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USB 3.0 and Faster FireWire in Next Mac Pro, iMac?

The disgust with Blu-Ray has nothing to do with quality. This is a common mistake.

MacClassic said:
I get the feeling that Blu-ray haters have never actually seen a good Blu-ray disc or heard an uncompressed sound track.
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Actually many if us have but honestly that has nothing to do with the hate for Blu-Ray. The hate can be summed up in a few items below:

1.
Expensive players.
2.
Very very expensive media. I enjoy a good movie at a fair price but I don't want to single handily support the drug habits of every hollywood star.
3.
The required encryption is overbearing and has a negative impact on the reliability of the PC the software runs on.
4.
Sure the audio is great but my hearing isn't.
5.
Voting for Blu-Ray is giving you approval for radical copyright holders. The encryption is such that the works may never end up in the public domain. In essence by supporting BluRay you are bastardizing 200 years of what was reasonable copyright law.
6.
Being able to make personal copies of a file should not be a crime and should not be difficult.

It is not the quality of the movies that is horrible, it is everything else associated with Blu-Ray. By buying Blu-Ray you undermine some of the fundamental freedoms and rights we have had for years as Americans.
My blu-ray has all that netflix stuff build in but I'll never use it as long as I can get the disc. No comparison between DVD and Blu-ray- not even close.
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And frankly no one cares! It isn't the movies that are the problem.
I tried to the whole download thing once and it too is of no comparison. If you are semi serious about quality, this argument would be moot.
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The big concern is people like you that have had the wool pulled over their eyes. You go gaga over the movie quality while the studios and associations hope you don't notice how the copyright law has been perverted in the last few years by big business.

People whine about Apples iPhone app store but then role over backwards for the Blu-Ray mafia. What the Blu-Ray folks are doing is many times worst and in the long run a far graver concern.


Dave
 
tbrinkma said:
....
USB became more common because the control chips are 'dumber', and therefore less expensive. USB 3.0 will be competitive with Firewire 1600 in theory, but will actually only be competitive in practice with FireWire 800 (which was released in 2000).
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Errr. Benchmarks are slowing rolling out but here are two that show that is really not the case. USB 3.0 is a step past FW800.

A benchmark showing a SSD drive getting 190 MB/s throughput on a USB 3.0 bus

http://techgage.com/article/ocz_enyo_128gb_usb_30_portable_ssd/2

Another benchmark showing USB 3.0 going head to head with FW800

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/...sb-3-0-and-firewire-800-upgrade-cable-review/


In the first case, there is no way FW800 is going to go 190MB/s . Even under perfect conditions will top out under 100MB/s . If you put a device that wants to go over 100MB/s on a FW800 bus and you will be throttling throughput. That's one reason eSATA pops up on lots of PCs. The max theoretical bandwidth is 300MB/s and can certainly get 200MB/s even with protocol overhead. USB 3.0 is competing with eSATA , not FW800. In the pure performance to peripherals market, FW800 has been relegated to second place for a couple years now.

Also note that FW1600 could barely manage the 190MB/s either with protocol and real work overhead.


The second benchmark is more indicative of what happens when put a slower drive onto the bus. The differences don't matter as much, but USB 3.0 is still faster. For the moment FW800 is a bit more $/performance competitive with "slower" bandwidth problems because is a mature (5+ years old ) tech versus a relatively brand new one. (example the FW800 connector in face off story is cheaper) However, that should come down relatively quickly over the next year (pragmatically only a few viable USB 3.0 solutions on the market right now. Multiple implementors and volume will quickly drop the costs.).


There are even hard drive that can push out data at over 100MB/s if put the data in larger sequential blocks. (e.g., http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_caviar_green_2tb_review_wd20ears) However, you will need an SSD drive ( SATA 6.0 capable preferably) to really test the top end of USB 3.0 whereas you don't for FW800.

USB 3.0 has a marginal CPU overhead increase so can hit these speeds at pretty much the same CPU overhead you have going to have running USB 2.0 (which you have to anyway).

There are a small set of things that USB 3.0 doesn't do that FW800 does. Bandwidth speed is not one of those.


There are already USB 3.0 devices in the over space where need over 100MB/s space that are out. For example moving around uncompressed HD video.

Intensity USB 3.0
http://news.creativecow.net/story/863747
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/
 
This is good news - Firewire S3200, that is. Although why it wasn't rolled out 3 years ago, i'm really not too sure. For those who don't like FW, or aren't really sure what it's for, there's a wealth of info on these forums about just how useful it is for certain things. (tbrinkma's earlier post for starters). It's worth having for Target Disk Mode alone. My understanding is that it will use the same sockets and cabling as FW800 and be fully backward compatible. (Unlike USB3 btw).

