FireWire not dead, but it's on life support
Summary: The prognosis isn't so good for FireWire: first it got removed from the iPod, next is the iBook
I was genuinely surprised when Apple dropped FireWire sync from the iPod nano. So much so that I almost returned mine when I first made the gruesome discovery. I thought for sure that FireWire would live forever in the bigger iPods and that it was just a casualty of the nano's small size. Unfortunately, FireWire's almost dead completely.I reported back in October, that when Apple launched the video iPod sans FireWire, they also moved their FireWire Web page from a prominent location on the top level of Apple.com to a sub-page in the bowels of their developer Web site. Coincidence? You tell me.
Now I'm hearing that FireWire is gone completely from the new Intel iBooks that are coming next month, but its loss should come as a surprise to no one, given Apple's moves of late. A little birdy told me that the new Intel PowerBooks will lose FireWire 400 completely and retain only one FireWire 800 port as a concession to video professionals.
What's your take on the death of FireWire? Will you miss it? Is this a part of Apple's deal with the devil (*ahem* Intel)? Sound off in the TalkBack comments below.
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Talkback
Long live USB!
USB & FireWire 400 both suck
USB will always suck. Ever want to share a USB device between machines without having to have both connected? Give up. Won't happen without causing heartburn on one or the other. Windows gives errors with a switch & OS X Panther (10.3) will kernel panic if you use one and try to sleep the Mac.
Sad to see
market power of its inferior competition.
How is USB inferior?
How isn't USB inferior?
USB dumbs down to 1.1
- Jason
Common misconception ...
speed") hub is in the path back to the computer does this
happen. All USB 2 "high speed" hubs are supposed to do the
speed shifts (repacketizing the low speed stuff) ... not to say that
they all do it right, but that's the idea. BTW, Macs all have a
built-in USB 2 high speed hub, so plugging a lower speed device
on any of the ports doesn't slow down the other port very much.
Now, on the other hand, USB is a terribly SW-intensive protocol,
so this can make things a bit messy ... plus the first Macs with
USB 2 had a rather wretched USB 2 host controller from NEC that
didn't cache its DMA descriptors, which caused a lot of
unnecessary traffic on the internal PCI ...
Speed, etc
Firewire had a niche market with Apple computers (primarily) and since everyone else was using USB ,the majority of the marketplace, I suppose its not surprising that USB won out. It is too bad though, I always seemed to be able to charge things quicker on my firewire port than my usb too...
RE: Niche market
Also significant here is the notion that just because my sector (trying to stay away from "niche" here... ) has a relatively small system population, it means we aren't big buyers of storage. The idea of having several terabytes of storage is far from novel in my sector.
It bothers me that the sheer numbers of low-end machines have manufacturers catering to the "trinket trade" at the expense of products for serious users.
Sustained speed
And Firewire has a higher throughput rate (it approaches peak
speeds more often than USB does). Not to mention the power and
resource issues.
It's losing out because Intel doesn't want to pay Apple 25 cents per
CPU.
USB and Firewire/IEEE1394 have different goals.
In the case of USB, it requires a central host for power (for the most part) and all the intelligence is at the central host. It is good for printers, keyboards, mice, etc. The protocol supports up to 127 devices, though I am not sure that anyone has bothered to verify this.
In the case of Firewire/IEEE1394, it does not require a cental host and is designed for AV applications (attaching a DV camera to a recording device, could just be a Firewire drive or some other AV device). Firewire does not require a central host, it peers. Firewire is limited to about 63 devices and has either a 2 or 3 pair cable consisting of either 2 twisted pair or 2 twisted pair and power.
As to speed, USB2 is about 480MBs while Firewire is about 800MBs, though the Firewire Spec has gone as high as 3200 on paper. Having both is better if you are doing things like video production (say shooting something like the green screen stuff for the 3rd installment of the first half or the Star Wars series, or some smaller productions. The green screen is just something that allows for a nothing background so thatyou can have actors do stuff and place a CG environment in later (rather than building an expensive single seen set).
The choice of USB v. Firewire all depends on the application and need, as in what are you trying to do. If you are have no interest in digital video, digital film production or Fierwire drives, then there is no major reason to use it. USB, as it is designed for inexpensive computer peripherals, works great for connecting devices as you need them and may suit ones needs just as well.
I guess...
Depends on the number and size of your files
much better.
Wouldn't be the 1st time...
