OT: What will 1394b do for us?

BrianStanding wrote on 4/10/2003, 3:52 PM
Now that 800Mbps firewire (1394b) is here
(see: http://www.orangemicro.com/fw800pci.html),
what will this mean for us Vegas users?

If I'm buying a new firewire card, should I get one that's 1394b-compliant? Will I see any benefits right away, or will we have to wait until cameras and other peripherals come out that comply with the new standard? I notice there's no Microsoft drivers yet... are these coming soon?

Any thoughts?

Comments

Bill Ravens wrote on 4/10/2003, 3:57 PM
Bandwidth is great. Only thing is, it means nothing unless the devices that communicate on the bus are designed to use the bandwidth available. For a server farm with multiple devices on one bus, it means instant higher thruput, but, for us lowly mortals with a couple of external HD's, it takes much mure than that to fill even 400 Mbps.
Chienworks wrote on 4/10/2003, 4:04 PM
DV is approximately 30Mbps. This doesn't even begin to use up the 400Mbps pipe of the original 1394. Even if you're capturing from a camcorder and storing on an external drive through the same port you'll still be using less than 1/6 of the 400Mbps bandwidth. However, if you're copying files to or from an external firewire drive, then 1394b would allow double the copy speed ... if your drives and computer are up to it.
discdude wrote on 4/10/2003, 4:46 PM
The main problem I see is that 1394b (aka Firewire 800) has a different interface than 1394a (Firewire). For some reason, three additional pins were added (6 pin vs. 9 pin). I don't think you can claim true backwards compatability if you need different cables. Not as seamless as USB 1 & 2 or 10/100 Ethernet if you ask me.

Oh well, we dealt with 9 and 25 pin serial ports for years so this won't be too painful.