Firewire 2 at MWNY

Kewl....... it'd be nice just to have previews of some of the technology that Apple are working on............

I can't wait to see what difference Firewire 2 is going to make to DV capturing and external HD transfer speeds in real world situations........

Imagine a nice 800mbps firewire raid! Right now for servers firewire is too slow to be considered a serious storage solution. I would seriously consider a firewire2 external raid that came with some serious options like raid 1 + 5.

Firewire 2 is going to rock! Firewire is already a better standard then either USB or USB 2, and now they are going to improve on that? Amazing. It will definitely be interesting exactly how it will perform.

Draft

Well our major computer manufacturer would obviously be none other than Apple.

As for the company in Japan my guess is Panasonic.

Wonder if Panasonic will be showing some high end camera with Firewire 2?

That would be something I would have to get then, being in the pro video field.
Hope it won't cost an arm and a leg.

Originally posted by synergy
As for the company in Japan my guess is Panasonic.

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My guess would be Sony...they've embraced "iLink"

Either way, FW2 sounds wonderful.

Originally posted by Eslyjah


My guess would be Sony...they've embraced "iLink"

Either way, FW2 sounds wonderful.

Click to expand...

The consumer electronic seems hard to guess. It could be anything really, but I lean towards some kind of camera too. Panasonic has some serious HD options. Meanwhile, Sony is droppinf platform specific tapes all over theplace, so I don't know about them. Sony's still a major player, but i don't like there policy.

Oh, well, I'll wait for the Canons anyway. The Xl-1s is about ready for a rev, and firewire 2 might be the ticket. Now if we can get the sockets into a TiBook that also has a super drive, maybe a 160 HD, then were talking mobile pro, fully realtime edited live broadcasting, the world changes, everyone smiles

Apple rolls its own silicon

Apple makes its own motherboard support chips to implement I/O. So its possible the eBay "red" motherboard had a custom controller which included early FireWire 2 support.

Once the spec is "set" a simple update of the custom chip with new logic could be burned and tested. This may have been what held up the release of the new I/O mobo earlier this year, too much added too soon to ship a reliable product.

The chip is essentially programmed to "speak" FireWire 2 among other things. Custom chips that implement just FireWire in silicon are not programable custom chips like Apple is using to build or even just to test new motherboards.

Once your custom programming is set you can have millions manufactured with that programming burned in to the chip direct from the fab.

If you notice there are suddenly G4 upgrades from two sources even though Apple is using them in 5 separate products. And there are deep discounts on remaining inventory. The current G4 probably stopped production a few months ago.

There is definately a new desktop G4 coming next month, most likely with FireWire 2 and a few other speed boosts (look at the Xserve for clues).

I can't wait to FW 2, it will help so much in digital video. I hope manufacturers begin making FW 2 compatible cameras and devices. I heard that the iPod has some kind of FW 2 buit into it? Or am I just dreaming?

I'm just curious as to how FW2 will help DV. Do DV cameras tax the firewire bus? I was under the impression that DV was 3MB/s, so the current bus should be fine.

Am I misinformed?

DV cameras use up a fair portion of the bus...but not all.

FW2 will see the most gains in the storage arena (Hard drives, RAID, etc.).

I wonder if it will be a software update, instead of a hardware update?

If this is the case, I could use my iPod and external HDD @ 800mps!!!

Probably not huh?

xrhajj

Not exactly. The speed of the bus itself will be faster, however you're still limited by actual drive speed on both your iPod and external firewire drive.

Now, if you get a firewire2 RAID setup going with some seriously fast ata drives then you'll see some speed. Right now firewire tops out at 50MB/s, but firewire2 should hit 100MB/s.

Originally posted by rugby
Now, if you get a firewire2 RAID setup going with some seriously fast ata drives then you'll see some speed. Right now firewire tops out at 50MB/s, but firewire2 should hit 100MB/s.

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I saw a firewire RAID system that got 100MB/s already. That should mean that firewire2 would get 200MB/s. The only thing is, if it's gona be refered to as gigawire, then why would it only get 800MB/s?

