Ieee1394
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FireWire ships its two billionth port, still not as fast as USB 3.0
The 1394 Trade Association has announced that over two billion FireWire ports have shipped worldwide, which is most impressive for a largely forgotten interface. Going forward, the Association expects to see "steady, stable growth" in 2011 as more products with FireWire S1600 go to market, though a dearth of such devices at CES makes us think you can add the word 'slow' to that projection. Given that the standard's promised 1.6 Gb/s bandwidth is less than a third of the 5 Gb/s offered by USB 3.0 (even with USB's larger overhead, 3.0 still provides a bigger pipe), and the fact that Intel may finally get on board with Superspeed, it may be awhile before FireWire celebrates another such milestone. [Image source: ScratchWorx]
Firewire's future on DVRs is up for debate
Mandated by the FCC, Firewire ports have been commonplace, and sadly mostly unused, on our HD DVRs for some time, but recent requests by Intel and TiVo to forego their inclusion have brought the situation to a head. Multichannel News reports the 1394 Trade Association is calling Intel's waiver request "too broad" and cited its wide deployment as reasons it should still be included. Beyond some driver hacks to enable transfers of DVR'd programming, it seems like Ethernet and USB are getting the lion's share of use on boxes, while emerging DLNA and MoCa tech makes moving content around even easier, is anyone actually getting a benefit from the extra port on their boxes as we go into 2010?
FireWire 1600 and 3200 approved by IEEE
While FireWire 800 gear is still pretty rare and we've only seen one piece of FireWire 1600 kit, the IEEE is still pushing the standard forward -- it's just approved the 1394-2008 spec, which includes both FireWire 1600 and 3200. Interestingly, the spec is fully backwards compatible with both 400 and 800 ports, but it remains to be seen which connector gets used more prevalently. We'll find out in October, when the spec is made available to manufacturers -- looks like that controversial 2010 launch of USB 3.0 just got upstaged a little, huh?[Via CrunchGear]
1394 is -- still -- coming to home theater
Things have been a bit quiet on the 1394 front since the HANA announcement, but they want us to know things are still progressing. This article from EETimes goes into the issues faced by the connector and why it hasn't taken off yet. We all want all of our devices to be able to talk to each other and share their content but so far that hasn't materialized. Helping get the ball rolling are planned 1394b support in a Vista service pack and the ability to send 1394 signals over ethernet or coax. Still, many CE manufacturers seem to be backing ethernet and the DLNA as a way of connecting devices, and this stalemate is even more complex than Blu-ray/HD DVD. As it is, most of us have cable or satellite boxes equipped with FireWire, ethernet and USB ports that are mostly unsupported, unless you like to tinker. Is the (easily) connected home 6 months or 6 years away?
