Forget 1394/Firewire, it's DEAD for A/V record/playback?

[bwall23]

I have heard that 1394 is dying a SLOW death for A/V transport and that CE manufacturers are giving up on it as a transport for A/V.

Anyone in the industry have the 411 on the situation?

Witness the lack of it on many new HD TV's.

AND the lack of 1394 enabled HD DVR's.
Tell me which major retailer carries them?
I don't see them at Fry's, BestBuy, Magnolia, etc.

I have my own problems with it and have seen lot's of finger pointing between CE manufacturers and have to live with the problems because of it.

It's leaving a REAL BAD taste in my mouth and pocket.

Is it because
a) specs/standards change too fast for CE MFG's to keep up?
b) consumers are unaware of the option and no MFG wants to invest?
c) that we're living in a fast-paced, changing world where everything is disposable?
d) I'm clueless

Why did HDMI take off so fast (in the eye's of a consumer), yet there are so many issues with it?

Drop another $4k next year for the latest and greatest techno-geek stuff that may never make it to market?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the MPAA :eek:

[Krobar]

I think it is the added cost and lack of launch manufacturer support that caused alot of the problems. In the case of the video recording side, lack of compatibility and copy write issues made things far worse.

On the audio side, compatibility was good. With the exception of Denon you could mix and match all the brands, even control over wire works between my Pioneer player and Onkyo receiver. Ilink for audio is hurting but not dead, Pioneer plan a release of a Bluray player and high end receiver with it in the spring and boutique brands like Esoteric are now releasing a range of Ilink equipped disc spinners.

HDMI did far worse than Audio Ilink, ILink could transfer DVD-A and SACD first time first revision, it took 2 additional revisions for HDMI to do this, it is only optional on HDMI and in many cases simply doesnt work properly. HDMI also derives it's audio clock from the video clock which is far from ideal, hopefully ILink will survive in the high end by offering lower jitter and a seperated audio path for high end installs with Video Processors etc.

[ss9001]

Krobar,
Where did u get the info about a new Pioneer flagship receiver and BD player? Was it the British dealer site (sorry, forgot the name)?

The impression I got from that British site was the supposed 2008 flagship receiver did not have Ilink. Is there reliable info?
TIA

ss9001

[Krobar]

Krobar,
Where did u get the info about a new Pioneer flagship receiver and BD player? Was it the British dealer site (sorry, forgot the name)?

The impression I got from that British site was the supposed 2008 flagship receiver did not have Ilink. Is there reliable info?
TIA

ss9001

Three sources:

The bulk of the specs came from the Avland.co.uk, it clearly lists the BDP-LX90 (European Naming Convention) with ILink. (Since removed all info)

A well informed poster on this forum called ALMA agrees it will include ILink and he has given accurate advance info on Pioneer products before.

Chris Walker the Pioneer Rep here was quite careful with his reponse when asked if no more ILink products would be released. He said there would be no ILink products this year but not to rule them out in future.

What is unknown is if the LX90 will convert the new Bluray HD Sound formats to PCM and pass them over ILink.

[oztech]

Three sources:

The bulk of the specs came from the Avland.co.uk, it clearly lists the BDP-LX90 (European Naming Convention) with ILink. (Since removed all info)

A well informed poster on this forum called ALMA agrees it will include ILink and he has given accurate advance info on Pioneer products before.

Chris Walker the Pioneer Rep here was quite careful with his reponse when asked if no more ILink products would be released. He said there would be no ILink products this year but not to rule them out in future.

What is unknown is if the LX90 will convert the new Bluray HD Sound formats to PCM and pass them over ILink.
this sounds like it needs to be my next player if true and available in the states.

[ss9001]

Both are what I'm waiting to see released.
Until then, no sale on Pioneer's 2007 players/receivers. For me, it's either wait for these "theoretical" products from Pioneer, or get a Denon that still has Ilink this year.

ss9001

[gfreeman]

I may be missing something here, but leaving 1394 is not going to happen anytime soon. People who " claim" to know say that USB 2.0 is taking over. While it may be true that there are more devices that will be USB 2.0 or have both there are disadvantages to it that will make a difference.