Beating USB2...

With the advent of USB2 ready to go full-force...Apple needs to get out ahead of the hype. Right now, all the talk about USB2 is that it is faster than Firewire. Apple needs to kill that "benefit" as soon as possible, before consumer consciousness kicks in.

As it stands, USB2 will make huge inroads primarily because of licensing agreements with Intel. It costs manufacturers less to implement USB2 than it does to implement FireWire. Not a lot less ($10) but enough to make a difference.

So, it makes sense that Apple will show it off at MWNY. In fact, I think it's vital that they do so if at all possible. And, it should be implemented sometime prior to the end of the year. USB2 is scheduled to be everywhere by xmas.

That article is a bunch of hooey.

Any simple test shows that FireWire 1.0 destroys USB2.0.

It's just plain Apple hating. They are looking for any excuse to dump FireWire simply because it is an Apple technology.

Can you provide a link? Firewire is 400mbps which translates to 50MB/sec. Unless they're using dual busses for the raid it will max out at 50MB/sec.

Originally posted by DavPeanut


I saw a firewire RAID system that got 100MB/s already. That should mean that firewire2 would get 200MB/s. The only thing is, if it's gona be refered to as gigawire, then why would it only get 800MB/s?

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Originally posted by Tue12
That article is a bunch of hooey.

Any simple test shows that FireWire 1.0 destroys USB2.0.

It's just plain Apple hating. They are looking for any excuse to dump FireWire simply because it is an Apple technology.

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Well, I dont know about that. USB2.0 is faster than WireWire, at least for the moment. Most of the articals that I have read on the subject talk about how great USB1.1 is and how vastly diffrent FireWire is from USB. Then they talk about how USB2.0 may befast but its, toolate, toolittle, too slow. FireWire has dug in foxholes in the DV world and there is just no need for a USB2.0 intelli mouse. FireWire 2.0 is just arround the corrner and will crush USB2.0. If USB2.0 gets cheep enuph, we might just see the replacement of USB1.1. But FireWire will rule the DV world.

let's see

Originally posted by evildead



Well, I dont know about that. USB2.0 is faster than WireWire, at least for the moment. Most of the articals that I have read on the subject talk about how great USB1.1 is and how vastly diffrent FireWire is from USB. Then they talk about how USB2.0 may befast but its, toolate, toolittle, too slow. FireWire has dug in foxholes in the DV world and there is just no need for a USB2.0 intelli mouse. FireWire 2.0 is just arround the corrner and will crush USB2.0. If USB2.0 gets cheep enuph, we might just see the replacement of USB1.1. But FireWire will rule the DV world.

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OK, I'm working from memory here, so don't flame me too badly, but I read a litany of articles around the time USB2.0 was first announced by Intel (they announced it way early, years ago, to counteract the growing popularity of FirwWire. Now, there may have been technical hurdles that they crossed with USB2.0 since then, but at the time, as I recall...

...people were saying that while it's true USB2.0 had a theoretical maximum throughput greater than that of FireWire1 (480 to 400), in the real world USB2.0 would rarely perform better than FireWire, because the device chain is polluted with all of these backward-compatible USB1.0 devices which would lower the overall speed of the bus back to the USB1.0 speed limit.

Can anyone confirm if this is still true? (That if you have a USB1 device attached to a USB2 chain, your USB2 devices operate at USB1 speed?)

Also, I remember reading that when you have non-powered devices connected to a USB chain, it degrades the performance of the entire chain.

The end result of all this was that DV cameras and external hard drives would perform much more inconsistently on USB2.0, whereas FireWire1 is a much more stable bus.

Remember, that was all from memory, so my facts may be wrong.

Of course, if Apple makes available FireWire2, this becomes a non-issue anyway.

