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What FireWire Means to Digital Video:
Part two in the "What FireWire Means" Series Read other stories in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 In part one of our series on FireWire, we looked at the difference that the new technology made to the storage market. But when FireWire was developed at Apple, engineers had a much more grand vision. We know that the FireWire bus is fast and efficient, and that it eliminates nearly all of the problems faced with SCSI and IDE based systems. But, unlike the SCSI bus, FireWire is much more versatile. With the advent of FireWire, Apple opened the floodgates on the dam that is the world of Non-Linear Video Editing. Apple has always been an innovator in the world of digital video. Systems throughout the history of the Macintosh line have been geared heavily around the digital video market. And with the development of QuickTime, Apple added a powerful multimedia layer to its already powerful OS. The Dawn of a New Age: At the time, the FireWire ports were two simple and unassuming jacks stashed away on the back of the computer near the Ethernet and headphone jacks. And at the time, no one knew much about the technology that was behind these small ports or what they would mean to the world of Digital Video. It was not long before vendors and end users alike would come to understand what a powerful new technology Apple had put at their fingertips. Industry leaders such as Sony, Canon, and Kodak were also in on the development of the FireWire technology. And what they saw was much more than a way to move data to and from external storage devices. Sony quickly began releasing digital video cameras that were smaller and more powerful than the 8mm cameras that had been available for years. These cameras stored video on a new type of tape called Mini-DV. These tapes were smaller than the 8mm tapes that were used in normal hand held video cameras. The Mini-DV tapes also possessed many advantages over their predecessors. Foremost was the level of quality they delivered. The Mini-DV held video in a digital format rather than analog. And because of this, the quality of DV was much higher and did not degrade over generations of copying. When camera manufacturers started building the next generation of hand held video cameras, they knew they were providing a camera that was vastly superior to those of the past. And while Apple led the consortium to develop FireWire, digital video would not be where it is today with out the backing of developers like Sony. When Sony released its first line of Digital Video cameras, it did so with a new port on each of its cameras. The port was no larger than a headphone jack but was more uniquely shaped. Sony called the port iLink, but we know it as FireWire (also known as IEEE1394). And where Sony led the way, other manufacturers followed. Soon the market was thick with Digital Video cameras that took advantage of FireWire. And while Apple released FireWire upon the Mac community quietly, it was not long before it was the buzz of the industry. Avid Technology Inc. had seen the power of the Macintosh back in the early 90’s when it based one of its high-end editing systems on Apple’s Quadra 950. Big name production companies all over the world had used systems like the one based on the 950 for years. They gained their power not only from the Mac, but also from expensive proprietary hardware built specifically for use with other technology designed by Avid. These high-end video systems may have been based on the Macintosh, but they were in no way accessible to the end user. Avid systems ranged in price, some systems costing hundred of thousands of dollars. |