have to 'just work' as Apple likes to put it.
Networks move data, that leads to congestion at some point. What is key is finding a way to guarantee QoS where necessary. Firewire has always provided for this.
I rented a house with three friends in college. We had a file server (like a NAS, but louder), on a gigabit network (practical maximum speed = 300Mb), and we had no problem streaming video to every computer in the house at the same time.
SATA and Firewire belong in different universes because they were designed for completely different reasons. SATA was designed to be an internal storage technology. Firewire was designed to be an external peripheral technology. They both move data over networks but from a design and planning point of view they had very different goals.
eSATA was simply an afterthought to SATA and it shows. If they had considered an external option form the start, cable length and bus power simply would not be an issues now and need to be pegged on at a later date.
In the case of HANA still more problems had to be overcome. It's one thing to send data over ethernet from computer to computer (where there are ample resources at both ends and someone can administer traffic) but something completely different to send media to audio/video equipment of all kinds where resources will be extremely limited and non-upgradeable in a non-administered environment. In those situations things have to 'just work' as Apple likes to put it.
Networks move data, that leads to congestion at some point. What is key is finding a way to guarantee QoS where necessary. Firewire has always provided for this.
You keep repeating that same line about E-SATA, can't you come up with another one? It's tiring reading it again.
SCSI was also at first, an internal implementation. It was also extended, and never had power. It was very successful despite that.
SATA is the same sort of interface. E-SATA extends it. Power is not THAT important, but is being added.
We'll even be getting power over Ethernet before too long. 10 GB Ethernet with power will be kick-ass.
The truth is that even the amount of power FW has, isn't nearly enough for most practical purposes. Most photographers in the field who shoot digital (almost all) use generators to get enough power for fashion, and other big shoots. They don't power their external drives off the internal battery of their laptops. Thats a joke!
As far as power in the studio, or any other fixed location goes, power over the bus simply isn't important.
Power Over SATA is coming out simply because few people really want to run single FW drives anymore once they compare the speeds with E-SATA. I hope you read the link I posted yesterday to Bare Feats. Even FW 400 doesn't have too much of an advantage over USB 2 for HDD's now.
It really leaves just a few things. Older camcorders, and a few new models, and a few Audio devices.
In another year or so, most of those will be on USB 2 or 3, make no mistake about that.
I bet MOTO is kicking themselves for removing the USB 2 interface now.
The problem FW has, is that it wasn't thought out too well back in the early days. In the beginning, FW was 100 Mb/s. That's all most camcorders can do, as they only have 100 Mb/s FW chips. The first FW chips couldn't even handle anything other than camcorders. It took over a year after the first implementations before that problem was resolved. It was thought that FW 400 would be all anyone would really need, so faster implementations were put on the back burner, until after USB 2 came out, and they suddenly realized that they waited too long. Then they started to work on an ambitious program.
Unfortunately, they found that FW was pretty complex, as we found out from all the problems we had with lost data, and corrupted drives. FW 800 was about two years late. 1600 should have been out over 18 months ago, and 3200 should have been here NOW, today, in machines.
They screwed the pooch, as it's said, and it isn't likely they will ever make up for it.
One of the biggest failures was not being able to convince HDD manufacturers to produce "native" FW HDD controllers, as they did with IDE, SCSI, and now SATA. That doomed the standard in the beginning.
Even Hi Def. Tv, for which FW 400 was originally part of the standard, has abandoned it a while ago.
So, while Apple did jump a bit early, the trend is already established. FW is dying. The fact that it will linger on for a while in some expensive equipment doesn't matter for the vast majority. Those needing that expensive equipment will pay for expensive computers to run it, as they always have. Everyone else will get something else.
As far as networks go, you are repeating the same errors.
Most equipment now have cpus inside that can, and do, manage data, streaming or not, priorities etc. All BD players have a computer built-in, for example. All set-top boxes are computers, etc. FW is becoming less important all around as computing is reaching the "ubiquitous" stage. That is, with everything having its own built-in intelligence.
In the end, Intel, and other cpu manufacturers win, because the cost of this intelligence has become worth pennies per device. My toaster has a four bit cpu, with its own Flash memory, and the toaster only costs about $50.
I doubt that there is a single camcorder these days without a cpu controlling its functions. Even some SLR lenses have two computers inside, and the cameras often have at least three.
The iPhone has three computer chips, and most other phones have at least one.
The argument for FW was good in the days when cpu's were expensive still, and didn't exist in most other devices. The world has changed, and so that's no longer true.
Thus, that last argument for FW has disappeared, as each device communicates around the network, and can participate in managing itself.
Ethernet has been taking over these functions too.
This will become even more obvious as time moves on.
Steve is right about one thing. If you let your MiniDV tapes sit a little while they keep sitting. I have a stack of 20 DV tapes sitting next to me that have been on my ToDo list...looks like a couple, three years now. I might import them SOMEDAY but EDIT them? Not too bloody likely.
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There is nothing on the market that tops Firewire as a technology.
The general market disagrees.
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eSATA is faster but in real terms do we really notice the difference when pitted against FW800?
Yes. Seriously. With a multi terrabyte data store it's likely to be RAIDed.
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For many tasks there comes a time when fast is fast enough. For backups and file transfer Firewire is fast enough. eSATA was an afterthought to SATA and it shows.
For backups and file transfers USB2 of GigE is fast enough...note that Time Capsule has no FW interface.
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However, we know that in the very near future copying data will be a waste of resources for people with networked entertainment centres.
People will be looking at ways to stream content to devices around the home over cheap cabling or wirelessly instead of copying large files all over the place and have their output equipment understand it natively.
Firewire has all of the bases covered as far as I can tell.
This is called GigE or 802.11N
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Originally Posted by Avon B7
This is what HANA had to say on why they rejected ethernet (part of a document on why they opted for Firewire):
You keep repeating that same line about E-SATA, can't you come up with another one? It's tiring reading it again.
I don't need to. I've made my point but I'm sure some people will continue to see eSATA as an adequate substitute for Firewire. It isn't.
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SATA is the same sort of interface. E-SATA extends it. Power is not THAT important, but is being added.
The BareFeats link you provided gave a great example of why power through cable can be desirable. As eSATA is only for storage I agree it's not too urgent to have it. For technologies like FW though it is desirable.
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We'll even be getting power over Ethernet before too long. 10 GB Ethernet with power will be kick-ass.
I must be getting ahead of myself. I don't know why but I thought power over ethernet already existed.
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The truth is that even the amount of power FW has, isn't nearly enough for most practical purposes. Most photographers in the field who shoot digital (almost all) use generators to get enough power for fashion, and other big shoots. They don't power their external drives off the internal battery of their laptops. Thats a joke!
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As far as power in the studio, or any other fixed location goes, power over the bus simply isn't important
That would be a joke but power over cabling is far from unpractical. Completely the opposite in fact. The key is powering devices while connected to the mains or for very short periods. Nobody I know enjoys having to tow power bricks around with them. In fact many smaller external drives do not even ship with power bricks (some don't even have an option for a power brick) so bus power is a must.
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Power Over SATA is coming out simply because few people really want to run single FW drives anymore once they compare the speeds with E-SATA. I hope you read the link I posted yesterday to Bare Feats. Even FW 400 doesn't have too much of an advantage over USB 2 for HDD's now.
Yes, but that's like talking about USB3.0. It's not here yet. The point of course will be moot for new MacBook owners as Apple has already hosed their options.
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The problem FW has, is that it wasn't thought out too well back in the early days. In the beginning, FW was 100 Mb/s. That's all most camcorders can do, as they only have 100 Mb/s FW chips. The first FW chips couldn't even handle anything other than camcorders. It took over a year after the first implementations before that problem was resolved. It was thought that FW 400 would be all anyone would really need, so faster implementations were put on the back burner, until after USB 2 came out, and they suddenly realized that they waited too long. Then they started to work on an ambitious program.
