From what I've generally seen/used of docking stations, they're not really part of the lower end products spectrum, and even less common in the home market.
That's rather myopic. One of the primary products Apple sells that benefits from a nice docking station is Apple's
entry laptop offering (MBA 11").
Apple doesn't even participate in the lower end of the PC market spectrum.
Except that Apple farmed out the external peripherals business years ago...hence, we saw the LaCie and Promise boxes at the earliest intros.
A dubious point that is mostly misdirection. If peripheral storage vendors were the primary drivers behind TB which is it tightly couple to Display Proot. TB has the features it does
Do keep in mind that had they wanted to, they could have just as easily employed wireless for driving a USB2 port for a mouse, keyboard...and inkjet home printers are already going wireless.
Wireless GB Ethernet (present on display) and Firewire 800. Not.
So just which is USB then: proprietary or open? The answer lies with Sony's USB-based TB being orphaned: USB is controlled by a license.
Open has to do with standards by agreement and multiple implementers. Not whether there is a license or not. The licensing only has to do with using the official logos and trademarks. It also funds the infrastructure for moving the standards forward and testing.
Except that Linux isn't a hardware peripheral, but an OS.
If there was not peripherals to connect to ... why was it put in the OS? Or even more telling how do they finish if there is no hardware?
You're trying to stretch the ruler, but it still isn't going to fit,
No. I'm merely pointing out truth stretching. There were folks using USB 3.0 products months before where your ruler marking was.
The reaility is that the USB 3.0 roll-out is much different than TB is. Not the least is that USB 3.0 has several billion deployed products to deal with and TB is working off a blank slate.
Time will tell. Afterall, in 2007, we were told that USB3 would include fiber.
Rejected primarily on peripheral vendors stating it would drive the cable costs too high and slow adoption. $50 TB cable from a single vendor anyone? Lightpeak mutating after the hype into copper with transceivers TB (after having to remove the light from the system. ).
Given how the USB Board did choose to implement, we're going to be in for yet another round of "see, it is almost perfectly backwards compatible" sequences of claims. For bonus points, go locate today's USB3's mini plug not-backwards-compatible design nightmare of discontinuity.
The USB 3.0 cable is not suppose to fit in 2.0 only systems. Indeed we'll see what happens when TB does a large step in evolution. This whole notion that one physical socket implementation forever is loopy if going to upgrade the data stream over time.
Sure...if docking stations themselves weren't a niche
Laptops past desktops a while back. Slim, "socket dumping" laptops have been the hottest growth category over last 1-2 years. Ultrabooks just continues that trend into the sub $1000 category. You can waving niche around all you want. That's where the market is going. Far, far more than $800-1000 DAS boxes with TB connectors.
Sure, but it still has some core issues. Have they resolved their piggy overhead burden issues yet? Keep in mind that Firewire was something like 97% efficient, whereas USB2 struggled to get to IIRC 50%.
The overhead is decoupled from bandwidth. Still have the USB 2.0 background in place. However, as a percentage it is much lower. As low as FW? No. Low enough to be useful in a large number of contexts yes.
To some degree; doesn't mean that they're as good as what FW had a decade ago.
A current PC with USB 3.0 versus a decade old PC with FW 400 doing the same encoding? You think that is going to be competitive? I don't think so.
Which is pretty much what I was saying with their "bigger hammer" approach. Of course, the problem won't become evident until USB3 hubs become more mainstream.
No it isn't what you were saying. A FW200 or FW100 would have some isochronous problems in most contexts if strapped with limited bandwidth. It isn't magic. If you suck enough bandwidth no isochronous protocol no matter how efficient is going to work well if the arrival rate of the data capture is faster that the time windows the protocol can carve out.
80% of 5,000 Mbps ==> 3,750Mbps
97% of 800Mbps ==> 770Mbps
97% of 100Mbps ==> 97Mbps
That is not just bandwidth, it is in a whole difference class. There is an order of magnitude difference between both the 1st and 2nd as there is between the 2nd and the 3rd. Bickering about the 17% differences in efficiencies misses the pragmatic usefulness issues.
As for mainstream, what new model PC in the price ranges covered by Apple doesn't have USB 3.0 these days? Why would these "problems" not have manifested yet? There are hundreds of devices and dozens of PC computer models.
Read the printcopy on page 4: it appears that only their USB3 version fails to say that it supports both compressed & uncompressed video feeds.
If making a argument about specifications why on earth would I read page 4 when page 6 has the technical specifications.
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/techspecs/
Intenstity Shuttle does do uncompressed. It doesn't do uncompressed ProRes but that is likely much more coupled to the fact that Apple doesn't have a xHCI driver stack, USB 3.0 on their models , or support for either in FinalCutPro. It would be relatively shocking if it did given those missing pieces.
The only gap feature between the two is SPDIF Audio Output. The "Extreme" is just the PCI-e card wrapped in a box. So it is the same as the PCI-e card and breakout cables ... so not surprising they match up.
