What Happened to FireWire? How FireWire lost the cable battle with USB

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3 жыл бұрын

What Happened to FireWire? How FireWire lost the cable battle with USB. Is FireWire dead? Why did FireWire fail? FireWire vs USB? Is USB type-C the same as FireWire? Why did Apple stop using FireWire? Did Apple receive a royalty from FireWire? Is FireWire faster than USB 2.0? What is IEEE 1394? We discuss the rise and fall of Steve Jobs' favourite data transfer table and how it went from appearing on every iPod and Mac computer to obsolete in the space of a decade.
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Пікірлер: 65

@apotheases 2 жыл бұрын

I had firewire portable hard drive back in college during 2002-2006. They were almost mandatory in the sound design/Film production department I was in.

@infindebula 2 жыл бұрын

Despite its allegedly higher transfer rate, real-world performance of USB 2 devices were almost never better than original Firewire. It was USB 2's backward compatibility with the USB 1 mouse/keyboard/printer interface that gave it the advantage. The Apple port royalty only applied to the name "Firewire" - SONY got around it by calling it "i.Link", and the rest of the world got around it by calling it "IEEE 1394". Thunderbolt 4 finally trumps it all though, in terms of power delivery and data rates.

@ilkehureyiol1759 3 жыл бұрын

Gotta say, this video is so underrated. I think it's a overall well narrated documentary and thx for it

@HowItHappened 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for watching and so glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully we’ll hit a million subs one day 🚀

@randytate 2 жыл бұрын

FireWire 800 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter, plugged into a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter will allow you to connect old MiniDV cameras to a modern laptop for straight digital video capture. It even works on my Windows 10 laptop.

@ZakWolf Жыл бұрын

Thunderbolt has pretty much replaced FireWire now, since Apple and Intel co-developed it. This is also why Thunderbolt 3 onward now uses the USB-C protocol and port style, along with Apple making a FireWire-to-Thunderbolt adapter for those older devices.

@laughingvampire7555 2 жыл бұрын

Apple's greed always the problem.

@rt9648 2 жыл бұрын

I still use FireWire all the time, both for external storage and for legacy audio devices, such as the Presonus Firepod and the ART Tubefire. With a Thunderbolt > FireWire adapter, these still work just as well as a connection to a native FW port. Sadly, rumor has it that MacOS Monterey will drop all support for FW devices.

@mydigitalanalog 4 ай бұрын

FireWire was awesome in the day. The only real way to connect digital cassette camcorders since USB 2 still couldn’t stream the data at the steady rate needed for digital tape. The 30-pin protocol included FireWire AND USB protocols in the same port. There was a time when you could connect an early iPod to a computer in a store and copy all the software very quickly. I never did that, couldn’t afford iPod 😂

@PeterEmery 3 ай бұрын

The original 4GB iPod Mini had two 30-pin connector cables, one terminating in USB 2.0, the other FireWire 400. As an experiment I installed a stripped down (1.9 GB) version of OS X Tiger on mine. When used with the FireWire cable, my G3 iMac could use the iPod as a boot device although the iPod did run quite hot. The "updated" 6GB iPod Mini dropped the FireWire capability completely, using USB 2 only.

@facuxs36 10 ай бұрын

Fun fact: Sony used the Firewire (or iLink) for the models SCPH-3XXXX of the PlayStation 2 consoles

@OFED 3 жыл бұрын

The answer was so much more nerd satisfying than I thought lmao

@HowItHappened 3 жыл бұрын

🤣🤣🤣

@APlagueOfButterflies 2 жыл бұрын

Since you asked, I ran across this video because I found my old second generation iPod, and it still powers up. I was curious if I could still connect to it with my PC.

@John-wj4yf Жыл бұрын

Great video!! - thanks!

@cs512tr 2 жыл бұрын

my canon mv630i uses firewire and i still have a card for that reason, its a good bit of tech and a reminder of the period it stood tall. usb-c should remain the standard, if not for waste management but something actually beneficial for the consumer.

@urbannpa 5 ай бұрын

Yes...My Tascam Fire One audio interface is now a paper weight with no firewire support from Tascam.

@ConsumerDV Ай бұрын

Apple originated the design of Firewire, and Apple killed it, replacing it with Lightning on iPod, and with Thunderbolt on Mac. I don't think that 25c per port was the issue. The cool thing is that you can convert Firewire to Thunderbolt with a simple cable adapter, this is how Apple softened the blow. Also, modern USB-C jacks often serve double-duty as Thunderbolt 3 jacks, and you can convert Firewire to Thunderbolt 3 as well using a couple of dongles. You cannot convert Firewire to USB using a simple cable. You missed the point that Firewire was isochronous, while USB was asynchronous and was not fit for transferring something like video at a steady rate. This was rectified in 2003 with USB Video Device Class (UVC).

