FireWire Plans to Quadruple Speed
FireWire Plans to Quadruple Speed
by , 2:20 PM EST, December 17th, 2007
Last week, the IEEE1394 Trade Association announced a new standard that will take FireWire from 800 Mbps to 3.2 Gbps. The new standard, called S3200, will use the same cables and connectors as the current IEEE 1394b standard.
The standard expected to be ratified in February, 2008.
"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."
FireWire has some specific advantages over competitors. It can deliver more electrical power and its peer-to-peer architecture allows it to operate independent of a computer bus.
The announcement by the IEEE1394 Trade Association positioned FireWire 3200 directly against eSATA. It also noted that no current hard disk can exploit this data rate, but at least FW3200 can deliver electrical power to external devices.
The Association also appears to be targeting HDTV and HDMI. HDMI has not met with what would be called overwhelming enthusiasm in many circles because the connectors cannot be fastened securely and because of handshaking problems between some systems.
"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 announcement said.
With the current momentum of eSATA for disk drives and wide-spread consumer confusion over their HDTV connectors, S3200/FireWire 3200 will face some serious marketing challenges. The upside is that it uses the same connectors, and that will likely secure its place amongst those professionals and consumers already highly invested in FireWire technologies.
Observer Comments
It's hard to say if this will make a big splash.
QuoteGuest wrote:
which was ratified quite some time ago, I don't see FW3200 getting any takers soon. The boat has sailed....
FW1600 probably wasn't a big enough improvement over FW800 to justify the cost of implementation. Bug if FW 3200 lets you do fundamentally new things like uncompressed HD, then it may be enough to catch on.
Sometimes it is not clear why one protocol gains hold while another flounders. Why did the market standardize on USB and marginalize Firewire? Because Best Buy and Circuit City pulled all their firewire drives off the shelves when USB 2.0 came out! It is about business alliances and politics, not what works or what the customer really wants.
Comments are currently closed. Please email the author instead.
Recent Headlines - Updated July 5th
- Fri, 10:29 AM
- News - Apple Warns of Learning Interchange Security Breach
- 7:30 AM
- News - Happy Fourth of July!
- Thu, 6:07 PM
- TMO Scoop - Psystar Moves to Drop Bankruptcy Ahead of Apple Legal Battle
- 5:37 PM
- News - Uncomfirmed Reports Say Apple & Nvidia On The Outs
- 4:57 PM
- News - Microsoft Sick Over Barf Ad
- 4:09 PM
- Product News - KRK Ships R6 Passive Studio Monitor for Recording
- 3:45 PM
- John Martellaro's Blog - Particle Debris (week ending 7/2) Juiced, Joost and Goosed
- 3:12 PM
- Product News - ExactScan 2 Pro Released
- 1:56 PM
- Deal Brothers - Apple TV with 160GB Hard Drive: $324.00 Delivered
- 12:46 PM
- TMO Appearances - TMO Appearances Jeff Gamet Shares iPhone Apps on MacJury
- 10:41 AM
- Product News - Art Text 2.2 Adds New Templates, Layer Options [Updated]
- 10:04 AM
- Hot Forum Topic - Deciphering Mac Sales
The Mac Observer Reader Specials
- Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com
OWC:
OWC Mercury On-The-Go FW400/800/USB2/eSATA Portables. High Performance A/V Rated. Bus Powered. Up to 500GB in the Palm of your Hand. Macworld Editor's Choice. CNET 'Very Good.' From $75.99!
If you're using a Mac, then you've gotta check out Full Tilt Poker for Mac. This Full Tilt Poker bonus code does the unthinkable, it actually rewards!
RamJet Memory: MacBook and MacBook Pro 4GB kits for $57.99! Mac Pro 4GB Kits $99.99! iMac and Mac mini 4GB Kits for $57.99! 1TB SATA Hard Drives for $109.99! Click hereFor the latest Apple products use Ciao, a price comparison website, to find laptops like MacBook Air. Then find the best prices on MP3 players and use our comparison tool to evaluate mobile phones like the Apple iPhone.
Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

