Leslie Shapiro van ExtremeTech is zeer uitgebreid ingegaan op de IEEE 1394 standaard, beter bekend onder de Apple-term ervoor: FireWire. Ondanks het feit dat deze techniek relatief oud is - in 1995 werd het goedgekeurd - wordt FireWire steeds vaker toegepast binnen pc's en consumentenelektronica. In het uitgebreide review van Leslie Shapiro wordt nader ingegaan op de techniek, toegepaste protocollen en PnP. Verder is er een vergelijking tussen FireWire en USB, voornamelijk op het gebied van multimedia-content.
Het review behandelt uiteraard, naast de piracy beveiligingen en wat FireWire betekent voor audio, ook de toekomst van FireWire. Het hele review kun je hier verder doorlezen.
FireWire is an interconnection standard that allows high-speed data transfer. It is relatively inexpensive and is designed primarily for consumer applications, like downloading video data from a camcorder to a computer for desktop editing. Personal computer and consumer electronics technology. This market demands compatible connectivity, and ease of setup and use, and FireWire provides those key features. Actually, it's not quite fair to compare FireWire to USB 1.1. USB 1.1's maximum rate of 12Mbits/sec was a vast improvement over old 115kbps serial busses. But USB was never designed to handle intense multimedia data loads. Instead, it was meant as a replacement for legacy ports, and a user-friendly, low-cost way to connect peripherals such as keyboards, mice, printers and scanners to a PC. Though many data storage devices can also connect, albeit slowly, over USB 1.1. In contrast, FireWire was specifically built for multimedia speed. On the other hand, USB has strongly responded to the FireWire challenge with USB 2.0. With a top speed of 480Mbits/sec (it supports 1.5, 12, and 480Mbits/sec), 2.0 is technically faster than first-generation FireWire. Finally, 2.0 is available here and now with a wider rollout scheduled for the middle of 2002. In other words, although USB 1.1 was never designed for speed, and thus never seriously challenged FireWire's turf, USB 2.0 does present stiffer competition. For many users, and for many common applications, 2.0 will provide transfer times that are fast enough.
De toekomst van FireWire is positief gestemd, aangezien het protocol een geweldige toepassing is voor computergerelateerde apparatuur. Verder kan FireWire ook worden toegepast op de televisie, video, camcorder en andere aanverwante apparaten.