Ah the wonders of marketing

Zardon · Feb 9, 2005, 11:07 PM

It always amuses me how we see USB2 promoted with facts and figures such as "480meg a second transfer rates" - "fastest interface possible". etc etc etc...........

Now some of you may already know where im going to head in this thread, yes the fact that companies love to bambozzle the public with figures. A smaller percentage of you reading this, perhaps those who edit digital video will know firewire is a superior interface even though its only 400 meg a second.

Not once do they mention the latency issues with USB2 or the technical problems with the whole setup, just keep quoting those 480mbps figures guys.

Has anyone here even tried to perform high end video editing via USB2?

Then we also get into the hard drive sector, ive several maxtor external drives ive been testing, some of the new 16 meg cache models at 300 gb a piece and the performance differences of the same drive via firewire and usb2 is quite noticeable. Firewire has much better latency results, and gives better overall figures than the equivalent drive via a USB2 interface.

So my point is for those reading this - if you have a firewire connection already or are thinking of getting some external drives, go for the firewire varients and even splash out a little on a firewire card if you dont have one, its well worth the effort - the daisy chaining is top notch as well. Until we all have hardware capable of hitting 480mbps that "extra 80mbps" is meaningless and for me while I like USB and USB2 interfaces for its ease of use there really is no comparison for high end performance.

**dj_stick** · Feb 10, 2005, 01:35 AM

480mbps is the theoretical maximum, it doesn;t take into account bus speeds on the machine, the USB device's maximum transfer rate, driver issues etc

i have 6 usb 2 ports and 4 (with one more header available) firewire ports - but no 1394 devices yet.

i would also like to see how 1394b (firewire 800) stands when compared to its predecessor

Judas · Feb 10, 2005, 03:28 AM

....firewire is the thang.....

I wish thier were firewire mouses and keyboards....... kablam its fast and versitile....

I've even thought about hooking up a LAN using it.. but finding a router is most unlikely...

**dj_stick** · Feb 10, 2005, 08:45 AM

you don't need a router for a firewire network

it's daisy-chain thing (well afaik)

Judas · Feb 10, 2005, 08:52 AM

yeah i know that... but if i want to connection both computers to a router without having to have one machine rely on the other being up to connect to it... it's self defeating...

Logla · Feb 10, 2005, 09:04 AM

Firewire is king. I found this when I borrowed a usb2 cable for my ipod as I lost my firewire cable. It just seems to take so much longer now.
My sister has a camcorder with usb2 and firewire but no firewire cable. She asked me to transfer some stuff onto dvd for her and my god was that a painfull experience. Dont know if its down to the latencies or not but the damn thing keeps dropping out after a few mins. Never got that to work properly.

swimtech · Feb 13, 2005, 04:54 PM

The same speed issues have been apparent to me as well - firewire definitely has the advantage...

The Seagate external drive I use is hooked using Firewire and for small files (less than 2Mb) seems like using an internal drive. I got an ATI Firewire card a while back for a work machine to check out video devices and drives used mainly on Macs.

Feb 9, 2005, 11:07 PM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	Ah the wonders of marketing It always amuses me how we see USB2 promoted with facts and figures such as "480meg a second transfer rates" - "fastest interface possible". etc etc etc........... Now some of you may already know where im going to head in this thread, yes the fact that companies love to bambozzle the public with figures. A smaller percentage of you reading this, perhaps those who edit digital video will know firewire is a superior interface even though its only 400 meg a second. Not once do they mention the latency issues with USB2 or the technical problems with the whole setup, just keep quoting those 480mbps figures guys. Has anyone here even tried to perform high end video editing via USB2? Then we also get into the hard drive sector, ive several maxtor external drives ive been testing, some of the new 16 meg cache models at 300 gb a piece and the performance differences of the same drive via firewire and usb2 is quite noticeable. Firewire has much better latency results, and gives better overall figures than the equivalent drive via a USB2 interface. So my point is for those reading this - if you have a firewire connection already or are thinking of getting some external drives, go for the firewire varients and even splash out a little on a firewire card if you dont have one, its well worth the effort - the daisy chaining is top notch as well. Until we all have hardware capable of hitting 480mbps that "extra 80mbps" is meaningless and for me while I like USB and USB2 interfaces for its ease of use there really is no comparison for high end performance.

Feb 13, 2005, 04:54 PM	#7
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	The same speed issues have been apparent to me as well - firewire definitely has the advantage... The Seagate external drive I use is hooked using Firewire and for small files (less than 2Mb) seems like using an internal drive. I got an ATI Firewire card a while back for a work machine to check out video devices and drives used mainly on Macs. __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Feb 10, 2005, 09:04 AM	#6
Logla HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 3,311 Rep Power: 0	Firewire is king. I found this when I borrowed a usb2 cable for my ipod as I lost my firewire cable. It just seems to take so much longer now. My sister has a camcorder with usb2 and firewire but no firewire cable. She asked me to transfer some stuff onto dvd for her and my god was that a painfull experience. Dont know if its down to the latencies or not but the damn thing keeps dropping out after a few mins. Never got that to work properly.