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This would have been a much bigger deal two or three years ago (the HDMI vs Firewire part), now it just seems like a little too late.

All that is needed is to get Intel on board with using this new FW speed in their mainboards. It would get adopted a whole lot faster that way.

It's never to late to do a way with HDMI. Having used it, it's complete mess.

The key would be of course will be intelligent switching on the devices that use the new Firewire. Allowing any port to be in or out.
 
There isn't enough space in current generation iPods for a Firewire controller, it would also increase the price of the units. Just look at the thickness and cost of the third-generation iPod.

Firewire is dead in the water for iPods.

What are you talking about. The last Firewire iPods used the same dock connector as the USB version. The reason that the 3G iPod was thick was because of the hard disc and technology.
 
It's mean that if S3200 product is lunched MBP that has FW800 will use the S3200 product with full speed or we must wait Apple to change FW port on MBP first?
 
As has already been stated, like any of this matters. The disks that we jack into these FW3200 enclosures are crap anyway, so you won't get any faster transfer rates unless you have flash drives or a killer RAID setup. Move along.

True, individual disks will not see a gain in performance. However, multiple drives WILL because each disk will have more bandwidth available to it. Keep in mind, Macs only have one Firewire bus, regardless of how many ports are on it. I would kill for that much peripheral bandwidth because I have several external drives as well as a Firewire audio interface and digital effects processor (which uses so much bandwidth on its own, the recommend giving it its own separate bus!).

I can't wait until this spec starts appearing on PCIe cards. I will have a nergasm :D
 
THIS ROCKS!!!FIREWIRE finally a speed increase. Firewire was already kicking USB backside. But this will smash it in little bits. I love firewire. It's saved me countless times. Target diskmode is such a great feature.:D:D:D:D:D:D
 
It's never to late to do a way with HDMI. Having used it, it's complete mess.

The key would be of course will be intelligent switching on the devices that use the new Firewire. Allowing any port to be in or out.

I wonder if HDCP is supported over FW. Although I do believe 5C may be sufficient. Wiki says that 5C certificate has not been given to PC (or Macs) yet, so using FW all around may not give us any real (as computer users) benefits. Your average user doesn't even know that HDMI is convoluted.

The other thing that needs to be fixed is transporting data needs to be faster than realtime. I find it annoying to have to watch a tv show over again if I want to copy it off my DVR (using FW).
 
What are you talking about. The last Firewire iPods used the same dock connector as the USB version. The reason that the 3G iPod was thick was because of the hard disc and technology.

Actually, when :apple: removed the firewire controller from the inside of the iPod with the 5G's, :apple: claimed they were able to make the iPod even thinner. It had nothing to do with the external dock connector.

I can feel the speed difference syncing my 4G with FW vs USB2. I know when I buy a 160GB/Classic, it is going to take a very long time for the initial load up. Boooo.

Here's to hoping that the FW3200 controller would be nice and thin and could be reintroduced to the Classics! Yeah, I'll pop for the FW cable myself...
 
Sounds like this'll be just like USB 1.1/2.0. You can plug a 1.1 device into a 2.0 port (or a 2.0 device into a 1.1 port) and it'll go, just at the lower speed.

Someone said something about USB3 and it being 4.8 Gbps. Where'd you hear that? That's the 1st time I've heard of it.

I wonder how Firewire 3200, USB3 & SATA II will compare in real world. I know that while USB2 has a higher "theoretical" bandwidth, Firewire 400 is still tons faster.
 
Sounds like this'll be just like USB 1.1/2.0. You can plug a 1.1 device into a 2.0 port (or a 2.0 device into a 1.1 port) and it'll go, just at the lower speed.

Someone said something about USB3 and it being 4.8 Gbps. Where'd you hear that? That's the 1st time I've heard of it.

I wonder how Firewire 3200, USB3 & SATA II will compare in real world. I know that while USB2 has a higher "theoretical" bandwidth, Firewire 400 is still tons faster.

yeah, just like firewire 400/800 :p


http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=usb+3.0

;)
 
*raises hand*

That'd be me. I don't have an HDTV yet, but starting to shop around. What do I need to know about HDMI?

allow me!

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hdmi.htm

simple question, simple answer!
:)

I'd love to see a FireWire iPod again, but I agree that we most likely never will. I'm sure 90% of iPod users are on USB-only PCs. USB2 can be painfully slow (for what it's supposed to be), but once you do the initial loading, syncing a couple dozen new songs at any given point doesn't take but a minute or two.
 
Just when everyone was asking what happened to FW? This will be great for professional audio. Now incorporating this and PCIe into one of those new "ultra-portable" MB's, and I'll be set.
 
This is very interesting stuff. I would love to see Firewire come back to the iPod. As it becomes more than just a music player, it makes more and more sense. Plus with chip manufacturing shrinking, it should be easier to make firewire controller chips smaller.

