What is Digg?22 Comments
- sdquirk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I gotta say, I love firewire for a lot of applications, but I work at a college and we've had about 6 firewire ports burnout on digital video cameras. The 4 pin to 6 pin aren't supposed to carry any juice, but somehow they do. Unlike USB 1 (I haven't used 2 much) you have to be careful about plugging/unpluging devices with FW.
- SilverRocket, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think FireWire is on it's way out. Guess what cable/interface the new iPods don't come with? That's right. All new iPods are USB2 only - cable AND power block. FireWire = BetaMax.
- whitesanjuro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0apple has branded it firewire, its actual name is IEEE-1394. it is best used when devices are plugged into each other, otherwise the bus stays idle. there, you learned it. also, WinXP SP2 slows FireWire interfaces down to 100Mbps IIRC.
- hobbit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0SilverRocke -- again "no". FireWire is the standard on all digital video equipment. All major broadcasters (ABC, BBC, CBC, etc.) have changed to a digital work-flow because its improves quality and saves them money. But you are right, BETA is the standard tape used in production. However, its not analog-BETA but digital-BETA that all of the professional broadcast/film production cameras use; which all have FireWire interconnects. The other industry standard is DV-CAM (not to be confused with mini-DV) which is the first level of professional tape which uses the industry standard time code. And as any producers will tell you, "You can't truly edit without a time-code". Again, camera that record onto DV-CAM use FireWire.
FireWire is no where near dead, its just not a pervasive and USB 2.0. FireWire-400 (theoretical max. 400Mb) will beat a USB 2.0 (theoretical max. 480Mb) connection every time when transferring large files like video which is largely why its used in the industry. - DansnBear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You may think firewire is on it's way out, but it's not. Ask any video editor how DV decks connect, or how a DV cam gets connected to the computer. . . FireWire. BTW-The new iPods ship with a USB 2 cable and charger, but apple still sells a FireWire dock cable, and all of the iPods still support the firewire interface.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Digital Video devices use 1394 *exclusively*. There simply is no such thing as a USB DV camcorder. USB2 can't even support the datarate.
Not to mention that 1394 usually "just works" as opposed to USB2 which usually doesn't work at all, or works in lo-speed mode at some obscenely slow speed.
And TCP/IP networking is possible over 1394, which is extremely cool if you happen to need a way to connect two 1394 capable machines. Just plug them into each other and they form a network on the fly. Very nice.
In short, 1394 kicks ass by comparison to USB. - thecryptkeeper, on 01/21/2009, -0/+0Well there are free webcam girls there to chat with. And yes, they are live free webcam girls too.
http://porno-pedia.com/blog/free-webcam-girls/ - hobbit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0whitesanjuro -- actually its proper name is FireWire. Apple created this technology and submitted the specifications to the IEEE for certification and codification, thus the numbers 1394a (400Mb) & 1394b (800Mb).
SilverRocke -- um, in a word "no". FireWire is still supported by the all the current hard-disk based iPods. The iPods only ship with a USB-to-DockConnector cable and not the FireWire-to-DockConnector. Having only one cable in the box allows Apple to reduce the price ... as did removing the Dock which used to come standard with the colour iPods. As to why they picked USB over FireWire was due to the requirements of the iPod and Sony.
The iPod ideally should be plugged into a port with can provide power for charging the battery -- that way your iPod should almost always be ready to go. Sony's iLink does not conform to the IEEE-1394a specifications for the connector, it only conforms to the data transfer aspect specification. iLink unlike true FireWire/1394 has only the four data wires and not six -- the two additional wires are a part of a powered FireWire bus. Plug an iPod into an iLink port routinely and eventually your iPod battery will drain completely which equals an unhappy customer.
You can thank Sony for the sh*tty non-standard form of FireWire called iLink, and you can thank the lemming PC manufacturer's for using it rather than the standard. Only a few models of laptops from specific manufacturers actually use the 6-pin standard. Thankfully most desktop computers have the standard 6-pin firewire ports. - 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've got a DV camcorder with a USB 2.0 port. In fact, even though I have firewire on my laptop, whenever I transfer video I use USB 2.0 because I don't want to pay extra for firewire cable. As for ad hoc firewire networks, that's a good idea that I'd try if I could afford a firewire cable.
- drummer70714, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0great digg
- hobbit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+07of7 -- a FireWire cable is all of $35-CAD ... what's stopping you from buying one?
- Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Not the camera, but if you are transferring to a computer and editing, then yes the transfered image would be higher quality. This site has some good information (but looks like a web page from the 90s):
http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/basics/transfer.php
I have found this forum to be a great resource:
forums.afterdawn.com - 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0So you're suggesting that my MiniDV camera would function at a higher resolution were I to get an IEEE 1394 cable?
- Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I got my 6' firewire cable for $8 from Fry's Electronics...
Firewire is a must for DV Camcorders, USB1&2 are either not supported, or download at substandard resolutions.
Like all Sony accessories, avoid iLink like the plague. They would have charged me $50 for the cable I payed $8 for. (My miniDV camera is a Sony, though... ;) - Saphira, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Say I was upgrading from one pc to a newer one. Could I connect the two computers by firewire and transfer all my files from my old computer to my new one?
- hobbit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+07of7 -- I think that Dhalgren made a small mistake. A data transfer is a data transfer, whether its USB 2.0 or FireWire. However, because we're dealing with a tape based system in a camera, its more a data stream and not a transfer. Therefore, if you're USB connection, for whatever reason, chokes up during the transferring of video from the camera, you will see that as dropped frames. Ergo Dhalgren's reduced quality.
- enjayenel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0p_sawatzky, I agree. I have an Apogee Rosetta 800 audio interface. It connects via firewire 400/800 and there are now dozens of firewire based audio interfaces.
- Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Symantics...
USB 2.0 has higher peak transfer rates, but it operates in bursts. The transfer rate isn't consistent and this causes problems when "streaming" video from a DV camcorder. USB is for file transfers, IEEE1394 was designed specifically for digital media streaming/transfer. - p_sawatzky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0FireWire is also becoming the de facto standard for digital music recording and production. Multi-channel audio interfaces like the MOTU 828mkII always use FireWire because it handles data streaming so well. USB is only used for low-end two-channel devices.
- Math-Sux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Firewire 800 rocks! I have a 1394b external enclosure that transfers data nearly as fast an internal IDE drive. Unfortunately, there's only a couple of manufacturers that have integrated it onto a PC mother board.
- cwoolf34, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0I hope this is a joke, maybe it just seems like one to me because all I have used my whole life is macs. Good article for the people living under a rock (PC users).
- SilverRocket, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0And ask any video editor not working with Digital what format they use - BETA! BETA! BETA! TV Stations, Cable Stations (not HD yet) all use Beta. FireWire is OUT for consumers, in with the pros, same as BetaMax.
When Apple sells their own products without FireWire in the box, you know it's on its way out...
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