@Capturing-Memories 2 жыл бұрын

I have a Sony 2008 laptop with 4 pin firewire port a.k.a iLink and I still use it to transfer D-VHS and DV/DVCAM tapes to computer.

@HowItHappened 2 жыл бұрын

Nice!

@uriel-heavensguardian8949 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the video! Very informative! I was wondering what happened and why FireWire went away and why FireWire products now sell cheaply

@HowItHappened 2 жыл бұрын

Really glad you enjoyed it! 😄

@jaynecios Жыл бұрын

I currently have a firewire audio interface and it only works with my mac 2012 pro book. I am going to need to move on to usb audio interfaces since they are much improved than a decade ago

@MrTimjwilson 2 жыл бұрын

I use firewire for livefeed of microscope video via a Sony HD video camera. I need to attempt to follow microorganisms in real time as they move through a liquid. Firewire 800 is the only thing with this capacity to keep up. I've tried USB 3, thunderbolt > not even close. I do not have the USB C connection so cannot comment on that. Interesting how audio has been discovered to be superior on vinyl. Similar concept?

@adeptusmechanicus7572 Жыл бұрын

I'm watching this video, on a HP Z60 Workstation, with an IEEE 1394 port

@franklinsalazar8430 3 жыл бұрын

I think you should make a video about the headphone jack next. 🙂

@HowItHappened 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the suggestion :)

@matmorkinsti 10 ай бұрын

I just picked up a FW audio interface. My MacBook is old but still working. I have a Thunderbolt dock with a FireWire 800 port. It’s still superior to USB in my opinion bc they’re faster, and I can daisy chain a bunch of them together to record a whole band. Speed is not the issue with this legacy technology, it’s the sheer amount of adapters you need to run everything.

@wackyval6898 3 ай бұрын

firewire 400 always performed at peak.....usb 480 did not... so copying larger files was still faster on firewire

@themadpartyhatter Жыл бұрын

I've seen FireWire ports on DoE laptops at my school.

@icsecrets172 Ай бұрын

I understand why they build no more fire wire in to our new PC. But i don't wnderstand why we r not able to find fire wire to usb cables every where we r looking to find . I am already waitin 3 days for that type of cable ,and i also not know that if i want to use that cable i may need a PC application to instal in my computer to be able to know what i plug in is a fire wire connection of my HD miny tape old camera

@PendelSteven 10 ай бұрын

Personally I like that on my Asus I have a few USB-Cs (two of them Thunderbolt 4, the other the oh so common - not - 20 Gbps variant) and 6 10 Gb/s USB-A ports on the back. I think the ones on the top (I don't have front connectors in my case, I've got top ones) may be 5 Gb/s, but fairly certain those are two more of the 10 Gb/s variant. Anyhow, the short answer was three letters and one cipher: USB3 Well, it was called 3.0 at the time for the nitpickers...

@gandalf87264 2 жыл бұрын

Wow. Memories memories memories. I remember way back in the day when I bought my first digital camera, I had to buy a USB add on card for my PC so that I could download my photos and videos from it. NOOOOOOOOOOOO, not PCI or PCIe. It was ISA Bus.

@Puppetnation71 Жыл бұрын

Still using Firewire (TI chipsets only) on Windows pc's with my audio interfaces, no regrets, just satisfaction.

@LhymeFruit 2 жыл бұрын

i think there should be a wire like firewire that can transfer the same as usb 3.1 but can be daisy chained

@maxheadrom3088 8 ай бұрын

Your voice is being converted from digital to analog on a Mackie Onyx-i 802 connected to my PC via FireWire. Do you know if firewire is still superior in real-time applications?

@ww21943 2 жыл бұрын

I have been playing around with older Macs and PowerBooks. FireWire has been indispensable. I was even able to add a FireWire PCI card to my Motorola StarMax Macintosh Clone from 1996.

@HowItHappened 2 жыл бұрын

Wowzer that’s pretty cool. Thanks for checking out our channel 😁

@JS-wl3gi 2 жыл бұрын

Firewire to me was better than USB 2 or 3. It could backup alot of smaller files better without hanging or dropping transfer speed. Glad to see it lives on with C cable.

@PleakeCrions Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the concise and easy to digest video. Much appreciated!

