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Lightpeak.... (pg. 3)
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| Seandroid |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fledz
They do it to force people to upgrade once a new one comes out.
Hopefully that ty Apple attitude will change when Jobs isn't running the show any more. |
Not a bad attitude. It pushes the industry forward. Apple was the first to remove floppy disk drives from their iMacs and rely on USB peripherals and look what happened.
Trying to support legacy crap just holds you back, that's what's been wrong with Microsoft for so long, but even Microsoft is taking a more Apple like approach with Windows Phone and Windows 7 now. |
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| thecYrus |
| quote: | Originally posted by Seandroid
Not a bad attitude. It pushes the industry forward. Apple was the first to remove floppy disk drives from their iMacs and rely on USB peripherals and look what happened.
Trying to support legacy crap just holds you back, that's what's been wrong with Microsoft for so long, but even Microsoft is taking a more Apple like approach with Windows Phone and Windows 7 now. |
That's why apple has no market share in the commercial industry. That attitude works only for consumer products.
Well, it will take years before thunderbolt is anywhere near a standard. Until then it's a nice specced protocol without much use. beside that who needs anothe copper based cable. too bad they failed at doing it optical yet. |
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| dj_alfi |
| quote: | Originally posted by thecYrus
too bad they failed at doing it optical yet. |
thunderbolt IS optical you moron :P |
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| thecYrus |
| quote: | Originally posted by dj_alfi
thunderbolt IS optical you moron :P |
Thunderbolt IS copper for now. that's why they changed the name. they will add optical connections in the successor. |
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| DJ RANN |
Lightpeak is going to replace peripheral device connections (interfaces, ext drives, etc) but I doubt it will immediately replace all the old monitor connections at least for the time being, with HDMI or even variations of DVI being around for a while due to sheer number of devices made for those connections.
HDMI is actually quite IMO so I hope it does get replaced soon (handshake protocols stop you from splitting signals easily, it has a short physical limitation, is really just RGBHV and 5.1 audio in a cable, nothing more, etc). These may be concerns that don't matter to consumers, but pro installers and commercial users will tell you in a heartbeat what a step backwards it is.
As for the hub question - I think there's not going to be a need; there's so much bandwidth available that I reckon they'll go the daisy chain route, so you just piggyback off the last unit. It wasn't really workable with FW for intensive applications (even though connecting up to 64 FW units was possible) as the bandwidth would be taken up by a single multichannel audio interface.
With LP, the bandwidth is 10x that of FW so I think having an audio interface and a drive connected by daisy chain shouldn't make it even break sweat.
I could be wrong but it seems the most logical option in my mind. |
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| Seandroid |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
Lightpeak is going to replace peripheral device connections (interfaces, ext drives, etc) but I doubt it will immediately replace all the old monitor connections at least for the time being, with HDMI or even variations of DVI being around for a while due to sheer number of devices made for those connections.
HDMI is actually quite IMO so I hope it does get replaced soon (handshake protocols stop you from splitting signals easily, it has a short physical limitation, is really just RGBHV and 5.1 audio in a cable, nothing more, etc). These may be concerns that don't matter to consumers, but pro installers and commercial users will tell you in a heartbeat what a step backwards it is.
As for the hub question - I think there's not going to be a need; there's so much bandwidth available that I reckon they'll go the daisy chain route, so you just piggyback off the last unit. It wasn't really workable with FW for intensive applications (even though connecting up to 64 FW units was possible) as the bandwidth would be taken up by a single multichannel audio interface.
With LP, the bandwidth is 10x that of FW so I think having an audio interface and a drive connected by daisy chain shouldn't make it even break sweat.
I could be wrong but it seems the most logical option in my mind. |
According to Apple's site you can daisy chain up to 10 devices without err.
| quote: | Originally posted by thecYrus
That's why apple has no market share in the commercial industry. That attitude works only for consumer products.