I very much hope this will signal that FW3200 will be added to all new macs. Contrary to casual observation it should be a substantially faster than USB3, with lower CPU overhead and latency, hence much better for audio and video. In time LightPeak may replace both, but not for a while yet.

As to Blu-Ray (now the main focus of this thread), i can see both sides. Personally i'm not that fussed. I have no intention of investing in it, and hearing from my friends who have, i'm a little alarmed by the reliability issues. I certainly wouldn't want to use it for backup purposes as some here are suggesting.

On the other hand, it's the only viable 1080P format for many people and will be for some time. It's got a much greater capacity than DVDs and would clearly be very useful for many media professionals working on the Mac.

Clearly Apple are in a bit of a conundrum with Blu-Ray. They are facing a situation of growing consumer dissatisfaction (as witnessed on this thread), but they've backed a different horse. They don't want to undermine their own business (and pay for the privilege) whilst helping the furtherance of a format they would like to see fail. More than this though, Blu-Ray would impose design restrictions on the architecture and protocols of future Macs if fully supported. For a design-led company like Apple, this is a bitter pill to swallow. They seem to be hoping Blu-Ray will just go away. This doesn't look likely to happen, although conversely the format is not the runaway success it's backers would have us believe. In time some kind of compromise with Sony seems the most likely outcome. You'll get your Blu-Ray Mac, but you'll probably have to wait a bit. (By then maybe the media will be affordable.)
 
rkw0211 said:
Macs not having a Blu-Ray option while $500 PC's do, is unacceptable, it's like your $40,000 BMW not having a GPS option while your nephew's $20,000 Honda Civic does.
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EXACTLY! My $53,000 BMW does NOT have GPS, but many $20,000 Hondas DO. There's a reason I prefer the BMW :)
Those that constantly compare specs specs specs just don't get Mac! I say go buy your bargain PCs and Hondas and quit hating on those that prefer quality.:D
 
cosmonaut23 said:
This is good news - Firewire S3200, that is. Although why it wasn't rolled out 3 years ago, i'm really not too sure.
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That would be tough since the S3200 didn't get pragmatically nailed down till very late 2008.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=4659233

In other words, the standard framework described in 2002 didn't really work right for levels above 800.




I very much hope this will signal that FW3200 will be added to all new macs.
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One of the major problems that FW3000 would face is that it isn't going in the core support chipset. If FW3000 , Lightpeak, and USB 3.0 all require discrete chips connected on PCI-e 2.0 lanes then there is limited board space in all of the Mac products. There is going to be a contest of musical chairs because Apple isn't going to have room to seat all. ( Mac Pro too even though conceptually could move to extra big motherboard ... probably won't. )


USB 3.0 will eventually go into the core support chipset, but right now it is competing for the spot that FW800 is sitting in now. Much more likely that if Lightpeak and USB 3.0 came to the "musical chairs session" they'd bump FW out.

I can see Apple going USB 3.0 discrete now (with a FW bump) and then bumping USB 3.0 when Lightpeak is ready to go and the USB moves on board the core chipset.





Contrary to casual observation it should be a substantially faster than USB3, with lower CPU overhead and latency, hence much better for audio and video.
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Take a gander at Figure 5 in this article.

http://www.ptgrey.com/news/pressreleases/details.asp?articleID=353


Point Grey was the same peripheral vendor that was part of the Dap press release about FW3200. This article is a couple months after that.

USB 3.0 is a different "engine" than USB 2.0. The USB 2.0 overhead is going to be present on your computer whether you have USB 3.0 on it or not. The additional CPU overhead for 3.0 did not increase at same levels as increase in speed.





In time LightPeak may replace both, but not for a while yet.
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LightPeak isn't an audio/video panacea either. it makes for great demos, but where is the need for 5Gb/s video ? Uncompressed 1080p HD is in the sub 180MB/s range. eSATA can handle that. It makes a great "standard" interface for the return of the equivalent of the Apple Display Connector where primarily just reducing the number of cables and not really enabling any new bandwidth.