@redtoadengineering9226 2 жыл бұрын

My really old computer 2 firewire 1394 ports the motherboard is a gigabyte advanced dynamic energy saver

@kotasake 2 жыл бұрын

Excellent video

@HowItHappened 2 жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it

@the3boys2s74 2 жыл бұрын

I mean FireWire can charge my iPod pretty fast they should make a standard of fire wire that can absolutely blow USB three out of the water

@real_kryzz 2 жыл бұрын

Cool video keep it up!

@HowItHappened 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks man

@ashdjones 2 ай бұрын

IBM, upgrading to Firewire.

@noahparfitt5151 3 жыл бұрын

Hopefully iPhones switch to USB C one day 🙏

@HowItHappened 2 жыл бұрын

Amen

@urnotreal420 10 ай бұрын

you got your wish! they have usb c charging now!

@WilliamBrinkley45 Жыл бұрын

Me and my partner ran a pc sales and repair store in Missouri years ago and although I loved fire wire, it became quickly apparent that it would fail because the Normies and those who are non-computer literate get nervous when you include the word “fire” in the name of your cables and connections 😆

@lanerj 2 жыл бұрын

used to have several external adds daisy chained firewire, I miss it. thunderbolt 3 is wayyyyy better tho lol

@audiocrush Жыл бұрын

I think usb-c created a big mess in that most usb-c devices do not support thunderbolt. This should be mandatory.

@matthewJ142 Ай бұрын

To me the successor to firewire is thunderbolt. If I was Steve I would have worked with Intel to keep firewire alive probably calling it firebolt

@user-hn5ww1pl4e 3 ай бұрын

USB ? Apple was actually the first to adopt USB on their computer and kept up adding USB 2 when it came out. I only have on this Mac Pro 5.1 fire wire 800 ports but are 400 compatible with a simple cable. I have connected a Steinberg USB C audio interface and a M-Audio fire wire 400 audio interface on windows and... The winner is... Firewire still beats USB C 3.2 X2 in latency. Incredible no ? That's with old windows 7.1 drivers. There are no OSX working drivers for that. I now use Windows 10 rather than OSX and see no problems. I even have both Cubase's 12 Pro in both systems and seriously things seems to work better in Windows. hehe go figure?

@spartainwarrior6445 10 ай бұрын

so can USB do P2P yet?

@alpzepta 14 күн бұрын

FireWire is better. Its seem like a small thing these days but FireWire don’t use CPU but DMA this can free up cpu resources for other tasks. USB use CPU which is wasteful when DMA exist

@maikarachid9094 2 жыл бұрын

pour toute les amais

@tedbragg74 2 жыл бұрын

FireWire didn’t bog down the CPU like USB and Thunderbolt does. It was rock solid and reliable. I still miss it. I had a closet full of RAIDS and video data capture gear - all FW - and never had issues. Forced to switch to USB and TB-hoo boy that was awful. Lost so much time and money chasing problems and watching projects get corrupted by USB’s dog vomit controllers

@MrTimjwilson 2 жыл бұрын

Absolutely amen to that! USB 3 and Thunderbolt are garbage for video transfer.

@TheMuso28 2 жыл бұрын

Thunderbolt not being as performant as firewire sounds incorrect to me. Thunderbolt is essentially external PCI Express with extra layers for authentication, switching etc, and therefore should perform better than firewire. Could be bad drivers for the thunderbolt hardware. PCI or PCI Express is one level up from where firewire is connectivity wise. All firewire controllers connect via PCI or PCI Express.

@TheJake3 2 жыл бұрын

In three days, I will be getting rid of my firewire audio interface like a bad habit and I'll be replacing it with a USB3 interface. I can't believe how long I've been using that FireWire interface. That technology is 27 years old! In tech terms, that's before Jesus was born...lol It'll be so nice to work with a device that's more compatible and with NO LATENCY!

@witchilich Жыл бұрын

I don't know why this video is dishonestly trying to suggest the creators of FireWire made USB-C and not USB-IF, just because Apple switched to them(except for iPhone). USB-C is developed by USB Implementers Forum like any other USB port. Its not some competing standard by Apple that will dethrone USB, since it is from the same creators of USB. Maybe you could try to use Thunderbolt and call it the successor of FireWire. But even if Apple are listed as one of the creators(just like Sony and Panasonic for FireWire, that you did not mention), it is Intel that retains all the licensing rights. Apple did not have any hand in the creation of USB-C(since it is from the creators of USB) and they have no control over Thunderbolt licensing.

@disappr0val Жыл бұрын

USB C WILL BE KING FOR A BIT I FEEL

@316diag 3 ай бұрын

Jobs convinced some people that he was selling something extraordinarily better and for exorbitant prices. Just another rip-off businessman. If he did anything more than that, I'm unaware of it. dollar for dollar, apple products are subpar.