I'm pretty sure that firewire was projected to reach at least FW3200 right from the get go. From a Mac perspective I distinctly remember MacWorld magazine mentioning this in 1999. It definitely was quite well thought out in the early days, at least from a speed perspective. They knew where they wanted to go.
Changes were made along the way and they did take too long to finalise revisions to the spec and then it took even longer for silicon to appear and for prices to come down.
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Unfortunately, they found that FW was pretty complex, as we found out from all the problems we had with lost data, and corrupted drives. FW 800 was about two years late. 1600 should have been out over 18 months ago, and 3200 should have been here NOW, today, in machines.
Nothing of this nature is not complex. Data loss and corrupted drives had absolutely nothing to do with firewire as a technology and absolutely everything to do with the lack of coordination between Apple and bridge producers.
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One of the biggest failures was not being able to convince HDD manufacturers to produce "native" FW HDD controllers, as they did with IDE, SCSI, and now SATA. That doomed the standard in the beginning.
Don't take this the wrong way but you yourself don't want me to tire you with my repitition of FW and eSATA being in completely different universes. Lack of native FW drives was an ENORMOUS issue (especially for mac users) but I can assure you it had nothing to do with dooming the standard. Firewire is not exclusively a storage technology. Not having native drives is irrevelant for the standard. It would have been a killer issue for eSATA as it is only a storage technology. Firewire, by nature does a lot more things than eSATA. FW does storage nicely but unfortunately has to use bridge chips.
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So, while Apple did jump a bit early, the trend is already established. FW is dying. The fact that it will linger on for a while in some expensive equipment doesn't matter for the vast majority. Those needing that expensive equipment will pay for expensive computers to run it, as they always have. Everyone else will get something else
Apple is supposed to buck trends. It doesn't need to be this way but it is this way thanks, at least in part, to Apple.
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As far as networks go, you are repeating the same errors.
Most equipment now have cpus inside that can, and do, manage data, streaming or not, priorities etc. All BD players have a computer built-in, for example. All set-top boxes are computers, etc. FW is becoming less important all around as computing is reaching the "ubiquitous" stage. That is, with everything having its own built-in intelligence.
In the end, Intel, and other cpu manufacturers win, because the cost of this intelligence has become worth pennies per device. My toaster has a four bit cpu, with its own Flash memory, and the toaster only costs about $50.
I doubt that there is a single camcorder these days without a cpu controlling its functions. Even some SLR lenses have two computers inside, and the cameras often have at least three.
The iPhone has three computer chips, and most other phones have at least one.
The argument for FW was good in the days when cpu's were expensive still, and didn't exist in most other devices. The world has changed, and so that's no longer true.
Thus, that last argument for FW has disappeared, as each device communicates around the network, and can participate in managing itself.
Ethernet has been taking over these functions too.
This will become even more obvious as time moves on.
No. I am not repeating the same errors and this aspect of discussion is getting quite far off-topic.
I said that sometimes it is better to stream content rather than copy it. I said that A/V networking was a question of resources and how to make good use of them. Your TV cannot accommodate a multigigabyte file copy. Wherever possible, existing installations should be used (the coaxial reference) I said that QoS is essential. Your TV needs a guarantee that data will arrive on time and in order.
There are all manner of ways to do that but it all has to be unified in some way and has to be as seamless to the end user as possible. FW is perfectly capable of such a task and is one of the reasons HANA chose it
Let me just re-state that 100, 1000 or 10000 Mbps means little without adequate QoS built in to its DNA.
That isn't true. If you have plenty of bandwidth, then QoS is usually not needed on a home network. My parents have a 15Mbps internet connection from their cable company whilst using a Linksys original 802.11b router with a 10/100Mbps switch. The iMac connects to the switch at 100Mbps and their AppleTV connects to the router via 802.11b. They can stream media just fine from the iMac, Hulu, YouTube, and iTS over that 11Mbps wireless connection. Why do they need the overhead of QoS if it's all working well? If I were going to anything, it would be to get them an 802.11n router with a 1000BASE-T switch to match their Mac and AppleTV HW.
However, if they needed QoS, even home routers offer solutions based on HW and SW ports, and IP and MAC addresses. I'm not sure what you are getting since Ethernet has long been used for tried and true streaming and downloading and FW just doesn't have the distance and inexpensive setup as FW.
I'm not sure what you are getting since Ethernet has long been used for tried and true streaming and downloading and FW just doesn't have the distance and inexpensive setup as FW.
Yes, I can understand why you can't see where I'm getting at. This is now out of context and off-topic.
The original post was about firewire as a technology. I gave HANA as an example as they had rejected many technologies in favour of Firewire. I was just supporting my point of view with some real world information. Things have gone off course form there.
The case you bring up is a valid case. Your parents do just fine because they have a computer, resources and administer the technology themselves. That's fine.
But as a technology HANA has a whole set of other considerations that have to be met. First off there won't even be a computer (in the sense of mac or pc) in the setup. As a technology FW offers possibilities that help resolve those considerations. In that context QoS is essential. HDMI and ethernet were ruled out.
It's worth repeating that I don't even have an strong opinion one way or the other on HANA. I'd love to see something like that succeed as it would give Firewire another great use but I only mentioned HANA as an example of firewire as a technology. .
I hopw we'll see some movement there. Apple does have a habit of not letting us in though, as we know.
Possibly any update we may see in the Mini will give us an idea. If they remove FW from there as well, the it's obviously goodby.
I would imagine the new Mac Pro will retain it, and the updated iMacs would also, as they just added FW 800.
But I doubt that Apple will announce anything unless it's just about to appear.
It would have been good if The new standards were ready now, rather than later in 2009.
I would love to see your guesswork come true (although I have an inkling it won't) but what really matters to me would be for Apple to actively support firewire and start using FW3200 as soon as it becomes possible, provide products that make good use of what firewire can offer and for them to start pushing the technology again.
None of that seems on the cards so if firewire is present on new macs it will be as a legacy port (which of course would be better than nothing).
I find it sad that with so much spare cash in the bank, with Apple having so much more influence in the PC and consumer electronics markets and with mac market share rising Apple has chosen not to stand its ground with firewire.
AFAIK the standards are already finished, it's the silicon that's lacking.
Let me just re-state that 100, 1000 or 10000 Mbps means little without adequate QoS built in to its DNA.
Yes, I'm aware that ethernet had some QoS patched into it. It was evaluated and discarded by HANA.
For 100BaseT. Again, which part of the current spec is 10x faster than what HANA evaluated confuses you?
GigE is more than capable of streaming HD without drops.
Oh as far as that HANA "analysis" goes...it was written by the Strategic Marketing Account Manager for Firewire at TI (Daniel Mar). Sounds to me like a biased source.
I'm not overly impressed by the member company list of HANA either. No MS, Apple or Sony on the list. No Tivo, SA or Motorolla either. Only two CE companies and two media companies of note.
Kinda like the "coalition of the willing" kinda deal eh?
I don't need to. I've made my point but I'm sure some people will continue to see eSATA as an adequate substitute for Firewire. It isn't.
FW isn't everything for everyone, as you seem to think it is. FW for HDDs is something you have been talking up. It's not best for that, and when compared to SATA, it isn't even very good.
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The BareFeats link you provided gave a great example of why power through cable can be desirable. As eSATA is only for storage I agree it's not too urgent to have it. For technologies like FW though it is desirable.
I never said it wasn't desirable. I'm saying it isn't s useful as you think it is most of the time.
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I must be getting ahead of myself. I don't know why but I thought power over ethernet already existed.
How many computers or peripherals have you seen with it?