LightPeak's "over capacity" bandwidth is great for shutttling around legacy protocols as a data stream while not introducing any new latency/bandwidth restrictions that were not already present. That's it.
 
deconstruct60 said:
LightPeak isn't an audio/video panacea either. it makes for great demos, but where is the need for 5Gb/s video ? Uncompressed 1080p HD is in the sub 180MB/s range. eSATA can handle that. It makes a great "standard" interface for the return of the equivalent of the Apple Display Connector where primarily just reducing the number of cables and not really enabling any new bandwidth.



LightPeak's "over capacity" bandwidth is great for shutttling around legacy protocols as a data stream while not introducing any new latency/bandwidth restrictions that were not already present. That's it.
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The next thing going to be shoved onto us is 1440P, phillips 21:9 ratio thingy and 3D, 3D by default needs twice the normal bandwidth of 2D and 1440P is a lot of extra pixels.
 
deconstruct60 said:
Take a gander at Figure 5 in this article.

http://www.ptgrey.com/news/pressreleases/details.asp?articleID=353
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Figure 5 looks like it was drawn with a felt tip. Detailed benchmarks on S3200 aren't really available yet, but given the superiority of the P2P architecture for bandwidth, the proven performance benefits of existing FW implementations and the woefully disappointing figures for USB 3.0 tests thus far, i would stand by what i said. (FW 3200 will be a fair bit quicker)

As to your other points: mostly valid, but the "musical chairs" are unlikely to happen any time soon. LightPeak is an ambitious project and it's going to take much longer than Intel says. You clearly don't have a lot of use for Firewire, but lots of us do, and i'm very glad to see that it's going to get a new lease of life. (Hopefully.)
 
deconstruct60 said:
LightPeak isn't an audio/video panacea either. it makes for great demos, but where is the need for 5Gb/s video ? Uncompressed 1080p HD is in the sub 180MB/s range. eSATA can handle that. It makes a great "standard" interface for the return of the equivalent of the Apple Display Connector where primarily just reducing the number of cables and not really enabling any new bandwidth.


LightPeak's "over capacity" bandwidth is great for shutttling around legacy protocols as a data stream while not introducing any new latency/bandwidth restrictions that were not already present. That's it.
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You'll appreciate the extra bandwidth when you drive your 2560x1600 display, update you iPod, copy data at 600MB/s from a RAID, and capture full HD from a camcorder, all simultaneously over the same cable.

As an added benefit, all cables will be interchangeable, so the same cable used to connect an external HD will work to connect a second monitor.
 
I just bought an imac at start of this month It will do me for another 3 years until my warranty ends. Just wondering if apple will continue to support usb 2.0 in the following years should this rumor see the light of day.
 
deconstruct60 said:
LightPeak isn't an audio/video panacea either. it makes for great demos, but where is the need for 5Gb/s video ? Uncompressed 1080p HD is in the sub 180MB/s range. eSATA can handle that. It makes a great "standard" interface for the return of the equivalent of the Apple Display Connector where primarily just reducing the number of cables and not really enabling any new bandwidth.
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One stream maybe, but not multiple streams of uncompressed 1080p DVCPRO, and especially not those HD streams in Final Cut Pro.

Let's not forget 4K.

The middle of the line editor (where I don't even stand) needs to fill their RAID card with 4x 4 or 5 bay HDDs in RAID to handle some of the stuff the camera makers are throwing at them, or they can spend more time waiting for playback.

There's always room for more bandwidth via less cables, hence the reason I and a few others just don't care for eSATA on a mobile workstation unless we have something like the Sonnet Qio in our bag. Having to draw power and data from two cables on a Mac portable kills half your ports from the start. Then we have to think about what to plug our capture device into.
 
Recordable optical media is NOT archival...

toke lahti said:
I still have cd's from 80's (way older than 512 MB IBM HDD from the time Jesus walked the earth) , can't say the same about hdd's. No matter how you turn it optical media is better for backups and faster and cheaper.
Ask National Archive if you don't believe.
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Not trying to pick a fight, but this incorrect information that optical storage like CD-R and DVD-R has a long shelf life is just WRONG (as opposed to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM). Note that in the "ROM" variation the grooves are pressed by a master during replication, while the "R" variation uses a laser to cut the grooves in a blank disk. The latter are not a long-term reliable storage medium.

