ive taken my old pc apart out of boredom : ive put the firewire card in my new pc already but im just wondering if it has any use? ive never come across anything that had to be plugged into firewire before
professional grade video cameras use it. My 13-14 year old digital camcorder uses firewire. Unlike USB, which is designed to be for anything and everything, firewire is designed exclusively for video cameras.
Yes some external hard disks can use it as well. Basically firewire was a hell of a lot faster than the first generations of USB, and so it was used for things that required high transfer rates.
Yes it is. One example would be professional audio interfaces. Some of them have ADAT(which transmits 8 channels of digital audio per port) and S/PDIF and you could use both at the same time. No USB 2.0 audio interface has ADAT. Firewire does not look faster than usb 2.0 in theory, but it is in practice. On other uses, you could use a audio interface.
It depends what its used for. 1394b is faster than usb2 (800mbit/s as opposed to 480mbit/s) but it doesnt seem to be going anywhere fast. It's years since I first saw a 1394b controller and they still arent widespread.
Not that much. Firewire operates on a Peer-to-Peer architecture, in which the peripherals are inteligent and can negotiate bus conflicts to determine which device can best control a data transfer. USB 2.0 on the other hand, operates on a Master-Slave architecture, in which the computer handles all arbitration functions and dictates data flow to, from and between the attached peripherals (adding additional system overhead and resulting in slower data flow control).
many "Professional cameras" have firewire connections because oftenly, the video files that are being ripped from the tape (yes, people sill use tapes and aparently, not many pro cameras have Hard Drives (optional)) and they are aparently gigantic files so they keep them in tapes or store them in hard drives. Espesially HD video. (not directed to you, msg) Here is what a "Pro Camera" looks like: Above: a favourtie to many videoographers. Below: The cameras that your local TV station uses Below: What movie makers in holleywood use: Did you know? Jame's Cameron's AVATAR the movie took over 1PB (petabyte) of hard drive space? That's 1000TB! 1000000GB!
avatar used a lot of CGI thats why. Professional cameras use tapes because when a hard disk is full the camera is useless until the data is downloaded, whereas you can change a tape. Also hard disks and optical media use compression, which reduces the quality. Also I have a professional grade camcoder. its nearly 15 years old, and yes its digital and uses firewire. And DV tapes.
school concerts for the school my mum works at mainly. I generally do a two camera setup whereby that camera is static at the back of the hall capturing the whole stage (although with someone minding it, stupid health and safety regulations) and I have a mobile camera (VHS-C) at the front which can zoom in on part of the state or track a specific child during solo performances. With two hour tapes its a perfect set and forget camera, as opposed to the VHS-C which needs a tape change midway through the performance. No, unfortunately I didn't have it then. I used a hi8 camcorder in africa.
