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If you are not a pro user and you already have a miniDV camcorder that works but requires FW, what are you to do?

According to Steve Jobs, chuck the old, get a new sub par USB camera, and be a hap hap happy Apple customer.
 
One more time...

Really? Then what does this mean on the description page

if it's not usb to firewire??

The retractable part of the cable has USB female ends.

The interchangeable connectors that attach to the retractable cable all have a USB male connector on one end... So they can _connect_ to the cable.

It's just a physical connector. You still need to not be a moron and put the correct connectors on each end of the cable (FireWire to FireWire, Ethernet to Ethernet, USB to USB) in order to form an actual working cable for any specific purpose.

It's not a "magical unicorns and fairy dust" cable, it's just an "interchangeable ends" cable. So you can make a USB extension cable, or a USB device cable, or a USB to 5-pin mini cable, or an Ethernet cable, or a FireWire cable without lugging around all the actual "cables". You CANNOT make a USB to FireWire cable and expect it to do anything besides maybe fry your USB port.

Not magic. Not a solution. Just a piece of wire with some interchangeable connectors. If all those types of connections were truly interchangeable why would we have multiple types of ports on our computers in the first place?
 
USB was originally designed for lower data peripherals like mice, printers ( back when ), ... and added mainly a smaller universal connector and hot-pluggability. Of course, also some speed. However, the base technology isn't well for high bandwidth. This isn't overly technical but the reason USB ( 2.0 or otherwise ) is really unstable in performance is that it is a slave kind of technology. It uses the CPU and system bus to perform. FireWire chipsets do most of the work themselves and use very few CPU cycles and the rest of the system. That's also why FW devices can communicate with each other without a computer or computer-type of devices between them. The IEEE 1394 ( FireWire ) architecture is much more suitable for 3200Mbits than USB is.

Thank you for the explanation. I appreciate it. That very much lines up with my own personal experience. My camera is USB and the transfer rates are jerky, even when moving 100MB of data. It just stutters as it goes. My firewire HD is steady the whole way, even transferring very large chunks of data, it just moves along smoothly.

I know the two technologies are theoretically equal, but in common usage, there's a huge difference.
 
Good lord I spent a month researching to buy my car.

After sitting and reading the majority of posts here I had to add my 2cents worth... In relation to purchasing a notebook everyone I know will do as much research as possible. Buying a car and a computer are similar - you want to get the best value and make it last as long as possible. I generally don't spend a lot of time researching about new products only if it is something like gum... Walk into the store, yep grape today, buy it. Oh, wait I am in Singapore and we don't have gum here!

Anyway, it seems pretty clear that most people here are rather upset about Apple's decision. But surely there is some reason for it. Maybe a 13" MBP?
 
I wouldn't go that far. Because my Cube has no PCI slot, I bought a FireWire/UltraSCSI converter for my LTO drive. At 20 MB/s, it's slow and the tape cannot run continuously, but it's a last-resort solution.

So, it might be possible to packetize the FireWire protocol through gigabit ethernet, sucking up CPU power, and with my doubts about how it would perform for real-time stuff like capturing DV.

Don't be surprised if such a horrible solution costs around $100, and not the $5 or something an onboard port would cost. After all, that's about the price of my lame SCSI converter.

The solution would have such poor performance that no one in their right mind would choose such an adapter over simply buying a different computer in the first place. Besides which I don't think it's a performance issue. I think the two technologies operate in such a different way that it isn't possible to bridge the gap and create such a monster.

This is really the most amazingly bad decision I've ever seen Apple make.
 
Anyway, it seems pretty clear that most people here are rather upset about Apple's decision. But surely there is some reason for it. Maybe a 13" MBP?

Doubt it, they would have introduced that on Tuesday. The only logical reason I can come up with is to differentiate the MacBook and the MacBook Pro more, thus making FireWire users get the more expensive Pro.
 
I realise this product is only available now for Windows but maybe it could be developed to be used on a Mac.

http://www.pixela-1.com/captycable/system.htm

Did you read all the caveats for this product? It barely works on Windows XP, and that's the system the software was specifically written for.

