One more reason why USB 2.0 SUCKS!!!!

[Wombat]

I wasn't thinking of playback so much as transferring the video for editing. I've got a friend that hooks up his camera to his Mac and does amazing stuff very easily.

[Kurt]

FW will probably disappear from the low to mid-end digicams (to be replaced by USB 2.0 - cost reduction being the incentive). It's a decent solution to play back fims on the computer but let's face it: who does that??? Either you play them back on a screen or you download it to the PC for editing - no need for FW there...

Apple is the only one with a reason to keep the standard going : royalties. It's now been rendered obsolete. It needs a solid boost in performance and a diversification of uses to be competitive.

It could have been used as the new "ATA" standard for transferring data from HDDs - but it was too expensive. Now that FW800 is getting more common, SATA has supplanted it. FW400 could still have been used for external peripherals, not now as USB 2.0 is here.

They lost in the cost aspect and internal and external connections. The only thing keeping FW alive is the amateur video market with DV peripherals...

[High_Jumbllama]

Originally posted by Wombat
No, it will become more common, I think. Firewire is great for digital video, for example. The thought of a USB2 camcorder scares the hell out of me, it would never work right. At least having the Firewire controller on board puts a stable solution there.

We all wish, but you miss the marketing power of cheap, crappy, everywhere interfaces. Unfortunately, they tend to win. At least Sony has been putting firewire or whatever they call it in a lot of their hardware.

[Wombat]

I don't think USB2 is cheaper for embedded systems. You have to have the CPU power to support it.

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Wombat
I don't think USB2 is cheaper for embedded systems. You have to have the CPU power to support it.

Everything has a use, you just need to define it.

I fail to see what embedded design might require a FW port over an USB port. It might as well use a USB 1.1 port which is even cheaper, doen't require the calculation power of USB 2.0 and is universally compatible (even with USB 2.0).

I've never seen embedded designs with FW. Usually you get proprietary data ports and it's the terminal that does all the calculation, not the device (AFAIK).

If it can make you happy, FW was a very promising technology. Regrettably, as tons of technologies do, it failed to build on its strengths.

[Wombat]

Because USB1.1 has crappy throughput compared to FW? Once again, I'm talking about DV transfer.

[Sasq]

agree with wombat, had a sony capable of both, usb sucked, FW worked.

End of story.

[William]

From the point of view of someone who looked at which to implement on a device;

USB was the far more sensible option because it could be plugged into any computer that it might come accross. First time, the data needing to be transfered wouldn't tax an RS232 port.

New product, much more data to be transferred, same interface options; same answer for the same reasons. Dual interface with Firewire was a possibility, but having two plugs confuses customers, and costs more.

[High_Jumbllama]

This was my point though you fleshed it out better.

[Jammrock]

USB is good as a small peripheral interconnect, like mice, keyboards, some digital cameras, etc. Get into anything that is bandwidth intensive and it sucks. USB 2.0 is decent, at best, with CD/DVD burners, high res digi-cams and a few other medium bandwidth devices.

For high-throughput devices you need Firewire(2), external SATA, SCSI or soon SAS (Serial Attached SCSI).

Jammrock

[leech]

I want the Serial Attached SCSI Love my All SCSI system. The only thing that is now non-SCSI is my external USB2.0 Harddrive. It's just a damned shame that if I want a DVD burner I'm going to have to suffer putting an IDE cable in my computer, or get an external one... Ick. Why on earth don't they make affordable and newer SCSI DVD burners? (the only one I've ever found was about 1500 USD and it was a 2X)

Leech

[Wombat]

Because nobody would buy SCSI DVD burners. At least, not enough people to justify the development cost.

[spadnos]

The original Pioneer DVD recorders were SCSI.

They were also $15000, and recorded at a blazing 1x.

Of course, that was in 1998.

- Steve

[tugboat]

Okay, at first I wasn't in total agreement about USB 2.0 sucking, but now I am.

My WD Combo drive has a USB 2.0 transfer rate of 17.3MB/s and a Firewire transfer rate of 33.8MB/s. I called WD about it thinking I had something configured wrong or the USB on the drive was bad. They told me not to expect more than 20MB/s from the USB regardless of what the maximum transfer rate of USB 2.0 is.

So it's Firewire for me when using high speed devices and USB 2.0 for all others. I guess the transfer rate is enough for my USB cam, card reader and Pinnacle Systems USB Movie Box. USB 1.1 is fine for my keyboard, mouse and printer.

Man, I can't even get half way to the maximum speed of 2.0. Gotta love it.

[William]

Why not just stick a SCSI-IDE converter on it? I have it on good autority that many "SCSI" high speed CD writers simply have the converter integrated onto their main PCB