RSSNext-generation FireWire finalized, but USB 3.0 will be faster
By Michael Hatamoto | Published August 1, 2008, 4:03 PM
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recently approved IEEE 1394-2008, a faster version of the standard known to most simply as FireWire and used for connecting PCs with digital video devices or external hard drives.
"The new standard includes all of the amendments, enhancements and more than 100 errata which have been added to the base standard over the last 12 years," IEEE chair of the working group Les Baxter said in a statement. "This update provides developers with a single document they can rely upon for all of their application needs."
Specifically, the new classification will help increase the speed of FireWire from its current maximum of 800Mbit per second (with FireWire 800) to up to 3.2Gbit per second. Along with the S3200 that offers 3.2 Gbps transfer rates, the IEEE also approved S1600, which will offer 1.6 Gbit/sec. IEEE 1394 will eventually be scaled up to 6.4Gbit/sec, the organization indicated.
Both interfaces can be used with existing FireWire 800 cables, easing the migration for users of the current standard.
FireWire has been popular among Sony and Apple products, but most of the PC industry still relies on USB to help power devices and transfer data. Even with the anticipated speed increase, it's still highly unlikely that FireWire will be widely adopted.
Still, the format's backers say that after being published in 1995, more than 500 million IEEE 1394 ports have been manufactured.
The IEEE expects FireWire 3200 to roll out in October. Products with the new standard will not go on sale immediately, manufacturers will need to implement the technology into future products. Apple is largely expected to be the first company using FireWire 3200.
The October launch is absolutely crucial because the Intel-backed USB 3.0 is expected to arrive by the end of 2008, bringing with it a maximum speed of 4.8Gbps. USB 2.0 offers speeds of 480Mbit per second, which still gave manufacturers a use for FireWire 800.
I hope, I really hope they plan to replace the standard firewire jack, which is pretty poorly designed. I saw expensive cameras and dv tapes burned because of a short circuit when connecting the plugs with the devices working. Some stoopid designed the current and data wires too close in the connector.
For some time I reccommend to my video producing clients to avoid "plug and play" with their cameras when they edit their videos...
USB is much safer and faster there, but not as cool. Sony sucks...
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I heard somewhere they've finally made the USB plug/jack no longer single-sided (you can plug it in either way) which I believe will be a huge annoyance saver.
Don't use firewire, but I can imagine the frustration badly designed plugs/jacks must cause to those who do.
Here's hoping...
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I like firewire best I think. It seems like there is less overhead when copying files back and forth. With USB, even though it is rated higher, I don't actually get faster copy times.
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Firewire is still around?
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hah...I was thinking the same thing. I was just talking about how my FireWire handicam is ancient...
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"Still, the format's backers say that after being published in 1995, more than 500 million IEEE 1394 ports have been manufactured."
Well yeah they've been MANUFACTURED, but that doesn't mean they're being used. My last three computers have had firewire installed since purchase. I've never EVER used Firewire for ANY of my devices. I like my USB interfaces, I like not having to say, "Oh this is the OTHER one" ... BTW I'm extremely tech savvy, I just don't like 1000 interfaces. I use USB b/c I think the thought process behind the tech and the thought process behind making every device compatibly universal is a great idea. Now if Palm, cell phone manufacturers, Apple (in re: to the iPods), etc would get their heads out of their asses and make their device-side connections ALSO USB compatible and not proprietary bulls***, I'd be a lot more happy. I've purchased all devices (minus my iPod and the Palm I've had for ~a year) w/in the last year with the mini-USB connections. Not on purpose, but on complete accident and lo-and-behold I can charge EVERYTHING in my car with one adapter. Now *that* is progress!
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Yes I know a computer shop that did throw away a bunch of firewire hubs.. only cause they didnt sell and the powerplugs could be salvaged and sold for more than the hubs.
Ive got a firewire 800 external disk.. but why don't even highend pc motherboards have these ports.. its stupid when you need to buy add-in cards..
will make sure that my next motherboard will have usb3, if it takes too long I guess ill buy an add-in card.. since external drives are bottlenecked by usb2..
would be real nice if some company like Western Digital cold start making usb3 mybooks already since the contacts are backward compatible..