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That would be a joke but power over cabling is far from unpractical. Completely the opposite in fact. The key is powering devices while connected to the mains or for very short periods. Nobody I know enjoys having to tow power bricks around with them. In fact many smaller external drives do not even ship with power bricks (some don't even have an option for a power brick) so bus power is a must.
Like it or not, if you insist on powering an external drive from your laptop, you will be carrying at least one brick in the form of an extra charged battery, or two.
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Yes, but that's like talking about USB3.0. It's not here yet. The point of course will be moot for new MacBook owners as Apple has already hosed their options.
I've already stated my position on the timing.
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I'm pretty sure that firewire was projected to reach at least FW3200 right from the get go. From a Mac perspective I distinctly remember MacWorld magazine mentioning this in 1999. It definitely was quite well thought out in the early days, at least from a speed perspective. They knew where they wanted to go.
I didn't say it wasn't. What I did say, was that the later versions, 800 and up, were put on the backburner.
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Changes were made along the way and they did take too long to finalise revisions to the spec and then it took even longer for silicon to appear and for prices to come down.
FW is more complex than USB, once they allowed things to fall behind, it became another nail in the coffin.
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Nothing of this nature is not complex. Data loss and corrupted drives had absolutely nothing to do with firewire as a technology and absolutely everything to do with the lack of coordination between Apple and bridge producers.
FW is more complex because of many issues, such as bus timing, and allocation. Unlike packet systems, there is no allowance for corrupted data streams. With packets, the corrupt packet is thrown away, and another is called for. The FW standard didn't require enough standardization. That's a standard fault. Manufacturers had to figure it out themselves. That's a flaw in the system.
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Don't take this the wrong way but you yourself don't want me to tire you with my repitition of FW and eSATA being in completely different universes. Lack of native FW drives was an ENORMOUS issue (especially for mac users) but I can assure you it had nothing to do with dooming the standard. Firewire is not exclusively a storage technology. Not having native drives is irrevelant for the standard. It would have been a killer issue for eSATA as it is only a storage technology. Firewire, by nature does a lot more things than eSATA. FW does storage nicely but unfortunately has to use bridge chips.
Maybe you weren't around back then, but the idea of FW native drives was considered to be number one on the to-do list. When that failed to materialize, predictions of FW's failure began. That was a long time ago. Every time a standard is restricted in usefulness, its chance for long term success shrinks. Its other major success at the time was HDTv. When that failed too, FW was restricted more.
Once USB 2 camcorders began to appear, and work well, it was retricted again.
It's universe of usefulness has been shrinking for years. It won't be useful for most people once devices that don't need it dominate, as is already happening.
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Apple is supposed to buck trends. It doesn't need to be this way but it is this way thanks, at least in part, to Apple.
Apple bucks the status quo, not always trends. They do what they think is best for them.
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No. I am not repeating the same errors and this aspect of discussion is getting quite far off-topic.
I said that sometimes it is better to stream content rather than copy it. I said that A/V networking was a question of resources and how to make good use of them. Your TV cannot accommodate a multigigabyte file copy. Wherever possible, existing installations should be used (the coaxial reference) I said that QoS is essential. Your TV needs a guarantee that data will arrive on time and in order.
What you said is mostly incorrect, or irrelevant. Technology is passing your ideas by. A Tv doesn't need to store a movie, but Ethernet is more than good enough to get it there, as is WiFi, which will become the preferred method at some point. The Tv needs no guarantee. The signal will get there, just as it does in analog. You monitor doesn't negotiate with your computer. The computer just needs to know it's working, and can accept the signal. It's a streaming file as well. You're over concerned about this.
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There are all manner of ways to do that but it all has to be unified in some way and has to be as seamless to the end user as possible. FW is perfectly capable of such a task and is one of the reasons HANA chose it
Look, no matter what you think, FW is not the way to do it. It never was, and it never will be. Get over it.
I would love to see your guesswork come true (although I have an inkling it won't) but what really matters to me would be for Apple to actively support firewire and start using FW3200 as soon as it becomes possible, provide products that make good use of what firewire can offer and for them to start pushing the technology again.
None of that seems on the cards so if firewire is present on new macs it will be as a legacy port (which of course would be better than nothing).
I find it sad that with so much spare cash in the bank, with Apple having so much more influence in the PC and consumer electronics markets and with mac market share rising Apple has chosen not to stand its ground with firewire.
AFAIK the standards are already finished, it's the silicon that's lacking.
Apple has always been slow with FW. They have never been the leader. I was frustrated over that since the beginning, not that Apple cared.
We may see 1,600, or later 3,200, but it will be too little, too late.
You keep repeating that same line about E-SATA, can't you come up with another one? It's tiring reading it again.
SCSI was also at first, an internal implementation. It was also extended, and never had power. It was very successful despite that.
SATA is the same sort of interface. E-SATA extends it. Power is not THAT important, but is being added.
We'll even be getting power over Ethernet before too long. 10 GB Ethernet with power will be kick-ass.
The truth is that even the amount of power FW has, isn't nearly enough for most practical purposes. Most photographers in the field who shoot digital (almost all) use generators to get enough power for fashion, and other big shoots. They don't power their external drives off the internal battery of their laptops. Thats a joke!
As far as power in the studio, or any other fixed location goes, power over the bus simply isn't important.
Power Over SATA is coming out simply because few people really want to run single FW drives anymore once they compare the speeds with E-SATA. I hope you read the link I posted yesterday to Bare Feats. Even FW 400 doesn't have too much of an advantage over USB 2 for HDD's now.
It really leaves just a few things. Older camcorders, and a few new models, and a few Audio devices.
In another year or so, most of those will be on USB 2 or 3, make no mistake about that.
I bet MOTO is kicking themselves for removing the USB 2 interface now.
The problem FW has, is that it wasn't thought out too well back in the early days. In the beginning, FW was 100 Mb/s. That's all most camcorders can do, as they only have 100 Mb/s FW chips. The first FW chips couldn't even handle anything other than camcorders. It took over a year after the first implementations before that problem was resolved. It was thought that FW 400 would be all anyone would really need, so faster implementations were put on the back burner, until after USB 2 came out, and they suddenly realized that they waited too long. Then they started to work on an ambitious program.
Unfortunately, they found that FW was pretty complex, as we found out from all the problems we had with lost data, and corrupted drives. FW 800 was about two years late. 1600 should have been out over 18 months ago, and 3200 should have been here NOW, today, in machines.
They screwed the pooch, as it's said, and it isn't likely they will ever make up for it.
One of the biggest failures was not being able to convince HDD manufacturers to produce "native" FW HDD controllers, as they did with IDE, SCSI, and now SATA. That doomed the standard in the beginning.
Even Hi Def. Tv, for which FW 400 was originally part of the standard, has abandoned it a while ago.
So, while Apple did jump a bit early, the trend is already established. FW is dying. The fact that it will linger on for a while in some expensive equipment doesn't matter for the vast majority. Those needing that expensive equipment will pay for expensive computers to run it, as they always have. Everyone else will get something else.
As far as networks go, you are repeating the same errors.
Most equipment now have cpus inside that can, and do, manage data, streaming or not, priorities etc. All BD players have a computer built-in, for example. All set-top boxes are computers, etc. FW is becoming less important all around as computing is reaching the "ubiquitous" stage. That is, with everything having its own built-in intelligence.
In the end, Intel, and other cpu manufacturers win, because the cost of this intelligence has become worth pennies per device. My toaster has a four bit cpu, with its own Flash memory, and the toaster only costs about $50.
I doubt that there is a single camcorder these days without a cpu controlling its functions. Even some SLR lenses have two computers inside, and the cameras often have at least three.
The iPhone has three computer chips, and most other phones have at least one.
The argument for FW was good in the days when cpu's were expensive still, and didn't exist in most other devices. The world has changed, and so that's no longer true.
Thus, that last argument for FW has disappeared, as each device communicates around the network, and can participate in managing itself.
