FireWire History
FireWire (based on technology originally developed by Apple), was adopted in 1995 as an official
industry standard (IEEE 1394). This original version of FireWire is
a high-speed, hot-swappable peripheral interface that supports data
transfer rates of up to 400 Mbit/sec. Due to it's speed and hot-swap
capabilities, FireWire has become widely used on DV camcorders, external
hard disk drives, external DVD burners and more.
Now FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b), the next generation of FireWire technology, doubles the
throughput of the original FireWire interface to 800 Mbit/sec and dramatically increases the maximum
distance of FireWire connections! FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b) can
be added to a desktop computer using a FireWire
800 1394b PCI card or in the case of a laptop computer with a FireWire 800
1394b PCMCIA CardBus card.
(Note: to differentiate the original version of FireWire from the 800
Mbit/sec version, the original version is now being referred to by many as
FireWire 400 or IEEE 1394a).
Dramatic Increase in Distance
Not only is FireWire 800 twice as fast as before, but it can be used over much longer
distances. FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b) allows the use of various types of cabling, each
offering different speed/distance capabilities. A FireWire
800 cable will connect devices up to 15 feet away, while a FireWire
800 optical repeater will connect devices up to 1000 meters (3300
feet) away!
Compatibility with Current FireWire Products
FireWire 800 provides two modes of transmission:
- The pure beta mode (a FireWire 800 device connected to a FireWire 800
port with a FireWire
800 beta cable)
- The backward-compatible legacy mode (a FireWire 400 device connected
to a FireWire 800 port or vice versa with a FireWire
800/FireWire 400 bilingual cable)
FireWire 400 devices use a 6-pin or 4-pin connector while FireWire 800 devices use a 9-pin
connector. Existing FireWire 400 devices can be plugged into either type
of port with the appropriate cable. FireWire 800 devices can achieve FireWire 800 speeds only
when connected to a FireWire 800 port.
Bus Power
Both FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 provide significant amounts of power on
the FireWire bus (up to 45 watts, with a maximum of 1.5 amps and 30 volts).
Allowing many devices to be powered through the FireWire cable in place of
needing their own power supply, such as FireWire
WebCams and portable FireWire drives.
(Note: only 9-pin and 6-pin ports carry power, 4-pin FireWire ports cannot
supply power.)
FireWire versus USB 1.1 and USB 2.0
FireWire and USB are both widely used in the computer and consumer electronics
industries. USB 1.1 is well suited for computer mice, keyboards, and other
lower-bandwidth input devices. Even though USB 2.0 provides a tremendous speed advantage over the older v1.1
USB standard,
FireWire remains the high-speed interface performance king for external devices such as hard drives, DV camcorders and
DVD burners/writers.
Support for a Wide Range of Devices
What can you use FireWire for?
Mass storage
Storage devices especially portable ones are being radically transformed by the
adoption of FireWire and FireWire 800. Not only does FireWire permit an external hard disk drive to be
mounted by simply connecting a single plug, it can even provide enough electricity
to power the drive. FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 mass storage devices include
FireWire 400 &
FireWire 800 hard disk drives, FireWire
800 Drive Kits (that turn any IDE drive into a FireWire 800 drive), magneto-optical drives,
high-capacity removable
FireWire drives, tape drives, and FireWire
CD/DVD products.
Digital Video
Digital video (DV) camcorders capture video and audio and can send a perfect copy
to a computer for editing, adding special effects, and making other modifications to
create a finished video using a FireWire
800 card and digital video editing software. FireWire provides the high-speed connection required to
download digital video quickly. FireWire 800 even has the necessary throughput for
bandwidth-intensive applications that were not possible over the original FireWire,
such as multiple-stream, uncompressed, standard-definition video. The long-distance
capability of FireWire 800 also gives production studios and similar businesses more
flexibility to locate each piece of equipment where it’s most appropriate, rather than
having to put everything adjacent to the computer.
Digital Audio
FireWire delivers the bandwidth required for high-quality digital audio.
Even FireWire 400 has enough bandwidth over a single connector for hundreds of channels of
noise free, high-resolution digital audio and up to 256 channels of MIDI. FireWire 800 can
handle twice as many simultaneous real-time streams. Support for
very long cabling gives you more configuration options with FireWire 800 than solutions such
as USB, enabling you to use a FireWire 800 enable computer as a virtual patch bay that connects
audio devices in situations ranging from a personal studio to a huge
multi-room production facility. You can even hot-swap devices in and out of the audio
processing chain as your needs change.
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