IEEE 1934a and b are peer to peer, meaning there is no need for a IO processor between them. USB needs some sort of traffic cop to route the data. On your computer you do this thru what we call a "processor tax", meaning the computers processor picks up a slight load to transfer data over USB. This is not the case for 1394.

This is why, when compairing 1394a to USB 2.0, you never see the 480 mbs on the USB side but do see the 400mbs on the 1394 side. Over very large data transfers, i.e HD video firewire will be faster.

[oztech]

I may be missing something here, but leaving 1394 is not going to happen anytime soon. People who " claim" to know say that USB 2.0 is taking over. While it may be true that there are more devices that will be USB 2.0 or have both there are disadvantages to it that will make a difference.

IEEE 1934a and b are peer to peer, meaning there is no need for a IO processor between them. USB needs some sort of traffic cop to route the data. On your computer you do this thru what we call a "processor tax", meaning the computers processor picks up a slight load to transfer data over USB. This is not the case for 1394.

This is why, when compairing 1394a to USB 2.0, you never see the 480 mbs on the USB side but do see the 400mbs on the 1394 side. Over very large data transfers, i.e HD video firewire will be faster.
i know the mac's have firewire 800 which is even faster it seems something like this
should have been implemented .

[Krobar]

Micrsoft killed Firewire 800 on the PC due to picking holes in the spec. Firwire 800 devices are often wrongly set to 100MB in Windows. Many manufacturers released hacks and workarounds just to get Firewire 800 runnung properly in Windows.

[DVDO+WESTY=1080p]

new update, I get occasional audio dropouts, audio sync issues and some pixelization. Also I have seen the 5U just shut down and give error messages stating that I can't record from source use set top box. And I have seen the 5U turn off and power back up in the middle of the recording and keep going. Are these copy protection things? Is using HDMI out to the TV causing this? Should I be using component video instead?

[bwall23]

new update, I get occasional audio dropouts, audio sync issues and some pixelization. Also I have seen the 5U just shut down and give error messages stating that I can't record from source use set top box. And I have seen the 5U turn off and power back up in the middle of the recording and keep going. Are these copy protection things? Is using HDMI out to the TV causing this? Should I be using component video instead?What's a 5U and who makes it? I have audio dropouts too, but they are limited to playback of recorded cable broadcast 1080i HDTV w/DD5.1 audio, OTA recordings playback fine.

[VideoGrabber]

dvdo+westy commented:
> And I have seen the 5U turn off and power back up in the middle of the recording and keep going. Are these copy protection things? Is using HDMI out to the TV causing this? <

Yes! I have seen the power cycle on my 5U as well, 3 times now, and it's been a big mystery to me. (bwall: the 5U is the JVC HM-DH5U D-VHS deck.) I can't think of ANY legitimate reason why the 5U should be shutting down.

One other observation, perhaps totally non-related. If you have BOTH the 5U component video outputs connected to one monitor, and the HDMI output to another, shutting OFF the HDMI device will result in a nice big announcement on the analog outputs that the content can NOT be displayed. Turn the HDMI device back on, and you're OK. UNPLUG the HDMI device, and you're also OK.

This is obviously defective behavior, but hey, it's worth all the aggravation and grief to make sure none of us "pirates" are stealing content from the "a-holes". :rolleyes: :mad: (The "a" refers to analog, but the other interpretation applies as well.) All this new (defective) technology (that WE are paying for) is extremely consumer hostile. :eek:

- Tim

[6volt]

When I think of IEEE1394, I'm always thinking TS (transport stream) a la DVHS.

I thought at some point in the past, the FCC mandated firewire TS support? maybe on set top boxes? ....?

I am really disappointed that while DVHS can record HD, the only way to input the signal is TS via firewire, as far as I know.