Firewire to get to 3.2 gigabits
This is great news for all of us with machines that have FW 800 connectors already built in.
Mac Rumors is reporting the story here.
http://www.macrumors.com/2007/12/17/...abit-s-speeds/
The link to the commission's page is here:
http://www.1394ta.org/Press/2007Pres...er/12.12.a.htm
Mac Rumors is reporting the story here.
http://www.macrumors.com/2007/12/17/...abit-s-speeds/
The link to the commission's page is here:
http://www.1394ta.org/Press/2007Pres...er/12.12.a.htm
Comments
I wonder if Apple has known about this far enough in advance to have it shipping on the new Mac Pros in a couple weeks. It's interesting that the MacRumors link specifies a comparison to HDMI, and Apple is said to be holding off on licensing AACS on Hi-Def media for some reason.
S3200 also makes FireWire so fast that users will see no advantage from eSATA. Both interfaces are much faster than any modern hard drive mechanism, but eSATA does not provide electrical power to operate a drive. On a computer, an eSATA port is far less flexible than a FireWire port, because many more devices can connect to FireWire. For these reasons, S3200 makes FireWire the superior choice for future external storage products.
Guess I was wrong. Apple won't be under any pressure to include an eSata port after all.
Just saw this from the 1394 TA link:
Guess I was wrong. Apple won't be under any pressure to include an eSata port after all.
I agree. eSata isn't bad but I wouldn't stress it until it hits a version that can do more than 400MBps and support more than 15 devices. Right now FW3.2Gbps with power and 63 device support is more enticing to me. It's now perfect for RAID boxes and hopefully the chipset will be robust enough to say dangle a couple of high end devices off of one FW bus without much issue.
You take something like the IOHD from AJA running your video from Final Cut Studio and some FW audio I/O like the Apogee Ensemble and effects from SSL Duende and put them on the same bus with bandwidth to spare that would be nice.
Of course the FW hardware will likely have to be updated. We'll see if vendors feel the effort is worth it.
This isn't going to be a popular opinion, but I think it really would be in Apple's best interest to drop Firewire. I can't speak for anyone else, but when I look at the Firewire port on the side of my iBook, I see a place where there *could* be another USB port.
True but if you run higher end periphals (namely Audio or Video I/O boxes) FW is markedly superior to USB. So while I can see the benefit or having USB ports I cannot see the updside of Apple dropping FW for USB. Most USB AV I/O boxes are decidely "consumer"
True but if you run higher end periphals (namely Audio or Video I/O boxes) FW is markedly superior to USB. So while I can see the benefit or having USB ports I cannot see the updside of Apple dropping FW for USB. Most USB AV I/O boxes are decidely "consumer"
Not to mention, as of right now, iMovie doesn't support USB video cameras. They'd have to change this before even considering removing the FireWire port. They'd also better replace FireWire Target Disk Mode with a USB equivalent... that still won't be as fast.
Not to mention, as of right now, iMovie doesn't support USB video cameras. They'd have to change this before even considering removing the FireWire port. They'd also better replace FireWire Target Disk Mode with a USB equivalent... that still won't be as fast.
No kidding. With FW's other "existing" advantages, and this massive speed upgrade I can not believe someone is actually saying Apple should dump firewire. That was a troll post if I've ever seen one.
No kidding. With FW's other "existing" advantages, and this massive speed upgrade I can not believe someone is actually saying Apple should dump firewire. That was a troll post if I've ever seen one.
I'm not trolling. I understand that Firewire is faster for large data transfers, like video, but be honest: the number of people who actually use Firewire to its full potential is miniscule compared to the number of people who have tons of USB devices laying around.
Looking around, I've got two external drives, a camera, a phone, a scanner and a printer- all USB. Plus a mouse and keyboard. I've got two computers with Firewire ports and not a thing to connect them to but each other. I think I'm pretty representative in this.
Firewire, to me, looks like a textbook example of something Mac Pro and Macbook Pro owners can add to their machines via PCIe/Expresscard. Pro users have that expandability, after all. Most other people would not miss the Firewire port.
I'm not trolling. I understand that Firewire is faster for large data transfers, like video, but be honest: the number of people who actually use Firewire to its full potential is miniscule compared to the number of people who have tons of USB devices laying around.
Looking around, I've got two external drives, a camera, a phone, a scanner and a printer- all USB. Plus a mouse and keyboard. I've got two computers with Firewire ports and not a thing to connect them to but each other. I think I'm pretty representative in this.[/QUOTE]
So Mac users should give up Target Disk Mode and fast audio/video transfers because a certain number of people are too cheap to buy a ten dollar USB hub? Those kind of people buy a PC in the first place.
Also, I recently bought a USB2 hard drive at Costco and will never buy another. The thing is dog slow compared to my Firewire drives.
Firewire, to me, looks like a textbook example of something Mac Pro and Macbook Pro owners can add to their machines via PCIe/Expresscard. Pro users have that expandability, after all. Most other people would not miss the Firewire port.
Firewire isn't a pro-level feature. iLife is an audio/video suite of applications and not having Firewire would diminish the Mac experience and gain nothing for the platform. Thankfully, built-in Firewire on Macs isn't going anywhere.
Literally, I've seen a 700MHz iMac G4 transfer 250MB to an external FW hard drive faster than a MacBook Pro at work can transfer 20MB to a newly-formatted USB thumb drive. No joke... FireWire FTW.
oh... and you're about 4 days late...: http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=82182