Tuesday, November 14, 2006

1394 Firewire

Hardware & Drivers
FireWire

FireWire is one of the fastest peripheral standards ever developed, which makes it great for use with multimedia peripherals such as digital video cameras and other high-speed devices like the latest hard disk drives and printers.

FireWire is integrated into Power Macs, iMacs, eMacs, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and the iPod. FireWire ports were also integrated into many other computer products dating back to the Power Macintosh G3 "Blue & White" computers. All these machines include FireWire ports that operate at up to 400 megabits per second and the latest machines include FireWire ports that support 1394b and operate at up to 800 megabits per second.

FireWire is a cross-platform implementation of the high-speed serial data bus -- defined by the IEEE 1394-1995, IEEE 1394a-2000, and IEEE 1394b standards -- that can move large amounts of data between computers and peripheral devices. It features simplified cabling, hot swapping, and transfer speeds of up to 800 megabits per second (on machines that support 1394b).

Major manufacturers of multimedia devices have been adopting the FireWire technology, and for good reason. FireWire speeds up the movement of multimedia data and large files and enables easy connection of digital consumer products -- including digital camcorders, digital video tapes, digital video disks, set-top boxes, and music systems -- directly to a personal computer.

In fact, Apple's FireWire technology was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, receiving a 2001 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award for FireWire's impact on the television industry.

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