And with flash memory sizes shrinking, real estate density problems inside small devices might be less of an issue than they were before. Look how small 2GB of flash on a micro SD card is... and that includes the plastic cover... even many times that size is still smaller than a 1.8" hard drive, or previous flash memory chips.

The Classic is the only one still working with moving hard drive platters, and as flash becomes cheaper and more plentiful, it will probably be going the way of portable hard drives, which are also going to flash technology. A faster connection with flash memory makes a lot of sense.

I would love to see a big-capacity flash-based ipod touch, in a dock, plugged into an HDTV with a FW3200 connection (no computer involved) and playing a movie, music, or picture show with a front-row like interface from the TV's remote, or from the multi-touch screen directly.

And with digital ccds coming down in price and up in quality, and memory becoming cheaper and more plentiful, I could see such a device also becoming a small pared-down flash-camcorder and still camera on an iPod Touch/iPhone future version. Not a professional grade piece, but still a convenient little addition. (they already combined the ipod with a cellphone, why not wrap a point&shoot camera/consumer-grade small camcorder like flip-video into it, too?)

Firewire would aid with that, as well. Connect it to a TV, and use the iPod's wifi connection to start a VOIP or Cellular connection for video-phone calls... The versatility could quite significantly increase with a nice solid, fast data connection like Firewire. ALL due to firewire's lack of reliance on a master controlling computer, and faster real-world transfer rates.

That, and the increasing ability for mac computer hardware to connect with more things, and do more things, like media-PC and DVR work, and high-speed, high-bandwidth peripherals, like high-capacity media devices, storage and backup, and video output.

I really hope that this helps Firewire make a phoenix-like return to the Mac platform in a big way, as well as the ipod.
 
While I love it that my iPod has FireWire, I think that iPods have no substance to this thread at all. Their hard drives are so slow even FW400 could handle multiple iPods at once!

FW800 was great for one hard drive some two years ago, but current hard drives would be faster than that so update is very welcome for those people wanting to use multiple fast hard drives simultaneously. E-SATA, anyone? Nah, I'd rather take the new FW instead.
 
Am I the only one in here who never liked the FW800 connector?
I never felt that it locked in very securely and would liked to have seen a better connector with the new spec. I know I know, we all like to keep connectors the same so current cables continue working and it helps keep the cost down, but the old connector never instilled me with much confidence that it was going to stay put.
 
But what about all the Windows users with nary a Firewire port? For that reason I doubt Apple will ever use Firewire with an iPod again.

Every Sony-manufactured Windows PC has a Firewire 400 port built in. (Except they use the i.Link moniker, and they usually omit the power supply pins to allow them to squeeze the port into a smaller connector.) A similar story goes for HP machines IIRC. Acer, too.

Firewire 800 ports are harder to come by on stock PCs unless you purchase an expansion card.

Actually, when removed the firewire controller from the inside of the iPod with the 5G's, claimed they were able to make the iPod even thinner. It had nothing to do with the external dock connector.
Unless I'm mistaken, the exact same pins for a Firewire power and data connection are still reserved on the newest generation of iPod dock connectors. It's just that there's no circuitry connected to the data pins. It is plausible (I don't know how probable, though) that they really do owe some of their recent miniaturization successes to the fact that they've omitted that circuitry.
 
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8130/4.3.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Goly cow! Maybe I should hold off on that new drive I was think of getting. To bad my imac has fw
 
It's miles better than FW400 connector, but I would still have liked a *locking* connector (even optional connector lock, even if most cables were without locks).

I'll agree that it was better than the FW400 4 pin connector. That one sucked hard, but the 6 pin felt about as secure to me as the FW800 one does.

If they really want to use this new spec on cameras and AV gear, then they might want to take a second look at how securely the connector locks into place.
 
Hopefully Apple will add S3200 (FireWire 3200) to ALL new Macs and not jut the top ones, as previously done with FireWire 800.

And yes, a FireWire iPod (whatever the speed) would be also great.
 
This is very interesting stuff. I would love to see Firewire come back to the iPod. As it becomes more than just a music player, it makes more and more sense. Plus with chip manufacturing shrinking, it should be easier to make firewire controller chips smaller.
Not going to happen. I can't see Apple reinstating something they removed like that. Unfortunate, but likely.

Every Sony-manufactured Windows PC has a Firewire 400 port built in. (Except they use the i.Link moniker, and they usually omit the power supply pins to allow them to squeeze the port into a smaller connector.) A similar story goes for HP machines IIRC. Acer, too.

.....but i.Link isn't technically FireWire. it was invented by Sony, along with the four pin port, specifically to avoid paying the royalties for the FireWire name. It's just very compatible ;)
 
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