Goodbye, FireWire 400
By Nilay Patel 
posted Nov 17th 2008 3:01PM
posted Nov 17th 2008 3:01PM
We'll miss you.
Please note: If you're a current Engadget commenter, you do not need to re-register. Simply login and you will be prompted to select a username.
Whats this about? USB 3.0?
Next on the Agenda of deaths, Blu-Ray!
Blu-Ray?
Blu-Ray is just a passing fad, it's to overpriced, something will come out and kill Blu-Ray, watch.
Working in Retail, we average about 2 Blu-Ray movies a WEEK, and about 1 player a month, if even that.
Where do you work? RadioShack?
I actually work at the biggest Wal-Mart in my county.
did u not count the PS3s???
No, that's all PS3, no one buys the standalone players at my store, just the PS3.
Sorry for the low-ranked stuff, but I seriously just dont see Blu-Ray lasting to long. Most people ask where our Blu-Ray section is, I show them, and they say something about it being to expensive, and they end up just buying the Regular DVD
Blu-Ray indeed is way overpriced. Buying a Blu-Ray copy of a movie is too pricey compared to a DVD. I view digital distribution of HD content as the immediate replacement for it.
Oh my God!! Your right!!
$25 bucks for a blu-ray?!?!
$5 more for a higher definition crystal clear picture and pure crystal sound over its lower definition obsolete format introduced over 10 years ago!!!
That is overpriced!!! ..........*sarcasm*
Well... You do work at a Wal Mart.
It's not like people are rushing in there to buy high quality products.
No offense.
I just don't see that happening.
Everyone I know that shops at Wal Mart... Cheapskate!
I just bought a Blu-Ray at the Walmart in Northern VA, and they said they can't keep them fully stocked they sell out so quickly. They now have 2 full rows of Blue-Ray disks where DVD's use to be.
So, Blu-Ray will live on, just it takes awhile.
Well, see the Digital Version would be better, I actually forgot about that, I just dont think the Blu-Ray DISK will be very popular.
Also, The new release Blu-Ray ares $29.88, and the new release DVDs are $15.96.
After 3 days the DVD goes back up to $19.96, and the Blu-ray stays the same. So
it's not $5 more, it's $10 - $15 more.
It would probably help if they weren't locked up requiring the would-be purchaser to come find the single Wall-Mart employee who actually has the keys.
When I went to go pick up Iron Man, the whole process took about 20 minutes. Five minutes standing in front of the cabinet that is right behind the cash registers with two employees standing there waiting for help, another five standing in line at the register waiting for the asshole employee to finish chatting about nail polish with the customer, then only to be told that they don't have the keys and to go find "bill", finding Bill resulted in being told to find the other Bill, waiting for Manager Bill to finish up with another customer, and then finally having him walk back and unlock the cabinet.
Douchebags.
Matt, our Blu-Rays, aren't locked up...?
They're on the shelf just like other DVDs, the only things we have locked up are Games, Consoles, Laptops, GPS, and MP3 Players.
I'm willing to take some low ranking with you for the truth. Blu-Ray is not here to stay and will never be the new DVD. Digital distribution will catch up in quality too soon. In the interim, I'm fine with upscaled DVD or even internet 'HD'. This isn't to say that you shouldn't get Blu-Ray if you want it. The quality right now is the highest available, but not for long and not worth the price IMHO.
As for FW 400... goodbye, good riddance. FW 800(+), you're next.
I remember paying $25 and $30 for DVD's when they first came out, its just t he name of the game guys, when dvd dies BR Movies will go down to $15 and $20 bucks.
Currently it will cost consumers too much to store their files digitally. hard drive prices are indeed falling, but it will take some time before they will be cheap enough to support 30 to 50gb per movie. Not to mention how much will they cost digitally? $5 bucks less? And what about if you hard drive crashes? Do you get to re download (like xbox live) or do you have to repurchase? Not to mention many people will not initially want to buy a download, they will want to have a tangable product they can hold, and loan out. Digital downloads are comming, but its much further off than people think.
