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Firewire Specification Approved For Speeds Up To 3.2 Gigabits/sec

speakerwizard said:
hhhmm, so isnt this pointless unless you have an sas drive? those speeds are faster than a 7200 HD arnt they?
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Not really, for two reasons.

The first part is that the technology in conventional 7200rpm 3.5" HD's have been bumping up against the bandwidth limitations of SATA-I for awhile, particularly for peak I/O bursts. What they've been doing to compensate is to use larger buffers, which lets them 'spread out' the peak I/O burst and results in a higher total bandwidth utilization.

The second part in a single word is "RAID". When you have multiple spindles on the same I/O port, you get more data throughput and thus, the ability to go well above SATA-I bandwidth (particularly for peak I/O).

Bottom line is that a jump from FW800 to FW3200 is a good thing.


-hh
 
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Man that is fast. I'm looking forward to seeing these in new macs very soon.
 
If I am not mistaken, the current implementation in the MB and MBP of Firewire is a controller hanging off the PCI bus. Since PCI offers 133MB/s and even Firewire 800 is only 100MB/s this isn't a problem. However, anything faster will require a PCIe implementation. So it'll require a new chip.

USB3.0 probably won't happen anytime soon since there is some type of disagreement right now with Intel withholding information on the standard and other chipset makers like nVidia and AMD threatening to invent their own controllers. Which means USB3.0 may not be much of a standard since there may be compatibility issues. I believe this was the case with USB1.0 also until they settled on USB1.1. USB2.0 was agreed upon by all sides so it never had this issue.

In terms of eSATA, some ASUS laptops have a hybrid USB/eSATA port. A single port that can handle either connector. Apple should implement this in order to add eSATA without sacrificing other ports. Although it's probably more fragile.
 
kornyboy said:
Man that is fast. I'm looking forward to seeing these in new macs very soon.
Click to expand...

That's technology for ya though - just look at wireless speeds the past couple years. I remember my good old 14K dial-up modem along with serial and parallel pots on my computer and that doesn;t seem like that long ago. ;)
 
bdkennedy1 said:
In my opinion I hope Apple doesn't adopt this.

USB 3 is about to be released with speeds up to 3gbps and it's backward compatible using the same connector...
Click to expand...


Ummm....you might want to go read the fine print on that USB-3 specification a bit more closely...


What you'll find is that you can hook a conventional USB cable into a USB3 device, but if you do so, you'll only get USB2 speeds (at best).

The tap-dance that they did with USB3 is that the protocol uses both copper wires and glass fiber. When running in USB3 mode, its the fiber that carries the bulk of the data. As such, all items in your USB chain have to be upgraded to USB3 hardware in order to get the performance: this includes the host, the peripheral, ALL CABLES and even ALL HUBS. In other words, a USB3 PC, with a USB3 peripheral, using a USB3 hub and a USB3 cable between the PC and hub ... but a standard USB2 cable between the hub an peripheral...runs at only USB2 speeds. Good luck troubleshooting that one!

What makes FW3200 different is that it absolutely does not need new cables. As such, it is impossible for you to hook something up and get 1/10the speed because you used a cable that fit, even though it was the "wrong one".

Changing a cable's wiring and not changing the interface plug is a huge mistake in Human Factors Engineering...its an accident waiting to happen.


-hh
 
Peace said:
Wonder if the new MBP gets this new speed. That would be nice.
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Not if they come out in September, as rumored. The new Firewire won't be ready until October.

thecartoonguy said:
I'm sorry I just don't get the "I WANT BLU RAY" chant. There are not many movies in this format yet, the pricing is still too high and a 13 screen is not the best viewing real estate. I could see the 17 or 30" on a desktop but honestly on a 13" laptop? Let's not forget the power drain.
Sorry I'm dealing a cold from the 7th level of hell.
Click to expand...

There are actually a number of Blu-Ray movies out. Taking a look at Amazon.com, I can find numerous titles equal in price or even below the price of the same movies on DVD (and this is not taking into account the buy 2, get 1 free deal that they often promote.)

