1394 Trade Association Adopts FireWire Brand 292
MaxVlast writes in that the
The 1394 Trade Association has adopted the FireWire trademark, logo and symbol as a brand identity for the IEEE 1394 connection standard in a "no-fee license agreement" between 1394ta and Apple. Apple has also granted 1394ta the right to sub-license the FireWire Trademark for use on products, packaging and promotion of the standard.
Re:Better than USB 2? (Score:2, Informative)
The cool thing about Firewire is that Mac's have support for it now. Plus there are plans to eventually bring Firewire up to 1600 Mbps later this year. Also, Firewire can transfer data from device to device, while USB has to go through your computer as a go-between. People more intelligent than I are more than welcome to expound upon, correct, or add to this.
Re:Better than USB 2? (Score:5, Informative)
On top of that, 1394b supports up to 1.2Gbps or 1.6 Gbps (depending on the media) which is being developed. And it works nicely with 1394a.
Re:Better than USB 2? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Better than USB 2? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Better than USB 2? (Score:1, Informative)
USB does none of this; it is a single-master, multiple-slave bus.
Re:Better than USB 2? (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, Firewire allows devices on its bus to talk directly to each other. Thus when transferring data on a bus with a hard drive, computer, and camera the data can go directly from the camera to the hard drive.
With USB each device sends its data first to the host controller, and then back out to the device it was intended to go to. This effectively cuts the bandwidth of the bus in half and also limits the bus to how fast the central controller can handle requests. So using USB in the camera-computer-hard drive combo above, the data would go from the camera to the computer, then back out the computer to the hard drive.
Secondly, Firewire is built to handle streaming data. It handles reserving bandwith much better than USB 2.0 does. This is very important when you are recording from a camera to a hard drive and the data is time-dependant.
Thirdly, Firewire is able to operate much closer to sustaining its theoretical maximum of 400Mbps. USB 2.0's 480Mbps data rate is a burst data rate and cannot come even close to sustaining that rate of transfer. I've heard that your average transfer rates over a Firewire bus is going to be around 75% of theoretical, where USB 2.0 is around 50% of theoretical. These results can vary, but Firewire almost definitely outperforms USB 2.0 for sustained data transfers.
Another big problem is that USB tends to transfer data at the rate of the slowest device on the bus, Firewire does not share this limitation.
Lastly, Firewire is due for a speed bump very soon. Probably late this year you will see Firewire bump up to 800Mbps, a much better rate than the current USB 2.0 rate of 480Mbps.
Now I'm not saying that USB 2.0 is utter crap. It is decent when you only have a couple of devices connected that are not doing sustained transfers. So it should be great for printers, mice, keyboards, etc. However, when it comes to video cameras, hard drives, and other devices that need good sustained transfer rates, I'll stick with Firewire. Not to mention that it is already included with the majority of these devices and USB 2.0 is not.
Re:Better than USB 2? (Score:3, Informative)
And there are already cheap ($75) KT333 motherboards with 4 USB 2.0 ports on the market.
I think mobos with USB 2.0 onboard are
already much more popular than ones with firewire and people won't be willing to pay extra for the controller -they will stick with USB.
Apple again had superior technology but lost.
I personally chose USB 2.0 because I have quite a few USB 1.1 computers and devices will work with them, even if a bit slower. If I were to use
firewire I would have to buy a controller for each. I have some computer expertise
and I do not want to do it. I am pretty
sure an average Joe would be even less
likely to do so. If his mobo has USB 2.0 - he
will buy USB 2.0 device.
Kubus
Re:Better than USB 2? (Score:3, Informative)
It is supported on the VIA P4X333 [viaarena.com] and KT333 [viaarena.com] chipsets, for example.
Re:Sony's iLink (Score:4, Informative)
Both 4-pin (non-powered) and 6-pin (powered) implementations of 1394 are defined by the standard. Sony desktop Vaios come with the powered 6-pin version, but their laptops come with the non-powered 4-pin version. Both are referred to by Sony [askfor1394.com] as i.Link. And, confusingly, Sony also uses a proprietary pinout (with adaptor cable) for USB and 1394 on some laptop Vaios when the larger connecters won't fit.
Re:Damn good thing too... (Score:2, Informative)
And iLink isn't even powered...
It's crippled FireWire.
Re:There ya go. (Score:2, Informative)
No, the $1 a pop (now down to $.25 per device), is the license fee for the IEEE 1394 patent pool. It's use of the actual technological guts of the port, and manufacturers pay it whether they call it FireWire or not.
_Most_ of that quarter per device goes to Apple, because they did most of the inventing involved and hold most of the patents in the pool.
This announcement doesn't change that fee structure at all. Allowing use of the name is completely unrelated.
Re:Competition (Score:5, Informative)
Lucent and some other laggards got all huffy, because they found USB to suck, too late in the game, and wanted to produce chipsets for Firewire too. Because they were slow to the mark, they would be charged a licensing fee to use the name and symbology of Firewire. By just following the 1394 standard, they didn't have to license the name Firewire (or i.Link). In geeky magazine ads in embeded systems trade wrags, Lucent went as far as admonishing customers "Don't use the 'F' word, its 1394!"
I have nothing against Lucent, but they are the one that springs to my mind now. Other PC manufacturers were late to the table (HPaQ) and used 1394 as a label for their ports (which confuses and befuddles their typical users).
-- Len
Re:iLink is isochronous video over FireWire - NOT! (Score:3, Informative)
You're all wrong. Trust me on this - I've been writing stacks and designing 1394 hardware for a while now.
There is no difference between iLink and FireWire. They are different names for the same thing. Yes, there are two plug types. One is tiny and 4 pin, the other is bigger and 6 pin. The big one has power. They are both part of the IEEE 1394 standard. They are both FireWire. They are both iLink.
There is no difference at the protocol level. Trust me on this. I have had my nose rubbed in more 1394 protocol stacks and chipsets than I care to remember.
The main reason that this hasn't happened before is that nobody trusted Apple. Especially after their stunt where they tried to tack on huge royalty fees for every 1394 port (this after agreeing several years earlier to pool patents with the other people who made 1394 possible). They timed this particularly well, and managed to delay the uptake of 1394 by maybe 2 years, and in some cases, permanently. Basically, they were complete idiots and damn near shot off their foot at the ankle. I think this had a lot to do with the fact that 1394 isn't standard kit on todays PC motherboard chipsets. The royalties alone were close to the cost of the entire chipset.
It Sony hadn't stuffed 1394 into every camcoder on the planet, 1394 would be dead. Apple are NOT my favourite people. Greedy idiots.
Re:iLink is isochronous video over FireWire - NOT! (Score:5, Informative)
Are you saying that the entire chipset of a motherboard cost $1? Because that's how much Apple was charging in royalties for FireWire, until a very public backlash forced them to charge
I disagree with your assessment of why FireWire isn't standard on PC mobo's though. I think it has much more to do with Intel pushing Intel-owned standards such as USB and ATA (in spite of the fact that neither one of those is a true replacement). Had Intel embraced FireWire for the mainstream, then yes, we would see FireWire as ubiquitous on PC's as USB. But it was Intel's marketing strategy to position their competitor's product as being for high-end and niche markets, not for mainstream. Very shrewd.