By far, the longest conversation with a Walmart employee discussing the future of Blu Ray and nothing to do with Firewire. Real nice.
Why don't people rent Blu-Ray? You don't have to BUY every Blu-Ray movie!
I remember buying DVDs when they first came out. How often do I watch Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore now? They were the low low price of $20 each! I'd say 99% of the time I just went to the video store to rent DVDs. And for the last 4 years, it's been Netflix all the way.
I don't need a shelf full of movies. Even $5 DVDs aren't a bargain to me. I'm happy with Netflix. I watch it, return it, and get more.
You can't walk out of the theater with the reels... so why do you have to own every Blu-Ray?
Lol, Yeah, the mention of Blu-Ray's death threw this article off course, I'm sorry.
Forgive me.
i am replying to add my name to this massive list of replys
Death of blu-ray and rise of digital distribution in a country where 60% of its 80% of internet users are still on dial-up, and yet all of them own a TV.
And with Analog TV being phased out?
AND the insane amount of DRM being placed on downloaded movies?
AND the fact that a downloaded movie costs about $20 even though manufacturing prices were cut?
Oh yeah, Blu-ray will gone by this time 2009.
Yeah, the downloaded version would be great. I'll get back to you in two weeks when Hulk finishes downloading to my PS3 in HD.
If you talk about where you are located based on your county it's probably a fair guess that you live in a backwater area where people can't afford a modern television much less a Blu-ray player. Those of us who live in the "Fake" areas of America have jobs that pay above minimum wage and we can therefore splurg on these so called passing fads. Let us know how you're doing on Feb 19 when your rabbit ears stop picking up the rodeo in Tupelo.
and don't forget about nearly every broadband companies bandwidth caps. I'd use up 150 gigs in a week if I downloaded the HD versions of all the movies I buy. I'll stick with Blu-ray till the tel-coms get their heads out of their asses.
Boo Radley, why be so harsh? I live in Buford, Georgia, about 10 minutes above Atlanta, it's not some Backwoods place, even though you probably haven't heard of it.
Sorry to make you get all pissy.
10 minutes? By plane? Whenever I go to Best Buy, the Blu-Ray players are flying off the shelves and the DVD players are collecting dust. I got a PS3.
Thats 10 minutes via I-85
Why are people low-ranking him for working at Wal-Mart? He's on Engadget and his question about USB 3.0 is legit (as are concerns for Blu-Ray considering the cost of entry/economy).
Also, Timothy, the FW400 death has to do with Apple abandoning it, which is huge considering how much they've pushed it in their computers...
And I sure hope you don't have "E-mail me when someone replies to this comment" checked because we got ourselves an epic thread going here...
Rofl. 2 weeks for an hd rip? More like 1-2 days for 720p, 3-6 for 1080... 2 weeks? What do you have, 56k???
I can't believe I read all these replies...
faster than that, rv.
im not encouraging anyone to download pirated movies, but there are legal things to download via bit torrent, and a 720p rip usually comes through in about 4 hours for the equil=valent of a full length movie (~1:45). High quality ompression (divx or h.264 can bring the file size down to around 5 gigs, and with enough seeders, around 750k dl speed average is possible.
Also, I want to add - what I meant by "he's on engadget" is that although he works at Wal-Mart (not a specialty electronic/gadget store) he is on engadget, a website that targets geeks and gadget aficionados, so clearly he enjoys this and is bettering his knowledge of the matter.
To rank him down simply because he works at Wal-Mart (again, because of those connotations and the fact that Wal-Mart isn't a specialty electronic/gadget store) seems unfair and based largely on stereotypes that he seems to defy.
Timothy, if you want to know more, check the links below the story (i.e. this one has things like firewire), these link to all stories tagged with certain subjects so you can read up on previous/related articles on engadget.
When DVDs first came out they were a lot more expensive compared to Videos so no-one bought them. Then they went cheaper and everyone bought them.
