Kramer Electronics VS-66FW user manual Understanding FireWire, FireWire Compliance

Overview

3.1 Understanding FireWire

FireWire is a serial bus standard that enables quick universal interfacing between video and computer hardware items. FireWire is simple to use and operates independently of the host system. In addition, FireWire supports Plug and Play1 and hot swapping2.

Many computers today come with one or more FireWire ports on the rear panel. These ports let you attach many devices to your computer quickly and easily. The operating system also supports FireWire, so the installation of the device drivers is also quick and easy. Compared to other ways of connecting devices to your computer (including parallel ports, serial ports and special cards that you install inside the computer's case), FireWire devices are simple. Many peripheral devices (including: DV Camcorders, Digital still cameras, Storage devices such as External Hard Drives and Arrays, and Network connections) now come in a FireWire version.

3.2 FireWire Compliance

The VS-66FW:

￿￿Fully supports the provisions of the IEEE 1394-1995 Standard for High Performance Serial Bus and the P1394a Supplement

￿￿Is fully interoperable with FireWire™ and i.LINK™ implementation of IEEE Std 1394

￿￿Is fully compliant with OpenHCI requirements

￿￿Provides P1394a Fully Compliant Cable Ports at 100/200/400 Megabits per Second (Mbits/s)

￿￿Includes full P1394a support, that is, Connection Debounce, Arbitrated Short Reset, Multispeed Concatenation, Arbitration Acceleration, Fly-By Concatenation, Port Disable/Suspend/Resume

￿￿Includes Extended Resume Signaling for Compatibility with Legacy DV Devices

￿￿Includes built-in protection from electrostatic discharge (ESD)3, by suppressing all transient high voltages down to the allowed level. In particular, ESD protection for high-speed data lines to IEC 61000-4-2 (ESD) 15kV (air), 8kV (contact), IEC 61000-4-5 (Lightning) 12A (8/20us), and IEC 61000-4-4 (EFT) 40A (5/50ns)

1 Configures automatically without any driver. Whenever a device is added or removed the 1394 bus re-enumerates.

2 You can connect and disconnect inputs and outputs dynamically, without having to restart the PC or cycle power

3 When connecting a "live" DV source to a receptor, an electrical potential difference or any other element creating a high voltage (such as ESD or a live chassis) may permanently damage one or both of the connected devices. This high voltage may be seen as a spark occurring at the instant of connection, or may not be seen at all, but nevertheless can result in costly damage

2 KRAMER: SIMPLE CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY