Is FireWire dead? Is USB 3 the future?

Dinarius

Just asking because I made enquires with both DELL and Apple about buying a laptop with a FireWire connection.

DELL no longer make computers with IEEE 1394 ports/connecitons of any description, apparently.

Apple seem to be headed the same way.

Any views?

Thanks.

D.

yoyo

Did Firewire ever really take off? Besides Apple or Sony I'm not aware of other manufacturers that used it, I've no Firewire support on my pc anyways and its never even dawned on me I'm missing it :P .

Nick

Dinarius

I use Hasselblad cameras. They connect via FireWire 1394. It looks like Hasselblad have some serious thinking to do.

http://hasselblad.com/products/h-system/h4d-50ms.aspx

I note that Phaseone one backs have both FireWire 800 and USB 3.

http://www.phaseone.com/Camera-Systems/IQ-Series.aspx

Thanks for the reply.

D.

TheAmateur

Laptops with built-in firewire are getting rarer. If you need firewire, my advice is to buy a laptop with an expresscard slot, and then buy an expresscard firewire adapter, e.g. this one. Just keep in mind that these usually cannot be hotplugged.
As for the firewire vs USB3 question, I imagine that most devices which are still using firewire will probably wait to switch to Thunderbolt. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the architecture of Thunderbolt suits the devices which currently still rely on firewire (e.g. audio interfaces) better than USB.

Dinarius

That's exactly the setup I currently have.

1. Those cards are becoming very hard to find.

2. Will manufacturers continue to make laptops with the expresscard slots?

Thanks.

D.

jonon9

I think firewire will soon be a thing of the past I myself used it at one stage but moved up to usb 3.0 and think its much better than firewire having said that I love to try out thunderbolt but I dont have a thunderbolt motherboard and I guess also thunderbolt devices are bloody highly priced. Id give it another year for thunderbolt until prices start to come down.

ED E

yoyo wrote: »

Did Firewire ever really take off? Besides Apple or Sony I'm not aware of other manufacturers that used it, I've no Firewire support on my pc anyways and its never even dawned on me I'm missing it :P .

Nick

All the old videcameras used FW for captures. Then DVD/HDD/Solid state units hit the market and made that obsolete. But back in the days of miniDV FW was all the rage.


I still have a 2x FW800 PCI card in my box, and a cable wire up to the desk, though I never use it :S

RUCKING FETARD

USB Power Delivery spec upped to 100W, aims to make proprietary power connectors obsolete

challengemaster

IMO thunderbolt is the future, and probably the next USB considering it also supports video/audio out. Currently it's not even properly implemented, no real devices in the market (yet). But 10GBps transfer rates put USB3 to shame. It's the same as any platform, once it becomes a standard and the market gets flooded with devices prices will drop.

ED E

challengemaster wrote: »

IMO thunderbolt is the future, and probably the next USB considering it also supports video/audio out. Currently it's not even properly implemented, no real devices in the market (yet). But 10GBps transfer rates put USB3 to shame. It's the same as any platform, once it becomes a standard and the market gets flooded with devices prices will drop.

I think it the ball is really in googles court on this one. If the push next gen android manufacturers to USB3 it'll go that way, but if they jump ship then USB is dead. Not to say google are the only ones influencing this, but with the sheer number of android activations a day the numbers are there.

roast

I found it odd that Firewire was nearly standard on a lot of Desktop motherboards a few years back. And laptops.
90% of the customers I've supported in the past have never used Firewire.
I, on the other hand, do use it quite frequently, wouldn't be able to manage without it.
Will definitely make the switch to USB3.0 or Thunderbolt once the devices I use move to this standard.

alfaealba

Is thunderbolt the new firewire tho? This is another standard championed by Apple which again if nobody else picks up will go the same way as firewire

yoyo

alfaealba wrote: »

Is thunderbolt the new firewire tho? This is another standard championed by Apple which again if nobody else picks up will go the same way as firewire

Its hard to know which will win (Although I think thunderbolt is more an Intel thing than Apple was with firewire but stand to be corrected), my guess however as a standard it does seem to be robust, how many different firewire standards are there? I only remember having one motherboard (and I've put together many machines) which had Firewire support. Never ever owned a firewire device or know people who've used them, regardless of it's superiority to USB seems devices are scarce or more expensive.

Nick

challengemaster

ED E wrote: »

I think it the ball is really in googles court on this one. If the push next gen android manufacturers to USB3 it'll go that way, but if they jump ship then USB is dead. Not to say google are the only ones influencing this, but with the sheer number of android activations a day the numbers are there.

Oh I'm not implying that USB and TB won't co-exist like eSATA, Firewire, USB, etc have all done until now, but I see TB taking the dominant role.

The beauty of it is, it doesn't really matter about smartphones or handheld devices. In fact it probably makes more sense for them to stick USB3 as I'd imagine it's easier to implement in small form factor.

With the higher transfer speeds it's likely to become standard on all external hard drives within a few years. Drobo, albeit being the market for higher-end users has already started supporting TB.

Also apple is leading the launch of TB screens, and inclusion of ports on their lineup, more than likely because they have the money to throw at development and it's typical apple to do such a thing. It just seems more versatile than USB.

alfaealba wrote: »

Is thunderbolt the new firewire tho? This is another standard championed by Apple which again if nobody else picks up will go the same way as firewire

As mentioned, it's more of an Intel thing than an apple one which already puts it in a better position for success. It means rather than just being another optional, motherboard manufacturers will want to implement it, and may even be asked by Intel to do so.

Asus has already started including thunderbolt ports and a thunderbolt header on their latest series of motherboards. Most of the P8Z77-V range has thunderbolt ports, and the ones that don't have a header to be used with a PCIe add on card at a later date.

Soundman

You could just get yourself a Firewire to USB cable? I know there would be discrepancies with speed but it should still work regardless.

Dinarius

Soundman wrote: »

You could just get yourself a Firewire to USB cable? I know there would be discrepancies with speed but it should still work regardless.

As in the device would be Firewire and the computer would be USB. Correct?

Thanks.

D.

ressem

I have seen some companies offering USB to firewire converters like this, but I'd suspect that they would not work for most firewire devices.

Just guessing, but looks like most WinTel laptops will be using a mix of USB3 and Wifi Direct (WiDi).
Pros with critical timing requirements (Video, Audio, other) will use specialty laptops with low latency connections whether that is thunderbolt, firewire or other.

USB 3 isn't anywhere near as bad as USB2 for this as it can now send and receive data at the same time. (USB 2 is half duplex, so trying to read and write at the same really slows down the connection)

Dinarius

Thanks again for the replies.

I should have said that I am using a Hasselblad camera connected to a DELL laptop via one of these> http://www.sonnettech.com/product/computercards/index.html

If I had a Mac laptop, I could connect directly to a Firewire port.

Ideally, I'd like Hasselblad to get their asses in gear and allow Firewire (from the camera) to USB 3 on the computer. http://www.phaseone.com/Camera-Systems/IQ-Series.aspx digital camera backs are now made with BOTH Firewire and USB 3.

D.