New FireWire Specifications Offer Four Times More Speed

[Jimmy 2004]

The 1394 Trade Association today announced a new specification to quadruple the speed of FireWire to reach 3.2 gigabits per second.

The new electrical specification, known as S3200, builds upon the IEEE 1394b standard, preserving all the advantages of FireWire while offering a major and unprecedented boost in performance. The new speed uses the cables and connectors already deployed for FireWire 800 products, making the transition forward easy and convenient for 1394 product vendors and their customers. Because the 1394 arbitration, data, and service protocols were not modified for S3200, silicon and software vendors can deploy the faster speed FireWire quickly and with confidence that it will deliver its full potential performance. The S3200 specification is expected to be ratified by early February.

FireWire 800 products deployed since 2003 have proven that IEEE 1394b delivers outstanding performance. Operating without polling, without idle times, and without continuous software management, FireWire 800 efficiently delivers more than 97 percent of its bit rate as payload -- not overhead. FireWire 800 hard drives today can easily move over 90 megabytes per second. S3200 preserves 100 percent of the 1394b design efficiency and will deliver extremely high payload speeds reaching nearly 400 megabytes per second. Other interface technologies struggle to deliver half their advertised bit rate to the user, even under optimal conditions.

No Compromises to 1394’s Features

The S3200 specification brings FireWire to this new performance level without compromising existing features. For example, FireWire provides much more electrical power than any other interface, freeing users from inconvenient AC power adapters. FireWire products built using S3200 will directly connect to every previously released FireWire product. Alternative cable options are available to carry FireWire over long distances - 100 meters or more - even at high speeds.

Also, FireWire’s peer-to-peer architecture allows products to operate with a computer - or without one. This superior combination of features is not found in any other technology, which explains why over one billion FireWire ports have been shipped to date, on products as diverse as computers, cameras, televisions, hard drives, and musical instruments. IEEE 1394 also is deployed in vital applications in state-of-the-art aircraft and polar orbiting satellites.

S3200 Strengthens 1394’s Position in Storage, Consumer Electronics

One of the strongest markets today for FireWire is storage for computers. The best hard drives with FireWire 800 can move data almost three times as fast as the best hard drives with USB 2.0. Also, FireWire provides much more electrical power than USB, so FireWire-equipped hard drives can operate without an AC adapter, and at high rotational speeds. USB hard drives can fail to work from USB power, or require a second USB cable for power, or use the lowest-performance drive mechanisms because so little power is available.

With S3200 this power advantage for FireWire is fully preserved. S3200 also makes FireWire so fast that users will see no advantage from eSATA. Both interfaces are much faster than any modern hard drive mechanism, but eSATA does not provide electrical power to operate a drive. On a computer, an eSATA port is far less flexible than a FireWire port, because many more devices can connect to FireWire. For these reasons, S3200 makes FireWire the superior choice for future external storage products.

S3200 will also enhance FireWire’s strong position in consumer electronics A/V devices such as camcorders and televisions. Today, 100 percent of HD set top boxes provided by cable companies have FireWire ports. So do 100 models of HDTV. FireWire is the only separable interface today that can record HD programs in their full digital quality while also meeting the content protection requirements of copyright holders. Many companies are pursuing whole-home HD network solutions using FireWire - notably the HANA Alliance.

Technology development is also nearing completion to permit FireWire to operate over cable television coaxial cables, without disrupting the existing program content. With S3200, FireWire becomes fast enough to move even uncompressed HD signals over long distances at much lower cost than solutions such as HDMI.

"The S3200 standard will sustain the position of IEEE 1394 as the absolute performance leader in multi-purpose I/O ports for consumer applications in computer and CE devices," said James Snider, executive director, 1394 Trade Association. "There is a very clear migration path from 800 Megabits/second to 3.2 Gigabits/second, with no need for modifications to the standard and no requirement for new cables or connectors."