Ethernet has been taking over these functions too.
This will become even more obvious as time moves on.
And yet, for all that Mel, even you agree that Apple pulled FireWire off the MacBook too soon.
So, who are you trying to convince here? Us? Or you?
Y'know what would've been cool? Steve, about a year from now, unveiling USB 3.0 on new MacBooks... that still had FW ports on them. And Steve saying, very publicly, "Firewire's been great, but now we've got something even better. The torch has been passed... and I'd plan accordingly."
Then, next MB rev after that... FW goes bye-bye. And no one can say boo, because it got replaced with something (at least arguably) better, and Stevie gave everyone very fair warning.
But, y'know, I guess that course of action would be too sane and reasonable, or something.
anyone wanting further info on FW compared to other techs should check out this whitepaper by the 1394 trade association
yes it'll be biased based on it's source... find me one that isn't \
but it's no more biased than some posts here who keep insisting either
- FW is dead
- or that it can be easily replaced with existing technologies...
for those who think that the USB performance of the MBPs (note how the MB hasn't been tested) is up to that of firewire (and keep posting the barefeets test results) please have a look at 'compared to USB paragraph'
...pure speed has little to do with performance (and no one would really argue over single direction file transfer speed, as if that's the most critical for any of us...).
FW isn't everything for everyone, as you seem to think it is. FW for HDDs is something you have been talking up. It's not best for that, and when compared to SATA, it isn't even very good.
No I just said that as a technology, nothing out there tops it (even though eSATA for example, may be faster)
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How many computers or peripherals have you seen with it?
Computers. Most of the ones I see (PCs included). Peripherals. Within two metres of where I am now I have a firewire printer, scanner, three external hard drives, a small RAID unit and two external DVD writers.
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Like it or not, if you insist on powering an external drive from your laptop, you will be carrying at least one brick in the form of an extra charged battery, or two.
No. If I plan on using external devices for more than a short period of time I would be using a mains connection for the laptop. If there were no mains connection I would use an extra battery. Either way, having bus power means less bricks.
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FW is more complex than USB, once they allowed things to fall behind, it became another nail in the coffin.
Could you please expand on this and give some technical reasons as, AFAIW, bus timing is handled in the chipset where peripheral manufacturers can largely forget about that kind of thing.
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The FW standard didn't require enough standardization. That's a standard fault. Manufacturers had to figure it out themselves. That's a flaw in the system.
Can you provide documentary evidence of this or a comment from an engineer somewhere that back that statement up.
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Maybe you weren't around back then, but the idea of FW native drives was considered to be number one on the to-do list
I was around then and using firewire but you are falling into the same trap again. Native FW on hard drive was important for computer users (of course with hard disks). FW caters to far more than hard disks.
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Once USB 2 camcorders began to appear, and work well, it was retricted again.
When USB camcorders appeared it was for still photography transfer. When USB started to handle video transfer it required special drivers from the manufacturer. Then, if I'm not mistaken, USB was updated to handle video transfer. I'm speaking from memory and have never used a USB camcorder though.
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What you said is mostly incorrect, or irrelevant. Technology is passing your ideas by. A Tv doesn't need to store a movie, but Ethernet is more than good enough to get it there, as is WiFi, which will become the preferred method at some point. The Tv needs no guarantee. The signal will get there, just as it does in analog. You monitor doesn't negotiate with your computer. The computer just needs to know it's working, and can accept the signal. It's a streaming file as well. You're over concerned about this
It's most definitely not incorrect or irrelevant. If your A/V devices are not storing content locally I deduce that you now agree with me on the streaming point I raised. And you are incorrect. From a technology perspective a guarantee of content delivery on time is an absolute number one priority in the situations I have put forward. You cannot say 'I have enough speed and bandwidth so things should work'. This stuff cannot be left to chance. Sooner or later your network is going to get congested.
And yet, for all that Mel, even you agree that Apple pulled FireWire off the MacBook too soon.
So, who are you trying to convince here? Us? Or you?
Y'know what would've been cool? Steve, about a year from now, unveiling USB 3.0 on new MacBooks... that still had FW ports on them. And Steve saying, very publicly, "Firewire's been great, but now we've got something even better. The torch has been passed... and I'd plan accordingly."
Then, next MB rev after that... FW goes bye-bye. And no one can say boo, because it got replaced with something (at least arguably) better, and Stevie gave everyone very fair warning.
But, y'know, I guess that course of action would be too sane and reasonable, or something.
...
I don't see how could do that with the physical limitations of the case design without removing one of the USB ports to keep FW400. Having one USB and one FW400 is much greater crime than than having two USB and no FW400.
The only other options are for Apple to go all Dell with their design and put ports in funky places or to hold off the case design change until USB3.0 was available. The former would never happen, and it you vote for the latter then the solution is just to get the $999 MacBook, which is still a great machine at a now lower price point.
But waiting for USB3.0 wouldn't solve the main issues people have with the removal of FW400. DV cameras would still use FW. Target Mode still wouldn't work. FW3200 would be even closer and propose faster speeds than USB3.0.
We can certainly blame Apple for, as Melgross put it, "screwing the pooch" for not making FireWire a more competitive option on many different levels, from marketing, to licensing to backwards compatible port interfaces. But they didn't and despite the disappointment we saw it coming, we just didn't know when until the new MacBooks arrived. It does suck, but it sucks more to me that I had 3 ports (2xUSB, 1xFW400) and now I only have 2 ports (2xUSB). The loss of 50% of my I/O peripheral ports are gone, is a much bigger travesty to me when their are times that I do use three at once.
anyone wanting further info on FW compared to other techs should check out this whitepaper by the 1394 trade association
AKA marketing.
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yes it'll be biased based on it's source... find me one that isn't \
Look, when it says FW is better than eSATA and HDMI for their OWN NATIVE PURPOSES I call bullshit. Given that 1394 ports have been DISAPPEARING from set top boxes rather than increasing I doubt HANA will get any traction. My old HD cable box had Firewire (disabled by Comcast but it was there). The new ones from Dish and FiOS do not. They all have HDMI ports. For HD.
Why? Because for a point to point interface from CE to CE to TV HDMI is superior to Firewire. For whole house distribution, ethernet is already present in the form of 802.11a/b/g/n or wired ethernet and if HANA had any likely future Jobs wouldn't have dropped FW on the MacBook even if aTV is just a "hobby".
Slingbox, aTV, PS3, 360, TiVO, and a large number of IPTV devices are all already IP based and sent over the internet. Yea and verily streamed HD over U-verse IPTV service.
No microsoft on HANA is very telling.
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for those who think that the USB performance of the MBPs (note how the MB hasn't been tested) is up to that of firewire (and keep posting the barefeets test results) please have a look at 'compared to USB paragraph'
If there was a "white paper" from Intel touting the superiority of USB you would call it what it is: Marketing.
It cites that FW is better than USB for external disk drives and camcorders because of speed/performance but that FW is better than eSATA because...get this...speed/performance doesn't matter...it is convienence.
Comments
SATA and Firewire belong in different universes because they were designed for completely different reasons. SATA was designed to be an internal storage technology. Firewire was designed to be an external peripheral technology. They both move data over networks but from a design and planning point of view they had very different goals.
eSATA was simply an afterthought to SATA and it shows. If they had considered an external option form the start, cable length and bus power simply would not be an issues now and need to be pegged on at a later date.
In the case of HANA still more problems had to be overcome. It's one thing to send data over ethernet from computer to computer (where there are ample resources at both ends and someone can administer traffic) but something completely different to send media to audio/video equipment of all kinds where resources will be extremely limited and non-upgradeable in a non-administered environment. In those situations things have to 'just work' as Apple likes to put it.
Networks move data, that leads to congestion at some point. What is key is finding a way to guarantee QoS where necessary. Firewire has always provided for this.