Well, it will take years before thunderbolt is anywhere near a standard. Until then it's a nice specced protocol without much use. beside that who needs anothe copper based cable. too bad they failed at doing it optical yet. |
Apple isn't targeting enterprise, and they never have. They didn't fail at targeting commercial markets, they never targeted them!
And it will not take years, Thunderbolt isn't just Apple's technology! Intel is backing it too, this is a joint effort. And why do you care whether it was optical or not? Doesn't affect the consumer... |
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| Senator Clay Davis |
| whether its optical or not matters to me, as i know a little about optical. basically you would have to get a new cable every third month or so because the connector is incredible weak. a little dust and you might be ed. some grease fingers on there and forget it. also, bend that cable and its broken. BUT when treated right its definitely the fastest way of transmitting signals. Also its unaffected by electric noise, so it can lie next to bunch of powercables without any noise at all. Is this LightPeak, multimodus? I would guess so. This thunderbolt thing seems like a step in the wrong direction though, reminds me of good old coax from DVD to surround reciever. Optical inside a computer seems like a great idea, as its pretty static in there (motherboards, graphics, memory and all that). But to have it from computer to a soundcard or ext HD, tv whatever, is pretty risky imo. USB3 will probably be the solution for that. its just been decided that all mobilephones in europe shall be powered/charged by USB. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Senator Clay Davis
whether its optical or not matters to me, as i know a little about optical. basically you would have to get a new cable every third month or so because the connector is incredible weak. a little dust and you might be ed. some grease fingers on there and forget it. also, bend that cable and its broken. BUT when treated right its definitely the fastest way of transmitting signals. Also its unaffected by electric noise, so it can lie next to bunch of powercables without any noise at all. Is this LightPeak, multimodus? I would guess so. This thunderbolt thing seems like a step in the wrong direction though, reminds me of good old coax from DVD to surround reciever. Optical inside a computer seems like a great idea, as its pretty static in there (motherboards, graphics, memory and all that). But to have it from computer to a soundcard or ext HD, tv whatever, is pretty risky imo. USB3 will probably be the solution for that. its just been decided that all mobilephones in europe shall be powered/charged by USB. |
That's not exactly true about the fragility of fibre optic cables. Yes, you can't bend them more than 90 degrees but actually there pretty robust and coil really easily when you need make turns. The only bit you need to worry about is the exact tips (not get them dirty etc) but they are sealed when plugged in so it's really not a problem.
I personally don't see it as being any less of a pain or dodgy than the majority of copper connectors such as 3.5mm audio jacks or 1/4inch jacks etc.
Thunderbolt is basically PCI express and display port in one - it's not yet going to unleash the full optical potential for a couple of years until the peripherals that can take advantge are released. |
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| dj_alfi |
| quote: | Originally posted by thecYrus
Thunderbolt IS copper for now. that's why they changed the name. they will add optical connections in the successor. |
my bad, i was under the impression they had first made a working optical prototype and then downgraded to copper, to lessen the cost or because of better durability. |
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| DJ RANN |
I'll just leave this here:
"Thunderbolt technology is connectivity without compromise and will enable the full promise of Symphony I/O, Apogee's professional digital audio recording platform."
– Betty Bennett, CEO, Apogee |
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| kitphillips |
Yeah, as a DJ who plays live occasionally I can't see optical being a good solution for me long term. My gear takes a battering and its hard enough to keep my copper cables clean and in one piece let alone optical.
That said, copper suffers the same problem and I wouldn't like to count the number of times I've replaced my guitar jack/cables etc due to dirt building up. |
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| DJ RANN |
The thing I like about optical cables is that there is no grey area with them - it either has a connection and works, or it doesn't.
There's no loose connections, half signal, mono/stereo issues etc. In some ways it's far way easier to problem solve.
I personally don't think optical cables are any less robust than any other type of cable - if anything, they're more solid than copper cables and there's rarely issues with th connectors.
That comes at a price though as custom optical cables are way more expensive so really most people are limited to buying what available off the shelf. |
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