FW 2 will NOT bring around changes to DV. DV is a set standard w/a data rate of 3.6MB/s. End of story. You can't just "up" the data rate of DV w/o changing the standard and making everything that uses the "old" standard incompatible w/the "new" standard. As far as HD, FW2 does not have the bandwidth to handle full blown, uncompressed HD. FW2 might be able to give, lets say, DigiBeta another digital out option... I dunno though 'cause I don't know what DigiBeta's data rate is. FW2 might also give people an affordable way to "off-line" their HD projects ("off-line" is like the video version of "draft" quality and "on-line" is working w/everything at full res for final output to tape, DVD, etc.)

Hopefully w/FW2 we'll also see some better enclosure chipsets so that we can have faster FW HDDs.

Lethal

Originally posted by rugby
Can you provide a link? Firewire is 400mbps which translates to 50MB/sec. Unless they're using dual busses for the raid it will max out at 50MB/sec.

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o, opps, your right about that. It was dual busses

Why don' they...

As I batch capture an hour of video off my GL1, I have to wonder why someone couldn't come up with a faster MiniDV deck that would transfer the data at 2x or 4x speed. I mean, it's just 1's and 0's , and the current FireWire bus has plenty of headroom for that kind of speed.
Can anyone out there think of any technical reasons why they couldn't do this?

Re: Why don' they...

Originally posted by eric_n_dfw
As I batch capture an hour of video off my GL1, I have to wonder why someone couldn't come up with a faster MiniDV deck that would transfer the data at 2x or 4x speed. I mean, it's just 1's and 0's , and the current FireWire bus has plenty of headroom for that kind of speed.
Can anyone out there think of any technical reasons why they couldn't do this?

Click to expand...

The only thing I can think of is that they have not found a reliable way to transfer at more than 1x because of the current heads in the cameras/decks.

Also, who knows how much "hi speed dubbing" abuse the tape can take before it starts to breakdown. And we all know how well... ahem... digital things handle a break/loss in the data.


Lethal

firewire 2 & usb 2

Panasonic will be releasing a new DVC PRO deck with firewire 2. It will play Mini DV, DVC Pro 25 and DVC Pro 50. MINI DV and DVC PRO 25 both are 4:1:1 video that works just fine with Firewire 1. DVC PRO 50, Digi Beta and JVC's pro digital format with 4:2:2 requires a greater bandwidth. Currently it requires a $4,000 plus video capture board to digitize the footage into Final Cut Pro. and if it's AVID it's $60,000 plus. The good news is Firewire 2 provides the perfect bandwidth for 4:2:2. This means the video pro's won't need an expensive board to capture 4:2:2 video. As the processer and bus speeds start picking up these Firewire 2 editors will also be able to do several layers of video effects in real time without the expensive board. Just one i/o and a fast processor. The software does the rest. Just the way Jobs has been planning it all along.

Digital HUB? Right now you can go down to your friendly local toy outlet and buy a HDTV with Firewire for around $3,000. Yes, that is "APPLE" 1394 Firewire no less! Yes the new DVD players, VCR's and so forth will all be using Firewire. That includes all the great pro speakers powered and fed with just one little 6 pin firewire cable from the amps. No more messy rats nests behind your toys. One wire does it all! Not USB 1, not "dead before it was born" USB 2, but Firewire - Apple Firewire - just like Mr. Jobs planned it.)

What about HD? Apple and Panasonic are now working on a Firewire approach that will provide the bandwidth for HD. It will be a reality at some point in time. That means us little boys with nothing more to do with our time but rant on this site will be able to digitize HD without buying a $10,000+ cinewave board or expensive scsi raids. (Of course none of us will be able to afford the $50,000 video deck to digitize or the storytelling skills a pro editor needs, but hey, we will all have the computers to do it!)

One other note. Put all this together with all the major film & DVD production software Apple has purchased over the past few years. . . Macromedia's Final Cut Pro, Astarte DVD Authoring (that became DVD Studio Pro), Spruce DVD Authoring, Nothing is Real/Shake and on and on and on. DO WE GET THE PICTURE WERE THIS IS ALL GOING? Where is the HUB that brings this all together? Well it ain't Windoze or "dead before it was born" USB 2 folks!