USB 3.0 demonstrations dazzle: uncompressed 1080p transfer proves simple

You've been adequately teased with what all USB 3.0 (or SuperSpeed USB, as we tend to refer to it) can do, but a gaggle of companies took the chance in San Jose, California to really demonstrate just how quick the protocol is. Most notable was the demo by Synopsys, which prototyped an HDTV video transmission system based on USB 3.0 and showed to wide-mouthed onlookers that an uncompressed 1080p feed at 30 frames-per-second could be whisked along at around 450Mbps. Sure, USB 3.0 has wireless HD to watch out for, but given that said technology is currently on track for an August 2298 release, it could really do some tethered damage in the meanwhile.

[crawdad689 @ Nov 19th 2008 5:52PM]

humph. still not as good as firewire


/fanboi

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Nov 19th 2008 6:13PM]

Not when Engadget writes about it at 450Mbps. However, when properly referenced at 450MBps, yes, yes it's better than firewire...

[Daza @ Nov 19th 2008 6:35PM]

How on earth does a tech blog get bits/bytes mixed up, when it quite clearly states "PLDA demos 450 Mbytes per second". Even if the capitalisation is confusing, it actually says 'bytes' numerous times in the article.

Psst, Engadget - there's a difference, 8 times the difference.

[ethana2 @ Nov 19th 2008 6:49PM]

Yeah really, I was very confused when I saw that..

[nerdtalker @ Nov 19th 2008 6:58PM]

Engadget made a pretty n00b mistake there, that's for sure. We should be able to rank posts. Jee, I wonder what ranking that kind of awesome fact reporting would get?

Bytes != Bits

Those must be some nice FPGAs they're using, looks awesome, I just want some USB 3.0 compatible gear already.

[Corey @ Nov 19th 2008 5:53PM]

This makes me horny.

Is that weird?

[Danny F. @ Nov 19th 2008 5:58PM]

Not at all man.... I'm freaking wet just reading this!

.....wait

[KAIKAI @ Nov 19th 2008 5:58PM]

well do you have a usb port instead of a Asshole ??

[BJ is Gooder @ Nov 19th 2008 6:04PM]

Yes. I would seek professional help.

[x-blade @ Nov 19th 2008 6:09PM]

Welcome to nerdgasm my friend.

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 19th 2008 7:53PM]

Take a break from Engadget and join "Nerd Anonymous". ;)

[jesseswang @ Nov 19th 2008 5:56PM]

I've got August 2298 marked on my calender.

[Chris @ Nov 19th 2008 6:03PM]

Add it to this
Predictions for the 23rd century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2298

[Homeboy @ Nov 19th 2008 6:32PM]

Just a question. What harddrive on the market can write at speeds close to 450Mbytes/sec???

[Don @ Nov 19th 2008 6:37PM]

Damm, pity we wont live to see an official release
You'ld think by Year 2298AC we would've made more progress..

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 19th 2008 7:55PM]

But I want to see the day Easter falls on March 22nd again, and Google indexes EVERYTHING...

[noyp @ Nov 19th 2008 8:28PM]

I want to see the Star Trek cast.

[Telanis @ Nov 19th 2008 9:19PM]

3.0 GB/s - http://gizmodo.com/382013/western-digital-velociraptor-is-new-fastest-hard-drive-ever

[Telanis @ Nov 19th 2008 9:23PM]

Sorry, that's Gb/s, the writers of the article effed up and by doing effed me up too . . lol. Still that's 375 MB/s, pretty close, and there's always USB-to-USB transfer or reading into memory from the USB device . . .

[linuxamp @ Nov 19th 2008 11:34PM]

@ Homeboy
Not all data goes to/from the hard drive. A lot of stuff just goes to RAM which is plenty fast for USB3 and with RAM sizes constantly increasing I think even less will need to be written to the drive (swap/VM).

[Pete @ Nov 21st 2008 12:53PM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23rd_century#Other_predictions

[Johan S @ Nov 19th 2008 5:59PM]

An uncompressed 1080p stream at 30 fps is far more than 450 Mbps. The 1080p stream itself is compressed (as per the HDTV spec).

An uncompressed 30 fps stream at 1080 x 1920 is going to be far more than 450 Mbps.

[bot @ Nov 19th 2008 6:10PM]

It's a typo. The article states 450MBps. Bytes, not bits. Isn't the USB 2.0 spec 480Mbps?

[CrazyRussian @ Nov 19th 2008 6:34PM]

August 2298 ??

Wireless, uncompressed 1080p HD will be out next year.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Panasonic-Demonstrates-Uncompressed-Full-HD-Video-Wireless-Streaming-94661.shtml

[Dan @ Nov 19th 2008 6:03PM]

Wish my Popcorn Hour A-110 had USB 3.0 =(

[Gleb Serbin @ Nov 19th 2008 6:03PM]

Soon the sun will rise on a beautiful day where we will never again see another component, HDMI, or DVI cable again, everything will be USB based! The Koreans will stop being evil, China and Russia will get along, the Jews and the Muslims will resolve their differences, and the world will be at peace!

Then again, maybe not.

[Samuel Wat @ Nov 19th 2008 6:04PM]

"currently on track for an August 2298 release,"

Typo?

[Jinto @ Nov 19th 2008 6:06PM]

joke

[YoJIMbo @ Nov 19th 2008 6:07PM]

I thought engadget readers didn't require the tags...