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=Blu-ray&x=0&y=0
 
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Yh but isn't USB 3.0 using a 4.8GHz transfer rate? Although they lose a lot more bandwidth in the real world compared to FW, it would still be faster if this were true.

I also heard that they are already trying to improve on Fw 3200 to a 6.4GHz transfer rate, but this was a few months ago on wikipedia.
 
speakerwizard said:
hhhmm, so isnt this pointless unless you have an sas drive? those speeds are faster than a 7200 HD arnt they?
Click to expand...

I think this will be good for connecting a RAID device. A RAID can be much fater than a single disk drive. And then Firewire might be use to move high definition video data from a high-end camera and then there are firewire scanners and even audio device with 24 tracks.
and then, when you conect the video camera and write the data to an external RAID the data makes two trips over the same cable camera->computer, computer->raid and whit if you want to edit or simply web surf while the data is downloading? You need an interface that is 4 to 5 times faster than the disk or camera.
 
Well, it's good to see them keeping firewire alive. USB is great and fast, but Firerwire has that guwaranteed bandwidth that makes it ideal for audio/video.

At the same time, I think firewire is overkill for external hard drives. Tiger was crippled in terms of USB bandwidth but in Leopard, it's just as fast as USB 2.0. This Seagate drive I got on my Mac Mini is only connected via firewire because all the USB ports are taken.
 
Unfortunately FW has been relegated to the Mac crowd because of the slow adoption of it in the PC market. Just like everything else, they don't seem to understand when something is BETTER for them. Even the fact that the iPod/iPhone lineup for the last 2-3 years has been strictly USB based is a bummer.

I would love to see a return to the glory of FW where your camcorders, digital cameras, external HDDs, scanners, printers and such can all run off of one cable for data and power and have near instantaneous transfer rates to your Mac.

"Oh look at this.... I have a 65 minute HD video on my HD camcorder I want to bring into Final Cut Pro... This is going to take forever.... But wait I have FW 3200! Let me just connect the cables and then click... ummmm.... the video files are already in Final Cut Pro.... that was fast!"
 
Axemantitan said:
Not if they come out in September, as rumored. The new Firewire won't be ready until October.



There are actually a number of Blu-Ray movies out. Taking a look at Amazon.com, I can find numerous titles equal in price or even below the price of the same movies on DVD (and this is not taking into account the buy 2, get 1 free deal that they often promote.)

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=Blu-ray&x=0&y=0
Click to expand...

Well, Macs can't handle Blu-Ray software wise. Quicktime and VLC player just drop too many frames and that's on a current mid-level iMac. So basically you could only watch it in boot camp...
 
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Burn Them Tires w/Firewire

I use firewire primarily because it even sounds like it's faster than USB.
 
thecartoonguy said:
I'm sorry I just don't get the "I WANT BLU RAY" chant. There are not many movies in this format yet, the pricing is still too high and a 13 screen is not the best viewing real estate. I could see the 17 or 30" on a desktop but honestly on a 13" laptop? Let's not forget the power drain.
Sorry I'm dealing a cold from the 7th level of hell.
Click to expand...


And I don't understand why people don't understand the Blu-Ray chant - for people who for example buy the Hi-Res 17" MacBook Pro with real HD 1900x1200 resolution and like to watch movies on their notebook (while travelling or also at home) it makes a BIG viewing difference if they borrow/buy the normal DVD or the Blu-Ray-version. It' just much more nicer and more Blu-Ray movies are released every day ...

No offence to you - I know you have pointed this out yourself and were speaking about 13" use ... I just to make a point clear because I read this stupid "Who would watch Blu-Ray on a notebook anyway?" argument so often here ...
 
If apple would use this firewire for the iPhone maybe we wouldn't be waiting so long on the back-up/sync process. I know, i'm dreaming aren't I.
 
KindredMAC said:
"Oh look at this.... I have a 65 minute HD video on my HD camcorder I want to bring into Final Cut Pro... This is going to take forever.... But wait I have FW 3200! Let me just connect the cables and then click... ummmm.... the video files are already in Final Cut Pro.... that was fast!"
Click to expand...