There is no point to implementing FW1600 today. None.
Either we jump from FW800 to 3200 or we wait for USB3. Apple must know which road they've decided upon.
Hopefully, they do the sane thing and make a formal announcement at MWSF.
I hopw we'll see some movement there. Apple does have a habit of not letting us in though, as we know.
Possibly any update we may see in the Mini will give us an idea. If they remove FW from there as well, the it's obviously goodby.
I would imagine the new Mac Pro will retain it, and the updated iMacs would also, as they just added FW 800.
But I doubt that Apple will announce anything unless it's just about to appear.
It would have been good if The new standards were ready now, rather than later in 2009.
I rented a house with three friends in college. We had a file server (like a NAS, but louder), on a gigabit network (practical maximum speed = 300Mb), and we had no problem streaming video to every computer in the house at the same time.
I would have been shocked if you said you did.
Melgross,
SATA and Firewire belong in different universes because they were designed for completely different reasons. SATA was designed to be an internal storage technology. Firewire was designed to be an external peripheral technology. They both move data over networks but from a design and planning point of view they had very different goals.
eSATA was simply an afterthought to SATA and it shows. If they had considered an external option form the start, cable length and bus power simply would not be an issues now and need to be pegged on at a later date.
In the case of HANA still more problems had to be overcome. It's one thing to send data over ethernet from computer to computer (where there are ample resources at both ends and someone can administer traffic) but something completely different to send media to audio/video equipment of all kinds where resources will be extremely limited and non-upgradeable in a non-administered environment. In those situations things have to 'just work' as Apple likes to put it.
Networks move data, that leads to congestion at some point. What is key is finding a way to guarantee QoS where necessary. Firewire has always provided for this.
You keep repeating that same line about E-SATA, can't you come up with another one? It's tiring reading it again.
SCSI was also at first, an internal implementation. It was also extended, and never had power. It was very successful despite that.
SATA is the same sort of interface. E-SATA extends it. Power is not THAT important, but is being added.
We'll even be getting power over Ethernet before too long. 10 GB Ethernet with power will be kick-ass.
The truth is that even the amount of power FW has, isn't nearly enough for most practical purposes. Most photographers in the field who shoot digital (almost all) use generators to get enough power for fashion, and other big shoots. They don't power their external drives off the internal battery of their laptops. Thats a joke!
As far as power in the studio, or any other fixed location goes, power over the bus simply isn't important.
Power Over SATA is coming out simply because few people really want to run single FW drives anymore once they compare the speeds with E-SATA. I hope you read the link I posted yesterday to Bare Feats. Even FW 400 doesn't have too much of an advantage over USB 2 for HDD's now.
It really leaves just a few things. Older camcorders, and a few new models, and a few Audio devices.
In another year or so, most of those will be on USB 2 or 3, make no mistake about that.
I bet MOTO is kicking themselves for removing the USB 2 interface now.
The problem FW has, is that it wasn't thought out too well back in the early days. In the beginning, FW was 100 Mb/s. That's all most camcorders can do, as they only have 100 Mb/s FW chips. The first FW chips couldn't even handle anything other than camcorders. It took over a year after the first implementations before that problem was resolved. It was thought that FW 400 would be all anyone would really need, so faster implementations were put on the back burner, until after USB 2 came out, and they suddenly realized that they waited too long. Then they started to work on an ambitious program.
Unfortunately, they found that FW was pretty complex, as we found out from all the problems we had with lost data, and corrupted drives. FW 800 was about two years late. 1600 should have been out over 18 months ago, and 3200 should have been here NOW, today, in machines.
They screwed the pooch, as it's said, and it isn't likely they will ever make up for it.
One of the biggest failures was not being able to convince HDD manufacturers to produce "native" FW HDD controllers, as they did with IDE, SCSI, and now SATA. That doomed the standard in the beginning.
Even Hi Def. Tv, for which FW 400 was originally part of the standard, has abandoned it a while ago.
So, while Apple did jump a bit early, the trend is already established. FW is dying. The fact that it will linger on for a while in some expensive equipment doesn't matter for the vast majority. Those needing that expensive equipment will pay for expensive computers to run it, as they always have. Everyone else will get something else.
As far as networks go, you are repeating the same errors.
Most equipment now have cpus inside that can, and do, manage data, streaming or not, priorities etc. All BD players have a computer built-in, for example. All set-top boxes are computers, etc. FW is becoming less important all around as computing is reaching the "ubiquitous" stage. That is, with everything having its own built-in intelligence.
In the end, Intel, and other cpu manufacturers win, because the cost of this intelligence has become worth pennies per device. My toaster has a four bit cpu, with its own Flash memory, and the toaster only costs about $50.
I doubt that there is a single camcorder these days without a cpu controlling its functions. Even some SLR lenses have two computers inside, and the cameras often have at least three.
The iPhone has three computer chips, and most other phones have at least one.
The argument for FW was good in the days when cpu's were expensive still, and didn't exist in most other devices. The world has changed, and so that's no longer true.
Thus, that last argument for FW has disappeared, as each device communicates around the network, and can participate in managing itself.
Ethernet has been taking over these functions too.
This will become even more obvious as time moves on.
David Pogue missed a great opportunity to put Steve Jobs to the sword and to tell us all about it.
Marvin posted the link.
Steve is right about one thing. If you let your MiniDV tapes sit a little while they keep sitting. I have a stack of 20 DV tapes sitting next to me that have been on my ToDo list...looks like a couple, three years now. I might import them SOMEDAY but EDIT them? Not too bloody likely.
There is nothing on the market that tops Firewire as a technology.
The general market disagrees.
eSATA is faster but in real terms do we really notice the difference when pitted against FW800?
Yes. Seriously. With a multi terrabyte data store it's likely to be RAIDed.
For many tasks there comes a time when fast is fast enough. For backups and file transfer Firewire is fast enough. eSATA was an afterthought to SATA and it shows.
For backups and file transfers USB2 of GigE is fast enough...note that Time Capsule has no FW interface.
However, we know that in the very near future copying data will be a waste of resources for people with networked entertainment centres.
People will be looking at ways to stream content to devices around the home over cheap cabling or wirelessly instead of copying large files all over the place and have their output equipment understand it natively.
Firewire has all of the bases covered as far as I can tell.
This is called GigE or 802.11N
This is what HANA had to say on why they rejected ethernet (part of a document on why they opted for Firewire):
Which part of 100 Mpbs confuses you?
You keep repeating that same line about E-SATA, can't you come up with another one? It's tiring reading it again.
I don't need to. I've made my point but I'm sure some people will continue to see eSATA as an adequate substitute for Firewire. It isn't.
SATA is the same sort of interface. E-SATA extends it. Power is not THAT important, but is being added.
The BareFeats link you provided gave a great example of why power through cable can be desirable. As eSATA is only for storage I agree it's not too urgent to have it. For technologies like FW though it is desirable.
We'll even be getting power over Ethernet before too long. 10 GB Ethernet with power will be kick-ass.
I must be getting ahead of myself. I don't know why but I thought power over ethernet already existed.
The truth is that even the amount of power FW has, isn't nearly enough for most practical purposes. Most photographers in the field who shoot digital (almost all) use generators to get enough power for fashion, and other big shoots. They don't power their external drives off the internal battery of their laptops. Thats a joke!
As far as power in the studio, or any other fixed location goes, power over the bus simply isn't important
That would be a joke but power over cabling is far from unpractical. Completely the opposite in fact. The key is powering devices while connected to the mains or for very short periods. Nobody I know enjoys having to tow power bricks around with them. In fact many smaller external drives do not even ship with power bricks (some don't even have an option for a power brick) so bus power is a must.
Power Over SATA is coming out simply because few people really want to run single FW drives anymore once they compare the speeds with E-SATA. I hope you read the link I posted yesterday to Bare Feats. Even FW 400 doesn't have too much of an advantage over USB 2 for HDD's now.