At some point in the next couple of years they'll reduce blu-ray in price and it'll take off.
Screw USB, BlueRay, and although i like firewire, Firewire..... I use Infiniband biatches!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiniband
I would like to point out that the mere fact that you refer to your Wal-Mart as the "biggest in your county" means you live in a rural area. People who live in or near large metropolitan areas do refer to their county as much as those in rural areas, another clue is that if you lived in a populated area, you would have more than one Wal-Mart in your "City" or "Town." So yes, I'm sure Blu-Ray sales are hurting in rural areas, where incomes are lower, less HDTVs are purchased, and almost nobody owns a Blu-Ray player.
All of that aside, Blu-Ray sales are not meeting expectations.
Hey, i.link is Firewire 800; the small ports you see. If that's going goodbye too you should at least say so in the title..
i.link is firewire 400.
It's ok.
Don't cry because it's over.
Smile because it happened.
wow engadget's taking the death of firewire kinda hard ain't it...
Dr. Seuss
That damn Jobs was right, again, not to put any FireWire slots on his new laptops.
Damn! What a crystal-ball must he have?! :)
If crying is wrong then I don't want to be right.
.... Crystal balls.. have you gone bloody mad?.. stop sucking on his crystal balls.. when Jobs said Blu-Ray is a "bag of hurt" he doesn't realize that eventually Blu-ray will become available on Macbooks and Macs.. which is basically shoving all his words back down his throat... I have no clue why Apple is "no to Blu-ray" but then again its the main reason why I stay away from them for the time being..
The pro models have firewire 800, they just removed the 400. Firewire is still better than USB in that it doesn't use CPU to handle the data, and you can daisy chain devices.
I think I saw adapters to plug a fw400 device into an 800 port. Then you can at least use your older devices.
Hahahaha, LOL
Hilarious.
But... Is it dead?
People use Firewire?
Yes.
I've never used firewire. The only person I know who does uses it for a camcorder. I have a hard drive that supports firewire or usb 2.0. the drive came with a usb cable not a firewire one. Guess which plug I use.
Well it definitely is not very fast to back up a machine with 250+ GB through USB..
I am using mine right now..
I'm simply bewildered. I have never used Firewire nor have I had the desire to purchase anything based on having Firewire.
I guess this is one gadget-boat I missed entirely. Oh well, I won't miss USB 3.0.
It's fast, it doesn't slow your computer to a crawl while you copy files, and you can do awesome things like target mode with it that just can't be done with USB chipsets -- that's got me out of trouble countless times. Hell yeah I use it.
Or rather, I did, till my main machine became a new MacBook. Sigh.
I'm using my external FireWire drive right now.
Almost all DV cameras and external audio interfaces [that offer more than 4 inputs] rely solely on firewire.
To say that firewire is dead is totally absurd, because so many people that work with media content rely VERY HEAVILY on devices that connect by firewire.
Many high-end audio interfaces are firewire, although some of the newer ones like the RME ones are FW800 so I guess they're ok for now. My Motu units are FW400 though.
It is far superior to USB 2.0 for this use; all stuff to do with the chipsets and the bus not being shared and whatever stuff I don't understand. All I know that USB is fairly pants for audio, hence there aren't many interfaces that use it and those that do are cheap and nasty.
Firewire hard drives are also brilliant.
So yes, people have been using firewire, but things have superseded it. I'm guessing FW800 is the new thing for audio, and eSATA for external drives.
I couldn't help looking at my 3 external daisy chained firewire drives while watching this video. Almost brought a tear to my eye.
If you want to connect a storage device and you have access to Firewire then you should use it unless you have access to eSATA instead. Even basic Firewire 400 beats the heck out of USB 2.0, let alone the higher specifications.
I use firewire 800, which sadly, doesn't seem to be adopted much either...
I'm crying too!
ummm... no..
