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Newbie questions about use of 1394 with A/V

post #1 of 6
4/14/08 at 6:47pm
Thread Starter 
Hi folks,

I got a Mitsubishi 57732 DLP last year. Noticed it has Firewire (1394) ports on it. I am very familiar with using Firewire to hook devices like harddrives, DVD burners, and Camcorders to my computers. However, not really sure of the intended use of it with a television. When I first got it, out of curiosity, I hooked my Macintosh to it with no results. Kind of dropped the issue at that point. Recently, I got HD cable and a SA8300HD DVR which also has Firewire. This got me curious again so I started researching. Well, I have seen a lot of posts but most of them seem centered around someone that is familiar with the 'uses' for Firewire in A/V but with problems.

In order to learn more, I would like to ask some questions to see if my current assumptions are correct.

For Firewire (1394) on the TV, is this to allow the video received via the tuner to be output to some type of other device? (DVCR? DVD Recorder? Computer?)

Is it designed as an input to the TV from other devices (See devices above) to allow them to display on the TV?

Is the Firewire port of the SA 8300HD designed as a method to output it's video (tuner? recorded?) to some other device? (TV?, Recording Device?)

Is the Firewire port of the SA 8300HD designed as a method to input other devices video in order to record it on the 8300?

What are the advantages/disadvantages of Firewire vs HDMI?

Any help in enlightening this newbie would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jormsby
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post #2 of 6
4/23/08 at 7:44am
The firewire connection on your dlp tv was designed to seamlessly integrate all your a/v equipment together by creating a "home network" by daisy chaining all your equipment that has firewire together. It's not so much as an input or output, think of it as a connection to a network where information can flow both ways. Firewire is a compressed signal, while HDMI is not. This allows you to connect the signal to a DVHS digital vcr and record HD programming. The firewire on most dvd recorders are for digital camcorders, not for this application. Mitsubishi was a great supporter of this format, where theoretically, you could use the tv to control all your components. However, there wasn't mainstream support by the industry for this format for different reasons. The firewire port on some cable boxes are not supported, they may have the jack on them, but it's not turned on at the factory in some cases. You'll need to call cable to see if it's an active port. They may not know what you are talking about since it's an unpopular connection and I had a lot of trouble getting cable to acknowledge the existence of the format.
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post #3 of 6
4/25/08 at 5:46pm
Thread Starter 
Bertramvan,

Thanks for the info. That was kind of what I was thinking but was not sure. The one question I have is related to your comment about Firewire being compressed. As I mentioned I have use Firewire for years to connect peripherals to a computer. I am unaware of Firewire doing any compression. Are you saying that the company's that utilize Firewire are sending compressed video over it or are you saying that the Firewire actually does the compression?

Thanks for you response.

Regards,

John
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post #4 of 6
5/1/08 at 12:03pm
I honestly don't know for sure. I always assumed that the source device did the compression.
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post #5 of 6
6/3/08 at 1:32pm
jormsby,

If you use virtualdvhs (available as part of the firewire SDK) on your mac to output a .ts file, it should work just fine with the TV since all the virtualdvhs program does is act like a dvhs deck. There's info on this in the mac forum. There's a chance you might be able to record from the ATSC tuner on the TV onto the mac using another one of the firewire sdk programs, but I'm not sure about that since I have no experience with your particular TV..
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post #6 of 6
6/3/08 at 5:55pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks, I may look into that. I don't really have a 'need'. I was more curious as to the functionality on the Firewire on the TV.

Might be a fun project to play with though.


Thanks!
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