Seems like a case of deja vu - sounds like a rehash of the old VHS vs Beta wars of the 80's. Beta had the better picture quality but VHS won due to having a longer tape. People judged the quality to be "good enough..."
USB is fine for amateur work, Firewire is high end
If you are doing something that will be seen by others, say on a HDTV screen, you would not use something that is limited to NTSC/PAL/SECAM video. FireWire is an interface for doing the high end stuff. This is one of the advantages that Firewire has over USB (besides not needing a PC). One can always use tape for video production but it is faster to have your video go directly to disk for later editing. The caveat being that for Fierwire and production grade tools, you will have to spend somewhere in the range of $2000+ for the camera. DV professionals don't use USB, and the issues are more than just speed.
[i]But I do a fair amount o f video work and I've not had issues with USB being too slow.[/i]
What equipment were you using? What resolution/screen were you targetting (NTSC/PAL/SECAM/HDTV/?)? What was the produstion budget for this (and why didn't you use professional gear)?
[i]But when it takes say 2 minutes to move a large video file does cutting that down to a minute and a half really matter that much?[/i]
What are you talking about? If you have Firewire, you are doing DV production! DV is digital video, as in MPEG (stuff that you broadcast on DirectTV or digtal cable). Are you doing a direct connect between the storage device (a drive) and the camera or does this involve sitting somewhere away from the production and working with the content or are you shooting with a webcam/low end device?
Kid's birthday party
Is probably editing his kid's birthday party. I love the amateurs that think when they edit their home videos they're on par with Goerge Lucus.
Kid's birthday party
Our professional organisation made the mistake of playing with it, but instead we have expanded in SDI-based systems. DV and DVCAM just don't cut it at standard definition (720x480i or 720x576i). Poor color bandwidth and appalling block compression, particularly in darker areas of the picture, make it useless for professional work. Even holiday videos look awful because saturated colors bleed over. Quite frankly, we don't take on board editors or engineers who seem to accept as broadcastable the fall in standards that Firewire-transferred formats bring. The BBC have specified DV and DVCAM now for factual and documentary programming filming. They will regret it. DigiBeta (over SDI, of course) is still the standard for delivery.
I think that Intel made 'em do it!
-Jason
FW and video editing
However I feel compelled to comment on your example of how FW supports video production. I shoot green screen from time to time, and nothing in the process requires the use of FW drives. What video DOES require is a huge amount of storage, generally the faster, the better. FireWire is supremely well suited for a project storage in smaller shops like mine. We employ hot-swap systems the allow us to move the entire project from one editing system to another, and to store the data offline when that is desirable. The big shops have massive, expensive NAS systems - we accomplish much the same end with a few terabytes of FW drives.
It is also fair to note that FireWire isn't going to play a central role in High Definition video except at the low end and as inexpensive storage. Even FW800 is too slow for many (most?) HD formats. That said, it still has great value.
Firewire goodness
cheapskate rip-off of firewire. Important firewire advantages:
1. peer-to-peer: cables go either way round; only one type of
cable required for standard firewire (instead of A-A, A-B etc for
USB). there is no "host", so all devices are hot pluggable, and of
course we get target disk mode
2. speed: does not have a slow mode where a slow device can
consume all bandwidth
3. power: proper firewire delivers significant power for devices
like cameras and disk drives. (You'll notice the PC laptops with
firewire leave this out; they want you to carry more power bricks
around so they can save a couple of dollars on the laptop)
4. devices can be multiport without any intelligent
"hub" (because it's a peer-to-peer shared bus) so you can
connect up christmas tree style without needing to buy hubs or
extra cables or think about what connects where.
5.no voodoo. Remember SCSI voodoo? Well USB has voodoo too
with fast and slow USB cables, and obscure "won't work through
a hub" problems. FIrewire doesn't have slow, or need hubs.
Apple engineers are well aware of the advantages of their
technology. I don't believe Firewire will be left off powerbooks,
but it may well be left off ibooks. My view is that Apple will be
looking to undercut Dell on low end notebooks (no MS tax to
pay is what makes this possible), and firewire obviously has to
go; delivering the required power to peripherals must put a
couple of dollars on the cost of the machine, and the powerbook
differentiators (like monitor spanning) will be more difficult to
sustain in open competition with Dell.
Hopefully, it is just one part of the new world where you'll be
able to sleepwalk across from Windows to Mac with the walls
around the MS monopoly suddenly dissolved.