1394: Home for the Holidays

Electronic News, Dec 17, 2001 by James Snider

TWO YEARS AGO, THE LIST of consumer electronics and computer products equipped with the 1394 serial bus was short enough for a paragraph or two. Today, despite the temporary lull in the markets, that list is impressively long. It's worth taking a look again with the holidays imminent.

Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 game console was, thanks to its precursor, already popular and fully equipped with 1394, providing a new level of competitiveness. Everyone knows about that one.

A later addition to the 1394 list is Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod, a 5Gbyte MP3 player that can keep 1,000 pieces of music with a l60Kbit per sec. compression rate in one place; it can also function like a hard drive. Its 10-hour battery and compact 6.5-ounce package, coupled with its FireWire -- what Apple calls 1394 -- make it as innovative as anything that has come along this year. Introduced in October, the iPod is lifting consumer electronics spirits in time for the holiday season.

Next on a holiday wish list is a new PC or notebook. All of the major PC makers, including Dell, Gateway, HP, Compaq, Sony and Apple, now include 1394-enabled PCs in their portfolios. And this year, Microsoft Corp. weighed in with its Windows XP operating system, which provide new and unprecedented levels of 1394 support.

Next stop: 1394 storage. All kinds of new storage devices came on the market this season, as the 1394 standard finally gained recognition for one of its greatest strengths. Maxtor announced an 80Gbyte 1394 drive, the Personal Storage 3000DV, with a 7,200 rpm mechanism. CMS Peripherals is still celebrating its Comdex "Best of Show Award" for its 100Gbyte Automatic Backup Solutions (ABS) line of external storage solutions. USM Telecommunications has its Disk-On-The-Go mobile storage solutions, and OPS introduced a 120Gbyte portable Que! M3 ultraslim drive and a 32X CD-RW drive. And let's not forget the DVDs such as the Alera Technologies Cruiser DVD+RW.

Also new this year is 1394-equipped digital HDTV. Sets from Sony and Matsushita are ready now. Samsung, which demonstrated an early model, is also ready for the early adopter. Prices are coming down quickly. Including the 1394 bus in the HDTV allows the user to record and play shows or movies by linking the HDTV set with a similarly equipped set-top box. (There are lots of those coming to the market now, too). Don't be fooled into thinking the Digital Video Interface, or DVI, will do all the things that 1394 will in these HDTVs and set-top boxes. It won't.

Other advanced consumer electronics systems represent upgraded and enhanced versions of original 1394-equipped digital cameras and camcorders. The 1394 bus first emerged in digital cameras and camcorders back in late 1995. Now, all new cameras and camcorders include it. This year's models are fast, efficient and smaller than ever. Canon's mini-DV line of digital camcorders--described asso versatile it's capable of taking both still and moving pictures--has a single 1394 cable for editing, copying or recording with seemingly no loss of image or sound quality.

The market has no lack of products with a traditional 1394 strength: digital video authoring, editing and playback. Ravisent's iDVD suite, introduced at Fall Comdex, simplifies DVD and video CD editing, authoring, burning and playback of home video from a desktop PC.

Some predicted 1394 would be limited to these digital video systems. But they've been proved wrong, as 1394-enabled audio products are coming from all over the world now. These include CD changers, such as one from Pioneer; music synthesizers and audio amplifiers from Yamaha; and a prototype CDRW from Philips, which combines audio playback, audio record and control signals, all along a single 1394 wire.

The 2001 product list goes on and on, and so too does the list of 1394-equipped prototypes. At Fall Comdex, Intel Corp. announced its Hannacroix motherboard, a vehicle to demonstrate many technologies Intel hopes to see in future PCs. In Hannacroix, Intel supports both its own USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394-a for connecting devices such as digital cameras, MP3 players, network cards and hard disks.

IEEE 1394 is going to be moving ahead in 2002 when 1394-b - faster, with more bandwidth and cable length and easier to design with -- reaches the market.

James Snider is the executive director of the 1394 Trade Association, www.1394ta.org.