Even if you electrically interconnect a FireWire device and a USB port on the computer there's just a lot more to it, because these are communication protocols not just electrical signaling. Sticking a cable between them is like giving a dictionary to an English speaker and a Mandarin speaker and expecting them to be able to converse without common rules of grammar and syntax. The software that comes with this cable tries to approximate that communication for Windows, but I'm sure there are major holes in what it can do.
 
Exactly. $400 gets you FireWire AND the two video cards. Not much considers the cost of FCPro and a DV camera....

You don't get it, do you? I have many FireWire drives and audio devices that will not work when my old MacBook with FireWire gives up. This is arrogant and simply terrible on Apple's part.

D
 
Doubt it, they would have introduced that on Tuesday. The only logical reason I can come up with is to differentiate the MacBook and the MacBook Pro more, thus making FireWire users get the more expensive Pro.

I agree but what I don't get is this. MB and MBP are different MB is smaller and has SMALLER LCD. How much more do you need to differentiate them 2?
 
The solution would have such poor performance that no one in their right mind would choose such an adapter over simply buying a different computer in the first place. Besides which I don't think it's a performance issue. I think the two technologies operate in such a different way that it isn't possible to bridge the gap and create such a monster.

This is really the most amazingly bad decision I've ever seen Apple make.

There was some product around (with Windows drivers, Mac "forthcoming") that was an Ethernet (100) to USB 2.0 hub, so it would give you a good speed boost over 1.1, even if it was impossible to reach even a quarter of the speed of 2.0. This was and still is the holy grail for Cube users, but because of the lack of drivers, there were only questions and nobody ever got one that I know of.

Of course, USB 2.0 didn't exist when the Cube was produced. The attitude to such a product is completely different, than the stupidity an ethernet/FireWire adapter for the MacBook would be.

BTW, I also have a USB to serial port adapter.
 
Photoshop fake email. How did this get to the front page??

I use gmail myself; it doesn't mis-align things like the "Subject:" label and the actual subject. It's as fake as fake gets!
 
How are USB cameras sub-par? Just curious

Many 'consumer users' have minidv camcorder which can transfer video via FW only. Doesn't matter what's better or not (FW versus USB). The fact is this forces people to either get new camcorder that transfers video versus USB OR buy MBP instead of MB.

bad bad.
 
I think we all have. And I still haven't seen any evidence that these online petitions work.

They may not work. The only time I have seen one kind of work was recently when a person from Minneapolis was trying to get a dog she adopted sent from Iraq to the US with her family, like many before have. Her dog is going out on Sunday. The petition itself did not do it, but media coverage picked up and a few people in the Legislature sent letters to the Army.

Taking on Apple or the US military... Odds seem rather even there.

In any extent. Even if it does nothing. It helps, when at the end of the day if it make someone feel they did something, then that is all that matters.
 
It did work last time.

The first MacBook Pros had no FireWire 800.

At least it's something concrete to show numbers.

Okay.

My biggest concern is that I don't want all of us FireWire users to sign the petition and think we have done enough. And was it really a petition that brought FireWire 800 to the MBP or was there additional efforts in the campaign?

I am not willing to give up FireWire. Steve Jobs will have to pry it from my cold dead fingers.
 
Enough already...

I think we all have. And I still haven't seen any evidence that these online petitions work.

Maybe if you use more italics every time you say that you'll end up with a valid point. Or maybe it doesn't hurt anybody to follow the link and sign the d**n petition along with doing everything else they can like writing emails and letters.

As I pointed out before the online petition is only online until the one who started the petition figures there are enough signatures to have it printed and send someone a 50-pound case of paper with unique signatures on each page. I'm pretty sure that if enough people sign it, it will make a difference. Why don't you give it a chance.
 
They are slower, and their content is compressed. True DV can only be used with FireWire.

This is a matter of some debate on DV forums that you produce as a fact. Have you seen the results of some of these sub-par cameras of which you speak? :rolleyes:
 
To get FireWire on the MacBook, you will first have to convince Apple that an Air without it is not acceptable.
 
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