Yes, but that's like talking about USB3.0. It's not here yet. The point of course will be moot for new MacBook owners as Apple has already hosed their options.
The problem FW has, is that it wasn't thought out too well back in the early days. In the beginning, FW was 100 Mb/s. That's all most camcorders can do, as they only have 100 Mb/s FW chips. The first FW chips couldn't even handle anything other than camcorders. It took over a year after the first implementations before that problem was resolved. It was thought that FW 400 would be all anyone would really need, so faster implementations were put on the back burner, until after USB 2 came out, and they suddenly realized that they waited too long. Then they started to work on an ambitious program.
I'm pretty sure that firewire was projected to reach at least FW3200 right from the get go. From a Mac perspective I distinctly remember MacWorld magazine mentioning this in 1999. It definitely was quite well thought out in the early days, at least from a speed perspective. They knew where they wanted to go.
Changes were made along the way and they did take too long to finalise revisions to the spec and then it took even longer for silicon to appear and for prices to come down.
Unfortunately, they found that FW was pretty complex, as we found out from all the problems we had with lost data, and corrupted drives. FW 800 was about two years late. 1600 should have been out over 18 months ago, and 3200 should have been here NOW, today, in machines.
Nothing of this nature is not complex. Data loss and corrupted drives had absolutely nothing to do with firewire as a technology and absolutely everything to do with the lack of coordination between Apple and bridge producers.
One of the biggest failures was not being able to convince HDD manufacturers to produce "native" FW HDD controllers, as they did with IDE, SCSI, and now SATA. That doomed the standard in the beginning.
Don't take this the wrong way but you yourself don't want me to tire you with my repitition of FW and eSATA being in completely different universes. Lack of native FW drives was an ENORMOUS issue (especially for mac users) but I can assure you it had nothing to do with dooming the standard. Firewire is not exclusively a storage technology. Not having native drives is irrevelant for the standard. It would have been a killer issue for eSATA as it is only a storage technology. Firewire, by nature does a lot more things than eSATA. FW does storage nicely but unfortunately has to use bridge chips.
So, while Apple did jump a bit early, the trend is already established. FW is dying. The fact that it will linger on for a while in some expensive equipment doesn't matter for the vast majority. Those needing that expensive equipment will pay for expensive computers to run it, as they always have. Everyone else will get something else
Apple is supposed to buck trends. It doesn't need to be this way but it is this way thanks, at least in part, to Apple.
As far as networks go, you are repeating the same errors.
Most equipment now have cpus inside that can, and do, manage data, streaming or not, priorities etc. All BD players have a computer built-in, for example. All set-top boxes are computers, etc. FW is becoming less important all around as computing is reaching the "ubiquitous" stage. That is, with everything having its own built-in intelligence.
In the end, Intel, and other cpu manufacturers win, because the cost of this intelligence has become worth pennies per device. My toaster has a four bit cpu, with its own Flash memory, and the toaster only costs about $50.
I doubt that there is a single camcorder these days without a cpu controlling its functions. Even some SLR lenses have two computers inside, and the cameras often have at least three.
The iPhone has three computer chips, and most other phones have at least one.
The argument for FW was good in the days when cpu's were expensive still, and didn't exist in most other devices. The world has changed, and so that's no longer true.
Thus, that last argument for FW has disappeared, as each device communicates around the network, and can participate in managing itself.
Ethernet has been taking over these functions too.
This will become even more obvious as time moves on.
No. I am not repeating the same errors and this aspect of discussion is getting quite far off-topic.
I said that sometimes it is better to stream content rather than copy it. I said that A/V networking was a question of resources and how to make good use of them. Your TV cannot accommodate a multigigabyte file copy. Wherever possible, existing installations should be used (the coaxial reference) I said that QoS is essential. Your TV needs a guarantee that data will arrive on time and in order.
There are all manner of ways to do that but it all has to be unified in some way and has to be as seamless to the end user as possible. FW is perfectly capable of such a task and is one of the reasons HANA chose it
Which part of 100 Mpbs confuses you?
No part. Why do you enquire?
Let me just re-state that 100, 1000 or 10000 Mbps means little without adequate QoS built in to its DNA.
Yes, I'm aware that ethernet had some QoS patched into it. It was evaluated and discarded by HANA.
Let me just re-state that 100, 1000 or 10000 Mbps means little without adequate QoS built in to its DNA.
That isn't true. If you have plenty of bandwidth, then QoS is usually not needed on a home network. My parents have a 15Mbps internet connection from their cable company whilst using a Linksys original 802.11b router with a 10/100Mbps switch. The iMac connects to the switch at 100Mbps and their AppleTV connects to the router via 802.11b. They can stream media just fine from the iMac, Hulu, YouTube, and iTS over that 11Mbps wireless connection. Why do they need the overhead of QoS if it's all working well? If I were going to anything, it would be to get them an 802.11n router with a 1000BASE-T switch to match their Mac and AppleTV HW.
However, if they needed QoS, even home routers offer solutions based on HW and SW ports, and IP and MAC addresses. I'm not sure what you are getting since Ethernet has long been used for tried and true streaming and downloading and FW just doesn't have the distance and inexpensive setup as FW.
… QoS is usually not needed on a home network.
I'm not sure what you are getting since Ethernet has long been used for tried and true streaming and downloading and FW just doesn't have the distance and inexpensive setup as FW.
Yes, I can understand why you can't see where I'm getting at. This is now out of context and off-topic.
The original post was about firewire as a technology. I gave HANA as an example as they had rejected many technologies in favour of Firewire. I was just supporting my point of view with some real world information. Things have gone off course form there.
The case you bring up is a valid case. Your parents do just fine because they have a computer, resources and administer the technology themselves. That's fine.
But as a technology HANA has a whole set of other considerations that have to be met. First off there won't even be a computer (in the sense of mac or pc) in the setup. As a technology FW offers possibilities that help resolve those considerations. In that context QoS is essential. HDMI and ethernet were ruled out.
It's worth repeating that I don't even have an strong opinion one way or the other on HANA. I'd love to see something like that succeed as it would give Firewire another great use but I only mentioned HANA as an example of firewire as a technology. .
I hopw we'll see some movement there. Apple does have a habit of not letting us in though, as we know.
Possibly any update we may see in the Mini will give us an idea. If they remove FW from there as well, the it's obviously goodby.
I would imagine the new Mac Pro will retain it, and the updated iMacs would also, as they just added FW 800.
But I doubt that Apple will announce anything unless it's just about to appear.
It would have been good if The new standards were ready now, rather than later in 2009.
I would love to see your guesswork come true (although I have an inkling it won't) but what really matters to me would be for Apple to actively support firewire and start using FW3200 as soon as it becomes possible, provide products that make good use of what firewire can offer and for them to start pushing the technology again.
None of that seems on the cards so if firewire is present on new macs it will be as a legacy port (which of course would be better than nothing).
I find it sad that with so much spare cash in the bank, with Apple having so much more influence in the PC and consumer electronics markets and with mac market share rising Apple has chosen not to stand its ground with firewire.
AFAIK the standards are already finished, it's the silicon that's lacking.
No part. Why do you enquire?
Let me just re-state that 100, 1000 or 10000 Mbps means little without adequate QoS built in to its DNA.
Yes, I'm aware that ethernet had some QoS patched into it. It was evaluated and discarded by HANA.
For 100BaseT. Again, which part of the current spec is 10x faster than what HANA evaluated confuses you?
GigE is more than capable of streaming HD without drops.
Oh as far as that HANA "analysis" goes...it was written by the Strategic Marketing Account Manager for Firewire at TI (Daniel Mar). Sounds to me like a biased source.