The Silicon Working Group developed the S3200 specification within the 1394 Trade Association, with participation by industry leaders including Symwave, Texas Instruments, LSI Corporation, and Oxford Semiconductor. S3200 specifies the electrical operation of the 3.2 Gigabit mode first specified by IEEE 1394b-2002, without changing any connector, cable, protocol, or software requirements. Based on the working group's progress, the Trade Association has set a January 2008 date for the specification to enter a ratification process.

The 1394 Trade Association is a worldwide organization dedicated to the advancement and enhancement of the IEEE 1394 audio video standard. For more information, visit www.1394ta.org

Source: 1394 Trade Association

[TheGuruStud]

and it will be faster than USB 3.0 bwahahahhahahaha (like I had to say it)

Who do the USB ppl think they're fooling? Not this guy!

[Easy Rhino]

good, cause with hd cameras it takes forever to import all that data under the current standard.

[AsphyxiA]

that would be nice for DAW recording, no lag

[Kreij]

Firewire is screaming fast, and transfers to external HDs with FW800 performs better than any USB configured connection I've seen.

But ....

FireWire is the only separable interface today that can record HD programs in their full digital quality while also meeting the content protection requirements of copyright holders.

You all know what this means.

[Dangle]

This is cool. I like the shape of the firewire plug because you can easily tell which way to plug it in. Sometimes you've got the USB plug upside-down. Still, Firewire is not very popular any more - and USB 2.0 is fast enough to stream HD video + 5.1 surround sound (xbox 360 HD DVD upgrade).

[FreedomEclipse]

this sounds good, I myself run a huge external drive which takes years to autorun in XP as is nearly full (need to spring clean my crap) so any speed boost is great

[craigwhiteside]

firewire s3200 ftw

I like USB... More ports and a better "universal" standard. I can see how firewire can be useful though.

[twicksisted]

Originally Posted by AsphyxiA

that would be nice for DAW recording, no lag

There will always be "lag" or latency... even if you use a PCI or PCI-X soundcard... this is because the audio signal has to be processed through the soundcards AD/DA convertors and DSP chips.

My current setup using Ableton in 24/96 on an m-audio 1010, has 5ms latency and this is a pci card. Still 5ms is pretty good though... but having firewire will not add to this latency as this is determined by the DSP chips and AD/DA convertors that the signals pass through.

[twicksisted]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

this sounds good, I myself run a huge external drive which takes years to autorun in XP as is nearly full (need to spring clean my crap) so any speed boost is great

What about using ESATA then?... plugs straight into a sata port of your motherboard and acts like an internal drive... would probably end up being better than something running through the firewire controller as its already on the sata controller

[Chewy]

you cant just plug in esata.. it needs to boot with the comp . but yes esata is pure ownage lol!

[twicksisted]

Originally Posted by Chewy

you cant just plug in esata.. it needs to boot with the comp . but yes esata is pure ownage lol!

Really?i thought eSATA was hot swappable.... hmmm... aah well if you have a large external drive that you intent transferring large files across (to warrant the extra timesaving of esata), then a reboot isnt gonna kill you

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by twicksisted

What about using ESATA then?... plugs straight into a sata port of your motherboard and acts like an internal drive... would probably end up being better than something running through the firewire controller as its already on the sata controller

my laptop doesnt support E-sata, my pc does but my external drive doesnt lol. make any sense to you?

but I tend to use my laptop a lot more for day to day tasks then my actual pc so the external HDD is connected mainly to my laptop

Originally Posted by Chewy

you cant just plug in esata.. it needs to boot with the comp . but yes esata is pure ownage lol!

Wrong... SATA of all kinds is hot swappable.

[TheGuruStud]

Originally Posted by Dangle

This is cool. I like the shape of the firewire plug because you can easily tell which way to plug it in. Sometimes you've got the USB plug upside-down. Still, Firewire is not very popular any more - and USB 2.0 is fast enough to stream HD video + 5.1 surround sound (xbox 360 HD DVD upgrade).

barely it is, and that's at 1x. Ripping would take forever.

[Chewy]

Originally Posted by v-zero

Wrong... SATA of all kinds is hot swappable.

It wouldnt detect the drive for me when I just plugged it into my esata port.. that was with my gigabyte ds3 board and a esata (pci bracket) to motherboard sata.. it would only work with reboot.