Since you asked, let's look at the National Archives web-page titled:

"Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Optical Storage Media: Storing Temporary Records on CDs and DVDs":

6. How long can I expect my recorded CDs/DVDs to last?

CD/DVD experiential life expectancy is 2 to 5 years even though published life expectancies are often cited as 10 years, 25 years, or longer. However, a variety of factors discussed in the sources cited in FAQ 15, below, may result in a much shorter life span for CDs/DVDs. Life expectancies are statistically based; any specific medium may experience a critical failure before its life expectancy is reached. Additionally, the quality of your storage environment may increase or decrease the life expectancy of the media. We recommend testing your media at least every two years to assure your records are still readable.

http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/initiatives/temp-opmedia-faq.html

The cited FAQ 15 lists government agencies around the world and their recommendations. The British National Archive recommends a bit by bit varification of the optical discs every 6 months to ensure integrity. Try doing that with 100 blu-ray recorded disks.

My strategy is to build archives around the concept of a rotating out every storage medium to a fresh, new medium every three years, and then to have triple backups of every piece of data. One off-site, of course. So monthy off-site of multi-TB HDDs runs circles around blu-ray.
 
afireintonto said:
So once the Mac pros and iMacs get the USB 3 it'll just be a matter of time before the mbps get it too. Nice:)
I'm looking at a mbp in the next year or so. I can't wait to see some audio creation devices using USB 3:D
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I edit video, and keep having to use older MBP 15". The newer 15", with 1 firewire, and no expansion slot, is not a professional machine.
 
baryon said:
Yay! Yet again a new FireWire port that is incompatible with everything!

I want Apple to bring back FireWire 400: Digital medium format cameras, pro camcorders and tape decks all use 400. Having to use an expensive adapter for everything is a pain, and finding out that your entire university is filled with macs but you can't download the pictures from the medium format camera because you forgot your freaking adapter at home makes me really angry!
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What expensive adapter? I purchased a female to male FW800 to FW 400 cable for $19CAN; and an adapter same deal for $6.99CAN.
 
wizard said:
The Mac Pro may be slightly over due for an upgrade but that is only due to Apple having an approximate yearly update interval
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500 days seems a bit longer than a yearly update to me. :(

In any event you are terribly confused as to what the Mac Pro is. One thing it is not is a computer that needs frequent updates. Rather it is just the opposite, a Mac Pro represents a high reliability machine designed for pros that need the assurances its server like architecture provides. It has never been all about performance
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Sure it has. Apple promotes the raw speed of their machines all the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnEbPm8mATQ#t=0m35s

Phil Schiller: "When we started the G5, we knew we couldn't make it a little bit faster, we had to make it a whole lot faster. And we did. In fact it's the world's most powerful personal computer."

And more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFRhSPNicgc#t=0m20s

Apple doesn't advertise the Mac Pro anymore. But here is ol' Phil talking about the myth of MacPro's being more expensive compared to Dell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l72MsGZQA8Q#t=07m49s

I'd love to see him do that now.
 
USB 3.0 and FireWire hoorah!

Great we'll always need a faster transfer rate. I can't tell you the amount of times I've been stuck in the office end of play waiting to transfer large files/projects to harddrive always wishing it would take seconds rather than minutes. As far as blu-ray is concerned it is already dead. It will go down in history as having had the shorter shelf life than Betamax. The future is diskless. Besides I think it dumb using a mac to watch hd movies. Get an hd tv instead they're much cheaper.

What happened to the idea of a touchscreen iMac? I'm kinda split on the idea. I would love the ability to draw directly onto a large led screen. But that's the animator/illustrator in me. Those damn wacoms cintiqs (I think they're called) cost a fortune.

Think it would need a windscreen wiper or come with a box of Kleenex I can't stand a dirty screen, especially on a monitor that kind of size.

I'm guessing the monitor could be tilted up for presentation or normal use and down for typing and drawing would still require a keyboard of sorts. (That's my patent apple!)

Anyways there my thoughts. Next time I post a comment it'll hopefully be on one of these beauties rather than me old White over the hill duo core1 iMac. ;)
 
jwdsail said:
Can I get an AMEN for faster FireWire?!?!

I still hold hope that Apple will shock and surprise w/ a LightPeak port on a Mac this year.. But faster FireWire makes me smile.
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First of all, what USB 3.0 devices are shipping to use this? Or is this just a developer platform?

Also, as far as LightPeak goes, that is going to be on PCI Express cards for a while that cost as much as the PC til someone figures out a cheaper, low loss fiber optic to silicon fabrication process.
 
CFreymarc said:
First of all, what USB 3.0 devices are shipping to use this? Or is this just a developer platform?
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before you even ask that you need to find out what computers have them! macs? any? nope.. the MacPro wont have them this update - not for a long time actually until intel gets their act together. therefore i dont think the iMac will get them either (flagship generally gets features first).
 
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