I'm not overly impressed by the member company list of HANA either. No MS, Apple or Sony on the list. No Tivo, SA or Motorolla either. Only two CE companies and two media companies of note.
Kinda like the "coalition of the willing" kinda deal eh?
I don't need to. I've made my point but I'm sure some people will continue to see eSATA as an adequate substitute for Firewire. It isn't.
FW isn't everything for everyone, as you seem to think it is. FW for HDDs is something you have been talking up. It's not best for that, and when compared to SATA, it isn't even very good.
The BareFeats link you provided gave a great example of why power through cable can be desirable. As eSATA is only for storage I agree it's not too urgent to have it. For technologies like FW though it is desirable.
I never said it wasn't desirable. I'm saying it isn't s useful as you think it is most of the time.
I must be getting ahead of myself. I don't know why but I thought power over ethernet already existed.
How many computers or peripherals have you seen with it?
That would be a joke but power over cabling is far from unpractical. Completely the opposite in fact. The key is powering devices while connected to the mains or for very short periods. Nobody I know enjoys having to tow power bricks around with them. In fact many smaller external drives do not even ship with power bricks (some don't even have an option for a power brick) so bus power is a must.
Like it or not, if you insist on powering an external drive from your laptop, you will be carrying at least one brick in the form of an extra charged battery, or two.
Yes, but that's like talking about USB3.0. It's not here yet. The point of course will be moot for new MacBook owners as Apple has already hosed their options.
I've already stated my position on the timing.
I'm pretty sure that firewire was projected to reach at least FW3200 right from the get go. From a Mac perspective I distinctly remember MacWorld magazine mentioning this in 1999. It definitely was quite well thought out in the early days, at least from a speed perspective. They knew where they wanted to go.
I didn't say it wasn't. What I did say, was that the later versions, 800 and up, were put on the backburner.
Changes were made along the way and they did take too long to finalise revisions to the spec and then it took even longer for silicon to appear and for prices to come down.
FW is more complex than USB, once they allowed things to fall behind, it became another nail in the coffin.
Nothing of this nature is not complex. Data loss and corrupted drives had absolutely nothing to do with firewire as a technology and absolutely everything to do with the lack of coordination between Apple and bridge producers.
FW is more complex because of many issues, such as bus timing, and allocation. Unlike packet systems, there is no allowance for corrupted data streams. With packets, the corrupt packet is thrown away, and another is called for. The FW standard didn't require enough standardization. That's a standard fault. Manufacturers had to figure it out themselves. That's a flaw in the system.
Don't take this the wrong way but you yourself don't want me to tire you with my repitition of FW and eSATA being in completely different universes. Lack of native FW drives was an ENORMOUS issue (especially for mac users) but I can assure you it had nothing to do with dooming the standard. Firewire is not exclusively a storage technology. Not having native drives is irrevelant for the standard. It would have been a killer issue for eSATA as it is only a storage technology. Firewire, by nature does a lot more things than eSATA. FW does storage nicely but unfortunately has to use bridge chips.
Maybe you weren't around back then, but the idea of FW native drives was considered to be number one on the to-do list. When that failed to materialize, predictions of FW's failure began. That was a long time ago. Every time a standard is restricted in usefulness, its chance for long term success shrinks. Its other major success at the time was HDTv. When that failed too, FW was restricted more.
Once USB 2 camcorders began to appear, and work well, it was retricted again.
It's universe of usefulness has been shrinking for years. It won't be useful for most people once devices that don't need it dominate, as is already happening.
Apple is supposed to buck trends. It doesn't need to be this way but it is this way thanks, at least in part, to Apple.
Apple bucks the status quo, not always trends. They do what they think is best for them.
No. I am not repeating the same errors and this aspect of discussion is getting quite far off-topic.
I said that sometimes it is better to stream content rather than copy it. I said that A/V networking was a question of resources and how to make good use of them. Your TV cannot accommodate a multigigabyte file copy. Wherever possible, existing installations should be used (the coaxial reference) I said that QoS is essential. Your TV needs a guarantee that data will arrive on time and in order.
What you said is mostly incorrect, or irrelevant. Technology is passing your ideas by. A Tv doesn't need to store a movie, but Ethernet is more than good enough to get it there, as is WiFi, which will become the preferred method at some point. The Tv needs no guarantee. The signal will get there, just as it does in analog. You monitor doesn't negotiate with your computer. The computer just needs to know it's working, and can accept the signal. It's a streaming file as well. You're over concerned about this.
There are all manner of ways to do that but it all has to be unified in some way and has to be as seamless to the end user as possible. FW is perfectly capable of such a task and is one of the reasons HANA chose it
Look, no matter what you think, FW is not the way to do it. It never was, and it never will be. Get over it.
I would love to see your guesswork come true (although I have an inkling it won't) but what really matters to me would be for Apple to actively support firewire and start using FW3200 as soon as it becomes possible, provide products that make good use of what firewire can offer and for them to start pushing the technology again.
None of that seems on the cards so if firewire is present on new macs it will be as a legacy port (which of course would be better than nothing).
I find it sad that with so much spare cash in the bank, with Apple having so much more influence in the PC and consumer electronics markets and with mac market share rising Apple has chosen not to stand its ground with firewire.
AFAIK the standards are already finished, it's the silicon that's lacking.
Apple has always been slow with FW. They have never been the leader. I was frustrated over that since the beginning, not that Apple cared.
We may see 1,600, or later 3,200, but it will be too little, too late.
You keep repeating that same line about E-SATA, can't you come up with another one? It's tiring reading it again.
SCSI was also at first, an internal implementation. It was also extended, and never had power. It was very successful despite that.
SATA is the same sort of interface. E-SATA extends it. Power is not THAT important, but is being added.
We'll even be getting power over Ethernet before too long. 10 GB Ethernet with power will be kick-ass.
The truth is that even the amount of power FW has, isn't nearly enough for most practical purposes. Most photographers in the field who shoot digital (almost all) use generators to get enough power for fashion, and other big shoots. They don't power their external drives off the internal battery of their laptops. Thats a joke!
As far as power in the studio, or any other fixed location goes, power over the bus simply isn't important.
Power Over SATA is coming out simply because few people really want to run single FW drives anymore once they compare the speeds with E-SATA. I hope you read the link I posted yesterday to Bare Feats. Even FW 400 doesn't have too much of an advantage over USB 2 for HDD's now.
It really leaves just a few things. Older camcorders, and a few new models, and a few Audio devices.
In another year or so, most of those will be on USB 2 or 3, make no mistake about that.
I bet MOTO is kicking themselves for removing the USB 2 interface now.
The problem FW has, is that it wasn't thought out too well back in the early days. In the beginning, FW was 100 Mb/s. That's all most camcorders can do, as they only have 100 Mb/s FW chips. The first FW chips couldn't even handle anything other than camcorders. It took over a year after the first implementations before that problem was resolved. It was thought that FW 400 would be all anyone would really need, so faster implementations were put on the back burner, until after USB 2 came out, and they suddenly realized that they waited too long. Then they started to work on an ambitious program.
Unfortunately, they found that FW was pretty complex, as we found out from all the problems we had with lost data, and corrupted drives. FW 800 was about two years late. 1600 should have been out over 18 months ago, and 3200 should have been here NOW, today, in machines.
They screwed the pooch, as it's said, and it isn't likely they will ever make up for it.
One of the biggest failures was not being able to convince HDD manufacturers to produce "native" FW HDD controllers, as they did with IDE, SCSI, and now SATA. That doomed the standard in the beginning.
Even Hi Def. Tv, for which FW 400 was originally part of the standard, has abandoned it a while ago.
So, while Apple did jump a bit early, the trend is already established. FW is dying. The fact that it will linger on for a while in some expensive equipment doesn't matter for the vast majority. Those needing that expensive equipment will pay for expensive computers to run it, as they always have. Everyone else will get something else.