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My one complaint about USB is it's processor usage.. why can't they offload it like Firewire?
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I don't really see it as a big concern. On any modern computer I've used in the last 3 years, USB2 has taken nearly un-noticeable CPU resources while in use.
A buddy of mine has 7 devices, including his sound card via USB.
The CPU usage is nominal at best.
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Don't OHCI USB ports (common on 64-bit AMD processor motherboards) use less CPU resources than Intel's UHCI USB ports?
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No idea. Never cared that much about it to find out.
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The burst speed may be higher, but will the typical speed be higher?
That wasn't the case earlier with USB 2.0 at 480 Mbps vs. FireWire running at 400 Mbps.
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USB 3.0 has been reworked to be more efficient. So you will be obtaining closer to the theoretical limit than before. How much closer is yet to be seen but the specs look very promising.
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Hmm, I'm uninformed WRT this improved efficiency but I'm guessing this fact still remains: USB is CPU bound and 1394 isn't.
Still any improvments to USB 3.0 they make will be welcomed :) I wonder if there's still the Intel vs. World situation going on with it?
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What speed would it take to use a monitor without the need of a separate video card?
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Unless a video card is built into the monitor you always need something to interface the signal into the computer. There are plenty of USB 2.0 video cards out there right now.
http://www.usbgear.com/USB-Video-Card.html
Unless you mean something different.
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A monitor that has the video eletronics built in and can plug directly into a USB port without the need for a separate video card. USB 2.0 wasn't fast enough from what I understand. USB audio devices don't need a separate sound card. i.e. headset, or USB speakers.
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If they can transfer dual monitor video signal over 1Gbps Ethernet why not with USB? Of course you need the GPU but connections would be simpler. :)
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Stereo sound requires SIGNIFICANTLY less processing than video. Without a dedicated video processor creating the picture to output to the screen, it will easily choke an average quad core processor. Existing monitors with built in videocards are very specific to basic video needs like troubleshooting a server inaccessible remotely etc.
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I'd like to keep my videocard in my computer case. Can you see any advantages to moving it to the monitor?
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Again. What speed would be required to do this through either firewire or USB? I had remember that awhile back they were promising such types of monitor.
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Less need to cool in the case.. The video cards new have large fans to compensate for the heat they produce. Less power requirements as well for the case.
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Your question really depends upon the performance you expect from the graphics processor but for anything modern the answer is going to be a lot higher than either USB 3 or Firewire 3200 will provide.
The PCI express bus, the most common interface for modern video cards, provides 250 MegaBytes per second in the both directions per lane for PCIe v1 and double that for version 2. The standard x16 PCIe slot that is usually used for modern graphics cards provides 4Gigabytes/s for version 1 and 8Gigabytes/s for version 2. Obviously most current video cards don't use the full throughput that the PCIe bus provides but even USB 3 will provide far less throughput than what most dedicated graphic cards require.
Even assuming the theoretical max of 4.8 gigabits/s the bus would only provide a USB 3 graphics adapter with 600 Megabytes/s of throughput. To put this in perspective this approximately the throughput of an AGP 2x bus. Any dedicated graphics cards running off USB 3 would have to be very basic.
Any interface for an external graphics cards would have to have throughput on order of ~10 times faster than USB 3 provides to really be a viable solution for most modern graphics processors.
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I haven't tried using GbE for video transfer of any reasonable resolution, however, the throughput on the AGP and PCIe buses and my experiences with USB video adapter would suggest that streaming video of any reasonable resolution for a modern monitor would either require substantial compression and/or loss or data.
Transferring loss less HD video over Ethernet would require more processing power on the decoding side than wouldn't really be practical for a stand alone device. The decoding processor for the monitor wouldn't be much simpler than many low end desktops.
Such a solution would seem to be practical for static applications but that need is already well met by integrated graphics solutions. If I can't replace my dedicated graphics card it would seem that using USB or ethernet to connect a a graphics adapter is just reinventing the wheel.
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A monitor that has the video eletronics built in and can plug directly into a USB port without the need for a separate video card.
Sounds cool, but I wouldn't want one. Buying a new video card every 2 1/2 years is bad enough, but at least they're only $300. Buying that kind of GPU power built into a monitor would likely cost quite a bit more...
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