The 1394 Trade Association announced the S3200 electrical specification for FireWire. The specification builds upon the existing IEEE 1394b standard by boosting the maximum speed from 800 megabits per second to 3.2Gbps. Importantly, S3200 can use the cables and connectors already in use for FireWire 800 products…
The association hopes to have the S3200 specification ratified by early February, and has used the speed boost to position FireWire as an alternative to other recent interfacing technologies…
The association also said that FireWire would soon be able to operate over cable television coaxial cables, and said S3200 would make the standard fast enough to move uncompressed high-definition television signals over long distances at a lower cost than HDMI, the current standard for HD connections.
Everyone hates HDMI connectors. They’re ready to fall out if a fly farts.
While we’re at it, can we dump USB also? Hell, FW400 is still superior to USB 2.
For home theater I’d rather have coax cable with BNC connectors.
Last time I looked, the USB “universal” connection had 5 different sizes.
I guess a universal connection is beyond our current technology.
Let’s just hope it won’t be as big a flop as FW800. While 800 mbps is a great transfer rate, most devices stayed with FW400 due to its proliferation and the fact that, unlike USB, the connectors changed during the FireWire upgrade. FW800 simply didn’t catch on.
However, since FireWire can also handle network traffic, this does look promising for individuals whose bandwidth needs exceed what a gig ethernet connection can handle. I predict FW3200 switches may become an alternative to fibre channel in higher-end production environments (ie., Disney, DreamWorks, professional ad agencies, etc.).
1,
Which firewire mouse do you use? Or printer? or camera, or game controller, or… shall I go on? Do you still use your com ports and parallel ports?
#5
Let’s see, I have a firewire camera and external hard drive connected to my Mac. What’s your point, that the WinTel world got stuck with USB just because Intel put all it’s weight behind its own, inferior technology?
Wait.. isn’t USB 2.0 faster than firewire? I do love how you can use firewire for networking between two computers though.
Was HDMI adopted because it is so DRM friendly? Hollywood would hate a wide-open fast connection between entertainment devices. So good luck trying to find a consumer electronics products to adopt this as long as they are terrorized by Hollywood into implementing DRM “solutions”.
#7
No it’s not. Even if the theoretical burst transfer rate of USB 2.0 can top (just barely) the rate of FW400, it is only in bursts whereas firewire devices enjoy sustained data throughput. This is because of the high latency compared to firewire because of its use of software instead of dedicated hardware to control data transmission.
USB 2 isn’t faster than Firewire. In theory it is, but grab a hard disk with both USB and Firewire ports and try it. At least on my Mac, Firewire 400 is significantly better.
#8. Yes, HDMI supports HDCP, hardware based DRM. I can’t see content owners ever approving of hotter firewire ready Blu-ray players and 1080P TVs. HDMI has a long development pathway ahead of it, you’ll see it on mainstream PCs and monitors and especially laptops, very soon.
S3200 will have DRM associated with it plain and simple. DRM-happy organizations (you know who) won’t allow any new media or data transfer technologies to be released unless they support DRM.
And IEEE 1394b (FW800) was not widely accepted because manufacturers charged too damn much for it. An external hard drive enclosure that supports IEEE 1394b might be priced 30% more than the same enclosure that only supports IEEE 1394a (FW400). The only difference between the two enclosures would be a single trace on the IEEE 1394 controller board.
And how much royalty fees will manufacturers pay for each s3200 port they add to their machines?
USB 3.0 will be 10X faster, optical too.
#14: Great, now Best Buy can charge even more for the cables because they’re “optical”.
#15,
Don’t shop at Best Buy EVER. No really, Im not kidding, just don’t do it. Even Circut City is not as bad as Best Buy. But really, it is 2007, why is anyone going to a big box electronics retailer anymore? Amazon is very consistently 20-30% less than Circut City and Best Buy prices, and in home electroncis that is serious cash.
#16: Don’t believe GregA? Go to http://consumerist.com/ and search for Best Buy. You’ll be horrified by the shear volume of crap they pull.
#17
Well the last time I was at Best Buy a couple of weeks ago…
I needed an HDMI cable. Holy crap, they didn’t have a single HDMI cable for less than like $50. F-That!
I went to circut city, and they stocked both Moster brand HDMI cables and misc china brand of HDMI cables. In the end, Circut City sold me a 3′ HDMI cable for $10-$15 or what ever it cost.
But the big purchases… No big box electronics retailers for me ever again. They have simply priced themselves out of the market.
I bought a 6′ HDMI cable for something like $8 at Fry’s.
6,
Yes, and your mac has what kind of firewire mouse again? I guess you’re a young punk or a moron but you don’t remember how Apple pushed USB along all their platforms? No? Well, they did. In fact, they were amongst the first to push USB floppy drive. And mice. And keyboards. And everything USB.
Did I say anything was wrong with Firewire? no. What I said was that USB has its use too, but you’re so deep in Steve Jobs kool-aid you took insult where there is none. Way to you. You win.
BestBuy, Radio Shack and others like them make their money from cables etc.
Radio Shack especially push batteries and sales people have battery sales quotas.
It is what it is.
If UPS wasn’t so damn expensive from China I would see about a internet cable business as cables here are extremely cheap and a very good quality – they are the normal non-BestBuy price. EG: A DVI to DVI monitor cable is about $3 – a Monster looking DVI to DVI is about $8~10.
Cheers
Minor caveat about USB version numbers nowadays. The old USB 2.0 high speed standard is NOW the 2.1 high speed standard. The OLD 1.0 original low speed standard IS NOW CALLED 2.0!!!!! That el cheapo 2.0 flashdrive you just bought may be slower than frozen polar bear snot.
Firewire is great for audio production too. And I will mercifully NOT subject you guys to any of my audio projects. You’re welcome.
When you plug a USB device in a Mac it just works, no dumb ass messages, no hangs, no WTF? Take that Vistards!
Gotta Say I aint ever seen a Hard Drive that can do 480mbps, 800,mbps etc. So??? WHO CARES. Standards are key!!!
#20 – Named
“Yes, and your mac has what kind of firewire mouse again? I guess you’re a young punk or a moron but you don’t remember how Apple pushed USB along all their platforms? No? Well, they did. In fact, they were amongst the first to push USB floppy drive. And mice. And keyboards. And everything USB.
Did I say anything was wrong with Firewire? no. What I said was that USB has its use too, but you’re so deep in Steve Jobs kool-aid you took insult where there is none. Way to you. You win.”
Gee, that’s nice.
Now that you’ve got that out of your system, go take a minute or two and look up which company came up with FireWire. And which company was the first to make FW standard on their boxes? (Hint: it’s the same company) 🙂
Firewire is fine as it is, but the industry decided to embrace the braindead USB standard so now PC’s have at best 1 firewire port, and 8 USB ports plus a bunch of headers on the mobo for more USB, none of which work properly without the usual ritual of trying to find drivers on the internet, wondering why my USB 1.1 pen drive won’t work in the USB 2.0 port, and the old “install driver first, then plug in device” which really makes no sense at all except to the idiots at microsoft.