As far as networks go, you are repeating the same errors.
Most equipment now have cpus inside that can, and do, manage data, streaming or not, priorities etc. All BD players have a computer built-in, for example. All set-top boxes are computers, etc. FW is becoming less important all around as computing is reaching the "ubiquitous" stage. That is, with everything having its own built-in intelligence.
In the end, Intel, and other cpu manufacturers win, because the cost of this intelligence has become worth pennies per device. My toaster has a four bit cpu, with its own Flash memory, and the toaster only costs about $50.
I doubt that there is a single camcorder these days without a cpu controlling its functions. Even some SLR lenses have two computers inside, and the cameras often have at least three.
The iPhone has three computer chips, and most other phones have at least one.
The argument for FW was good in the days when cpu's were expensive still, and didn't exist in most other devices. The world has changed, and so that's no longer true.
Thus, that last argument for FW has disappeared, as each device communicates around the network, and can participate in managing itself.
Ethernet has been taking over these functions too.
This will become even more obvious as time moves on.
And yet, for all that Mel, even you agree that Apple pulled FireWire off the MacBook too soon.
So, who are you trying to convince here? Us? Or you?
Y'know what would've been cool? Steve, about a year from now, unveiling USB 3.0 on new MacBooks... that still had FW ports on them. And Steve saying, very publicly, "Firewire's been great, but now we've got something even better. The torch has been passed... and I'd plan accordingly."
Then, next MB rev after that... FW goes bye-bye. And no one can say boo, because it got replaced with something (at least arguably) better, and Stevie gave everyone very fair warning.
But, y'know, I guess that course of action would be too sane and reasonable, or something.
...
yes it'll be biased based on it's source... find me one that isn't
but it's no more biased than some posts here who keep insisting either
- FW is dead
- or that it can be easily replaced with existing technologies...
for those who think that the USB performance of the MBPs (note how the MB hasn't been tested) is up to that of firewire (and keep posting the barefeets test results) please have a look at 'compared to USB paragraph'
...pure speed has little to do with performance (and no one would really argue over single direction file transfer speed, as if that's the most critical for any of us...).
FW isn't everything for everyone, as you seem to think it is. FW for HDDs is something you have been talking up. It's not best for that, and when compared to SATA, it isn't even very good.
No I just said that as a technology, nothing out there tops it (even though eSATA for example, may be faster)
How many computers or peripherals have you seen with it?
Computers. Most of the ones I see (PCs included). Peripherals. Within two metres of where I am now I have a firewire printer, scanner, three external hard drives, a small RAID unit and two external DVD writers.
Like it or not, if you insist on powering an external drive from your laptop, you will be carrying at least one brick in the form of an extra charged battery, or two.
No. If I plan on using external devices for more than a short period of time I would be using a mains connection for the laptop. If there were no mains connection I would use an extra battery. Either way, having bus power means less bricks.
FW is more complex than USB, once they allowed things to fall behind, it became another nail in the coffin.
Could you please expand on this and give some technical reasons as, AFAIW, bus timing is handled in the chipset where peripheral manufacturers can largely forget about that kind of thing.
The FW standard didn't require enough standardization. That's a standard fault. Manufacturers had to figure it out themselves. That's a flaw in the system.
Can you provide documentary evidence of this or a comment from an engineer somewhere that back that statement up.
Maybe you weren't around back then, but the idea of FW native drives was considered to be number one on the to-do list
I was around then and using firewire but you are falling into the same trap again. Native FW on hard drive was important for computer users (of course with hard disks). FW caters to far more than hard disks.
Once USB 2 camcorders began to appear, and work well, it was retricted again.
When USB camcorders appeared it was for still photography transfer. When USB started to handle video transfer it required special drivers from the manufacturer. Then, if I'm not mistaken, USB was updated to handle video transfer. I'm speaking from memory and have never used a USB camcorder though.
What you said is mostly incorrect, or irrelevant. Technology is passing your ideas by. A Tv doesn't need to store a movie, but Ethernet is more than good enough to get it there, as is WiFi, which will become the preferred method at some point. The Tv needs no guarantee. The signal will get there, just as it does in analog. You monitor doesn't negotiate with your computer. The computer just needs to know it's working, and can accept the signal. It's a streaming file as well. You're over concerned about this
It's most definitely not incorrect or irrelevant. If your A/V devices are not storing content locally I deduce that you now agree with me on the streaming point I raised. And you are incorrect. From a technology perspective a guarantee of content delivery on time is an absolute number one priority in the situations I have put forward. You cannot say 'I have enough speed and bandwidth so things should work'. This stuff cannot be left to chance. Sooner or later your network is going to get congested.
And yet, for all that Mel, even you agree that Apple pulled FireWire off the MacBook too soon.
So, who are you trying to convince here? Us? Or you?
Y'know what would've been cool? Steve, about a year from now, unveiling USB 3.0 on new MacBooks... that still had FW ports on them. And Steve saying, very publicly, "Firewire's been great, but now we've got something even better. The torch has been passed... and I'd plan accordingly."
Then, next MB rev after that... FW goes bye-bye. And no one can say boo, because it got replaced with something (at least arguably) better, and Stevie gave everyone very fair warning.
But, y'know, I guess that course of action would be too sane and reasonable, or something.
...
I don't see how could do that with the physical limitations of the case design without removing one of the USB ports to keep FW400. Having one USB and one FW400 is much greater crime than than having two USB and no FW400.
The only other options are for Apple to go all Dell with their design and put ports in funky places or to hold off the case design change until USB3.0 was available. The former would never happen, and it you vote for the latter then the solution is just to get the $999 MacBook, which is still a great machine at a now lower price point.
But waiting for USB3.0 wouldn't solve the main issues people have with the removal of FW400. DV cameras would still use FW. Target Mode still wouldn't work. FW3200 would be even closer and propose faster speeds than USB3.0.
We can certainly blame Apple for, as Melgross put it, "screwing the pooch" for not making FireWire a more competitive option on many different levels, from marketing, to licensing to backwards compatible port interfaces. But they didn't and despite the disappointment we saw it coming, we just didn't know when until the new MacBooks arrived. It does suck, but it sucks more to me that I had 3 ports (2xUSB, 1xFW400) and now I only have 2 ports (2xUSB). The loss of 50% of my I/O peripheral ports are gone, is a much bigger travesty to me when their are times that I do use three at once.
anyone wanting further info on FW compared to other techs should check out this whitepaper by the 1394 trade association
AKA marketing.
yes it'll be biased based on it's source... find me one that isn't
Look, when it says FW is better than eSATA and HDMI for their OWN NATIVE PURPOSES I call bullshit. Given that 1394 ports have been DISAPPEARING from set top boxes rather than increasing I doubt HANA will get any traction. My old HD cable box had Firewire (disabled by Comcast but it was there). The new ones from Dish and FiOS do not. They all have HDMI ports. For HD.
Why? Because for a point to point interface from CE to CE to TV HDMI is superior to Firewire. For whole house distribution, ethernet is already present in the form of 802.11a/b/g/n or wired ethernet and if HANA had any likely future Jobs wouldn't have dropped FW on the MacBook even if aTV is just a "hobby".
Slingbox, aTV, PS3, 360, TiVO, and a large number of IPTV devices are all already IP based and sent over the internet. Yea and verily streamed HD over U-verse IPTV service.
No microsoft on HANA is very telling.
for those who think that the USB performance of the MBPs (note how the MB hasn't been tested) is up to that of firewire (and keep posting the barefeets test results) please have a look at 'compared to USB paragraph'
If there was a "white paper" from Intel touting the superiority of USB you would call it what it is: Marketing.
It cites that FW is better than USB for external disk drives and camcorders because of speed/performance but that FW is better than eSATA because...get this...speed/performance doesn't matter...it is convienence.