[YoJIMbo @ Nov 19th 2008 6:08PM]

Hahaha, it was supposed to say sarcasm /sarcasm tags... Oh well

[Lowest Ranked @ Nov 19th 2008 6:20PM]

Your sarcasm tags were omitted because we don't require them.

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 19th 2008 9:50PM]

If you aren't intelligent enough to detect sarcasm, you shouldn't be commenting here. :P

[semicolin @ Nov 19th 2008 6:09PM]

cant usb 2 theoretically handle 480Mb/s??? i know that in the real world that this speed would probably never be achieved, but it is still possible. If they really wanted to show off usb 3 they should at least get it running at around 3Gb/s because it has a theoretical max of 5Gb/s. But thats just me. Take esata for example it could already easily handle 450Mb/s, which mkes this "dazzle" not that impressive.

[kevinm @ Nov 19th 2008 6:13PM]

It was suppose to read 450Mbytes or 450MBps, it's bytes not bits. USB 2.0 can only handle 60MB theoretically.

[semicolin @ Nov 19th 2008 6:24PM]

oh ya, big difference. they should correct that to MB/s i hate when people do that. That makes a big difference because eSata only has a real life speed of around 300MB/s, and theoretical of 375. the only thing is that no harddrive could even handle that much bandwidth unless it was in raid 0, i believe, and even then it might not even reach that. Personally i think its great having this much bandwidth but what would the average consumer use it for as of right now, nothing because anything that can handle even a fraction of that bandwidth would cost a fortune. Just my 2 cents.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Nov 19th 2008 6:10PM]

What about connecting USB mouse to the same hub and trying again?

USB remains USB...

[zfurie @ Nov 19th 2008 6:26PM]

Yeah, but at this speeds, your mouse would be moving on its own!

[Cameron @ Nov 19th 2008 6:23PM]

450MBps is 3600Mbps. with a theoretical speed of 5Gbps, this is a pretty good real life speed.

[semicolin @ Nov 19th 2008 6:29PM]

Ya, but you have to relize that the article has a miss print, Mbps is Mega BITS per second, and MBps is Mega BYTES per second. What he should have said is that it did 450MBs as pointed to me above by Kevinm.

[trickards @ Nov 19th 2008 7:53PM]

Semicolon - I think he is aware of this, don't reiterate something somebody has said to you only a few lines up.

*Facepalm*

Also! Aside from the genuine mistake, I think that is a good throughput and although drives may not be able to write at the speed at the moment is besides the point. If they were announcing technologies which were only just coping with todays read/write speeds, then a year down the line it would be totally useless. You have to future proof these things as they last for years.

Brand new standards aren't based around the average consumers current use for them, if they were we wouldn't be getting anywhere.

[topsitecourie @ Nov 19th 2008 6:23PM]

Ummmmm.......No such thing as 1080p @ 30fps...try 60. Otherwise its not 1080p is it...Not 1080i either....More like 1080 L 8)

[triforceOFcourage @ Nov 19th 2008 6:34PM]

@topsitecourie

Yes there is 1080p @ 30fps. Most 1080p movies are 24fps. Just because it displays 30 frames doesn't mean it has to display them interlaced, does it?

[bigcow05 @ Nov 19th 2008 6:24PM]

Cool, they are running KDE 4.1

So I guess Linux users can expect support for USB 3.0 very soon :D

[ethana2 @ Nov 19th 2008 6:50PM]

Before all other operating systems?
Of course.

[immer_ohne_gott @ Nov 20th 2008 10:18AM]

Dammit, bigcow, you stole my thunder. I was hoping no one else would notice so I could be the king of the linux nerds :(

[triforceOFcourage @ Nov 19th 2008 6:30PM]

450Mbps? LOL, multiple standards of reference FTW.

Yes, I do believe they meant 450MBps, 1000x that of USB 2.0

1080p @ 60 fps is approximately 356MBps, so it's entirely feasible to get those speeds out of a port that theoretically goes more than half a gig per second...

[VeganFreak @ Nov 19th 2008 7:17PM]

30 fps at

186,624,000 so around 187 MBps

which translates to (at 60 fps)

373,248,000 or around 373 MBps

Also, we're frickin talking about a bitmap image bit depth for each frame.

should look pretty nice on my GDM-FW900. lol =]

[GaryZ @ Nov 19th 2008 6:35PM]

1080p@30fps raw should be 1920x1080 pixels/frame * 24 bits/pixel * 30 frame/sec ~= 1.5Gbps

[VeganFreak @ Nov 19th 2008 7:19PM]

can you imagine the lulz when watching that? I'd be like LOOOLOLOLOLOLOL

=]

[earthling @ Nov 19th 2008 7:34PM]

"1080p@30fps raw should be 1920x1080 pixels/frame * 24 bits/pixel * 30 frame/sec ~= 1.5Gbps"

HD is delivered as YUV or YCbCr at 16 bits per pixel, not 24. (4:2:2 sampling, not 4:4:4) so for your example its 995Mb/s or around 124MB/s

No idea where the extra 336MB/s would have went.

Ah.. Reading the article the reference makes more sense. They did not claim that they were transfering the video at 450MB/s they claim that the throughput of their USB 3 implementation was good for an effective data transfer rate of more than 450MB/s which makes sense since the theoretical transfer rate of USB 3 is 600MB/s.