Why cry when its really not dead, and who the hell claimed it dead? Just because Engadget posted this up does not mean its something that really is happening.. so what if USB 3.0 is coming out? Firewire is still alive, and sure all consumer level products just shove the USB 2.0 port on their products but how do you expect to use a 20 -30 MP camera with a USB port? Transfering images would be a damn nightmare!
Idk why Engadget even posted it.. I'm still bewildered at how incorrect it is.... and what a waste of time to have an arguement about Walmart and Firewire.. what the hell..
w.e. i just found it very annoying, somewhat funny.. and seirously, whoever says Blu-Ray is dieing.. must either be living in 2050 or is having a damn fantasy about it because they're wrong..
Firewire dead? Tell that to my camcorder!
or to the millions of peripherals that use it.
Indeed.
This post is painfully short-sighted and a bit juvenile, honestly.
@Rollins: What? Engadget juvenile?
Camcorder...FireWire is dead...
I'm sorry...
I don't think its so much "Firewire is dead" I think its more like "Firewire 400" is dead.
Since Firewire 800 is back compatible and all. It's similar to USB 1.1 to USB 2.0
I think the world of semi-pro/pro audio disagrees.
SCSI here we come! Again...
people actually used FireWire? ... wow...
I'll miss that barn shaped tip... RIP
I agree, my favorite part about FireWire was describing it to a n00b over the phone: "Now look on the back of your computer and find the hole that's shaped like a barn. . . ."
FireWire's for girls...
@ loocas
Steve Jobs is always right, hes the future creator of all technology and 'i' belieave in him
I'm confused, firewire is still leading in transfering digital audio and video in the professional world. Technically, your post should say, "Firewire Will Miss you in 2010" when the new USB/Firewire specs actually are in devices that I can BUY.
Engadget might as say RIP Platter Bassed Hard Drives, Live on SSDs! Oh wait, I know... RIP LED, because OLED is new!!!
Firewire 400 is long from dead.
Only reason that Apple didn't include them in their macbooks is because they added a real graphics card and the majority of laptop users take their laptops home and hook them up to a larger monitor and external keyboard mouse. If they had firewire then they would be pretty close to being equal to the macbook pro's and no one would buy one. Myself Included.
/////////////////////
i'll always use you when capturing and editing media...forget the haters
Haaaaaahahahahaha... this is great!
What's with all the firewire hate? It streams better for media then usb 2.0 and virtually every camcorder in the consumer/prosumer market outputs to it.
So beautiful, I was mesmerised and the song! how perfect because it is so true. I will cherish my firewire cables because i have experienced what a pain using USB 2.0 is when synching my 60gig ipod photo. What made me smile was the song because it started to remind me of the time when I went to a strip joint in durban. wicked stuff. Can't get the images and the song out of my head. thanks to whoever made the video.
Anyone who...
(1) Still uses a DV or HDV video camera
(2) Does pro/semi-pro audio
(3) Wants decent performance out of their external HD/optical drive
...disagrees. FireWire is a much better designed interface than USB. With direct memory access (better performance) and daisy chaining capability (easier to setup), it is far superior to USB.
USB's biggest problem is its reliance upon the computer's CPU to handle all of the data going in and out of the port. USB controllers aren't permitted to be smart enough to send data to where it needs to go; it is reliant upon the CPU to make those decisions, taking up valuable CPU cycles, and degrading performance. It will get even worse with the higher speeds of USB 3. Has anyone noticed how your computer's CPU utilization spikes every time you transfer a lot of data over USB? Try capturing video from a USB device, saving it to an external USB hard drive and you'll see what I mean... dropped frames, sluggish computer. FireWire handles this task without any hit on the CPU at all.
The designers of USB just don't get it, and apparently the makers of peripherals and consumers don't either.
I record tv from my usb tv tuner to my usb external hdd on a daily basis, and never have had a problem with it. Fine quality recordings, computer performance not noticeably effected.
Well said. People just don't realise how ball-achingly slow USB is, because they've never had the luxury of FireWire.
