What Exactly Is Firewire?
1394, that's the second name, is a serial high speed interface for isochronical (real time) data transfer between computer components and/or consumer products (PC, digital video and photo cameras, printers, consoles). Back in 1986 it was introduced by Apple. In 1995, the IEEE made an official industry standard out of Firewire. The most important benefit is the ability to transfer very high quality video streams (e.g. from a digital video camera) in real time and without any quality loss to a digital video recorder or a computer.
- max. 400 MBits/s at a very low overhead
- Up to 63 devices
- Real-Time data transfer (e.g. for digital video)
- peer-to-peer system
- Isochronous and asynchronous data transfer simultaneously using one connection
- High speed and low speed components can be mixed without performance loss
- Nothing to configure
- One cable can be up to 15 feet long
400 MBits/s and up to 63 devices make IEEE-1394 very suitable for all kinds of multimedia components. Thanks to the intelligent real time protocol, it is being integrated into many types of video and audio components. Professional music hardware also comes with a Firewire interface and even game consoles are being equipped with it.
Even though USB has a similar flexibility, Firewire is up to 30 times faster and not much more expensive. Firewire is also hot-plug capable, giving it another advantage over common bus systems like SCSI. Thanks to this feature, you may attach and remove Firewire components without turning off the computer.