Well, the thing is that your camcorder momery (be it HDD or flash) is likely to be slower than you're computer hard drive. So you won't get a speed gain here. Most HD camcorders can't record the sensor's native data because the bandwidth would be just way too high. So they do compression on the fly and it looks terrible if you move/pan the camera.

I'd love a camcorder that takes 2 SDHC cards in RAID 0 mode. That would give you reasonable bandwith for H264 compressed HD. I tried the Sanyo HD1000 for a while. The 1080i mode is useless because of the low bandwidth (and... well... interlaced), but 720p with 60 fps looks stunning. Except when you pan, than it's block-time. They've updated the compression on the next model but I guess they didn't improve on the auto-focus and the narrow view angle so I won't try it.


Anyway, back to topic: Firewire 800 is barely used today and it's been out for a while. So expect this new firewire to appear only on professional expensive gear which tends to have its proprietary connection (PCI card) anyway...
 
thecartoonguy said:
I'm sorry I just don't get the "I WANT BLU RAY" chant. There are not many movies in this format yet, the pricing is still too high and a 13 screen is not the best viewing real estate. I could see the 17 or 30" on a desktop but honestly on a 13" laptop? Let's not forget the power drain.
Click to expand...

What's not to get? It's not something YOU want. Other people want it. End of story.

People are buying the TVs and the disc players - why shouldn't they have the option to play those movies on their computers as well, particularly if it's an optional addition? Let's say I buy a movie on bluray to watch at home on my TV - how am I supposed to watch it on my computer? Or am I expected to buy a second copy on DVD just for that?

And who's to say that people only want it on laptops?

MrCrowbar said:
Well, Macs can't handle Blu-Ray software wise. Quicktime and VLC player just drop too many frames and that's on a current mid-level iMac. So basically you could only watch it in boot camp...
Click to expand...

Well, that's one of the things apple needs to fix.
 
parham55 said:
If apple would use this firewire for the iPhone maybe we wouldn't be waiting so long on the back-up/sync process. I know, i'm dreaming aren't I.
Click to expand...

the 3rd Gen iPod nanos are far worse. Seriously, takes ages to finally disconnect. iPhone is instant in comparison.
 
MrCrowbar said:
Well, Macs can't handle Blu-Ray software wise. Quicktime and VLC player just drop too many frames and that's on a current mid-level iMac. So basically you could only watch it in boot camp...
Click to expand...
I believe that is because drivers in OS X don't currently support h.264 acceleration from the GPU and/or Quicktime and VLC aren't programmed to utilize that acceleration. In Windows, I know PowerDVD keeps releasing updates every month to improve support for ATI, nVidia or Intel's hardware acceleration.

But this problem should be corrected in Snow Leopard if not before. The next major Quicktime (Quicktime X I believe) release is supposed to incorporate better support for GPU video acceleration, and with OpenCL, it will probably accelerate encoding too, not just decoding.
 
MrCrowbar said:
Well, Macs can't handle Blu-Ray software wise. Quicktime and VLC player just drop too many frames and that's on a current mid-level iMac. So basically you could only watch it in boot camp...
Click to expand...

Hmm, I don't buy this. Blu-Ray uses h.264 MPEG4 encoding ... which is the technology first widely used by Apple in iTunes. The AppleTV handles high-def h.264 quite well.

Are you telling me windows is better at playing Apple's favorite video format than OS X? I think the bottleneck at the moment is the device drivers for your blu-ray drive, which aren't Apple's.
 
wonderfull news!

I've bought a quadra interface Lacie external (750GB) and I only use the FW800 because it is really fast, and I've tested all the interfaces (a part from the eSata, which is the fastest but I havem't got the interface on my PM...).

Having such a big speed with firewire would be great!!!

The poster that points to the USB3, if it is as slow (in comparison) to USB2 (at least on the macs), then thanks but no thanks...

OT: Blu-ray IMHO is more than movies. If I had a blu-ray drive it would be for backup/archive purposes...
 
Just for the record, the key difference between USB and Firewire is that USB sends data at irregular rates while Firewire maintains a more consistent data rate. This is one of the reasons it is used for music production; inconsistent rates equal greater latency at some points and less at others, which doesn't translate well into metered music.
 
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