I'm not sure I get why Drew Green was low ranked. I agree with him. I haven't had problems with streaming USB devices to USB drives. I'm not saying that the original comment isn't true, but in most real-world scenarios the CPU hit isn't a problem unless you have a really crappy CPU.
Oh, USB makers got it, what they got was how to make the lowest priced peripherals possible. The USB design philosophy is what gets you such gems as the USB powered dog that humps the side of your PC... without such a cheap connector and power provided over the interface, things like that would be prohibitively expensive.
Firewire is for real data transfer, but if you just pump up the USB specs to the next level, you can always move more data than last generation's firewire interface.
And, apparently, you don't get it either. USB3 doesn't poll the CPU like USB2 and 1. It has the much of the same smart routing capability of firewire.
I'd imagine the biggest hurdle to firewire was branding. Legally, no one can call their device firewire because Apple didn't want to share their copyright, so everyone else had to sell IEEE 1394 cables. How many more Wireless or WiFi routers can you sell then saying you sell 802.11 routers? As I saw it, there was a small window of opportunity when Sony came up with a name (i.Link) but they did the same damn thing Apple did.
> "USB3 doesn't poll the CPU like USB2 and 1"
USB3 doesn't do jack-shit right now. There won't be any computers or peripherals until 2010. And why would I replace my eSATA enclosures with USB3?
Maaaaaybe someday my next camcorder will be USB3. And maaaaaybe someday I'll have a need for USB3. But I've already got a bunch of peripherals that don't make full use of the speed now.
Nice to see somebody explain it from a technical perspective. I have always had trouble explaining it since USB 2.0 "says" it transfers at 480, which is "obviously" faster than 400. I normally just do a demo with USB 2 vs. FW 400. Oh well. Like one person said, people with think USB 2 is blazing fast until they have the luxury or using FW.
I'm constantly transfering gigabytes worth of data from my interal drive to my externals via USB, while I'm torrenting more stuff, browsing the internet, and playing some videos either via VLC or MPC and have yet to notice my computer stutter even once. And the files are transfering at a decent 35-40 MB/s.
@ Seneca
Oh, Apple was willing to share the name, you just had to pay for it. They didn't own the rights to the technology, it was just the name they wanted you to pay for. Manufactures could put "Firewire" on their machines, they just couldn't "call" it that unless they payed Apple to use the name. Sony tried to counteract this by coming up with their own name to use on their stuff. Either way, the "Firewire" name won out, and so the technology became known as Firewire, so device manufactures pain the royalties to avoid confusion.
@Drew: USB TV tuners record a stream around 2-20 Mbps, which is small enough to work fine with either IO.
The name "Firewire" was made royalty free at one point, so you didn't have to pay Apple for the name. Unfortunately, it was too late, damage to the brand was already done. Oops.
Apple should have made it royalty free from the beginning if they wanted to really push the brand and make a niche outside of the prosumer for it.
You still can't connect two computers (or two peripherals) together using USB like you can with Firewire. That alone makes Firewire much more practical. It also makes Firewire controllers more expensive to manufacture, which is why it must be killed, this being a race to the bottom and all.
Hmmm... I seem to remember purchasing a Belkin PC to PC USB cable when transferring files from an XP machine to a Vista machine. I believe that is an example of two computers being connected using USB.
Piuttosto che piangere, fatevi una centrale idroelettrica d'inizio secolo, no? PORCO DEMONIO!
Perché?!?!
Translation: "It's-a me, a-Mario!"
"Rather than cry, let a hydroelectric power station of the century, no? SWINE DEMON!" ? ? ? ? ? ?
ma che cazzo dici? e che cazzo centra?
se sei svizzero capisco che ti importano le centrali idroelettriche e che in svizzera ce ne sono di buone
ma se sei italiano, non hai nessun diritto di criticare
seriamente stai un po' zitto
i bought a firewire card like 3 months ago and never used the damn thing,what a waste..im glad i only spent $10 for the darn thing,lesson learned i guess
You believing in Steve Jobs?!
No way!