Im going to enable my jmicron on my p5k board so I can use my esata ports on the back of the mobo. I would like to be able to use my esata for my external drive! :O

brb

[TheGuruStud]

Originally Posted by Chewy

It wouldnt detect the drive for me when I just plugged it into my esata port.. that was with my gigabyte ds3 board and a esata (pci bracket) to motherboard sata.. it would only work with reboot.

Im going to enable my jmicron on my p5k board so I can use my esata ports on the back of the mobo. I would like to be able to use my esata for my external drive! :O

brb

The sata controller might be cheap junk on it. Idk what one it has (is jmicron the chip name too?), but I've seen some cheap/old ones that don't support hot swapping. All nvidia/silicon image/etc support it from what I've seen. Of course that intel board there is your problem to begin with

[Chewy]

:P yeah I just plugged it in, the jmicron is for esata on this board the p5k premium.. its still not detected.. hrm.
jmicron is the chipname I believe, jmicron controller is what its called. I do believe sata is swapable though because http://www.cooldrives.com/duesexdrcawi.html

Edit: well my mobos esata worked upon a reboot, Im not overly fond of how much slower the booting process is with jmicron controller enabled though.

[TheGuruStud]

Originally Posted by Chewy

:P yeah I just plugged it in, the jmicron is for esata on this board the p5k premium.. its still not detected.. hrm.
jmicron is the chipname I believe, jmicron controller is what its called. I do believe sata is swapable though because http://www.cooldrives.com/duesexdrcawi.html

is there a bios update and newer drivers for it? They may have fixed it. :shrugs:

[Chewy]

I'll update in the morning for now Im going to sleep.. this new firewire is nice but so is esata :P

[tigger]

The firewire might be quicker than usb,but usb is more widely used then firewire.when was the last time you saw a firewire mem stick? i have also never seen a firewire external hdd either.I dont know anybody who has ever used firewire.

[TheGuruStud]

Originally Posted by tigger69

The firewire might be quicker than usb,but usb is more widely used then firewire.when was the last time you saw a firewire mem stick? i have also never seen a firewire external hdd either.I dont know anybody who has ever used firewire.

Don't be hating just b/c you're unknowledgeable. USB is like a monopoly (supported by monopolies as a matter of fact). Just b/c it's the largest and most common does not mean it's better, in any way (again, look at every monopoly). That's why it's so common (and 1394 had licensing fees, small price to pay if you ask me, edit: forgot to mention the small price of hardware). I have a firewire external enclosure, and two ports on my MB are FW (all of my MBs have had two ports). Intel and others have worked hard to spread the sub par product. It's functional, but very limited. Try copying video off of a real recorder. Where's that USB port at? If it has one, have fun waiting many minutes for it to transfer. Same thing with data from an external HDD. Oh, also have fun with your USB HDD substantially slowing down your PC when using it (it is a resource hog, totally unacceptable). It's useful (only v2, 1.1 is a joke) only on slow peripherals, like mice/keyboards, cell phones, printers (low quality printing), and maybe a few others. The rest are completely bandwidth starved. 20 Mb/sec is nothing to brag about. 1394a is over twice that in sustained rate (usb can be very fast in very small bursts, the poor design kills it with overhead). Now, imagine 1394b.

More common almost always never equals a better product. Haven't we learned that yet (dell rings a bell rofl) ?

[niko084]

Originally Posted by Easy Rhino

good, cause with hd cameras it takes forever to import all that data under the current standard.

Don't even need to think about that... You should see what happens on USB 2.0 with my Digital Cam when I try to offload my 2gb ram card when its full.... Just stupid slow....

And to think I'm considering buying an actual nice digital camera, Nikon D300.... I want a Hasselblad H3D but...... $3000-$20,000 is a big jump.

Yes I had the same problem!
Even 512MB SD Card transferring to my Comp. vas about 6-7min!!! Ahh!
Then I bought a 51in1 card reader and that solved it! Now transferring is about 1or2 minints!
I think the neck of the bottle was somthing in my camera! "Samsung S600"