[opendtv] Re: Can FireWire again save the day?
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 08:34:21 -0400
Momentarily awakening from my sabbatical...
to discover the same old drumbeat emanating from an e-mail address in
the Washington DC suburbs.
Once again, Bert exhibits his inability to see past technology to the
real issues that have placed a speed governor on the development of
DTV and related technologies such as in-home networks.
At 11:42 AM -0400 5/11/06, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
>Home nets are smaller, confined, so one might argue the situation is
>different. But that cuts both ways. The smaller scale and non-transit
>properties of a home network are exactly what makes simple Ethernet link
>layers adequate in such nets, even for time-sensitive comms. Just throw
>bandwidth at the problem, if all else fails. If IEEE 1394 needs 400
>Mb/s, throw 1 Gb/sec Ethernet at it.
>
The issue is not bandwidth Bert. The issue is the ability to
establish multiple "channels" of isochronous communications across
the in-home network. The following paragraph from the EETimes article
you posted should have told you smething:
>The 1394 Trade Association doesn't agree, nor do HANA promoters. HANA
>chairman Jack Chaney, the director of the DMS Labs at Samsung, flatly
>said, "HANA is IP-based and guarantees delivery." Peter Johansson, vice
>president of Congruent Software Inc. (Bellevue, Wash.), concurred.
>"Ethernet and Internet Protocol are not one and the same thing. IP is so
>easy to carry . . . Ethernet carries IP, 1394 carries IP and coax
>carries IP."
As we have been saying for years, IP packets have become the lingua
franca of the digital world. As indicated above, E-net is not the
only game in town for the delivery of these packets.
The issue here, as with almost everything related to the world of
digital media, is political, not technical. Let's just say that there
are powerful forces at work who want to keep digital media inside of
one "walled garden" or another.
The content moguls have their agenda, to limit our ability to move
media around, and to move to a world where we will pay for each use
of their bits...
The cable guys are more than willing to ignore Congressional and FCC
mandates to open up their boxes so that the CE companies can plug &
play.
And, when it looks like anyone may be ready to break out of the box,
something always happens to throw a wrench into things. IEEE-1394 was
delayed for years to add content protection - DTCP. DVI with HDCP was
not good enough - the industry had to re-invent it as HDMI.
As the folks behind HANA said in the article, their tecchnology is not dead...
It's just politically incorrect.
Regards
Craig
>
>Chaney remains confident that other companies will join HANA.
>
>"Large corporations' strategies are complex and very secret," he said.
>"If the objectives of HANA and the 1394 Trade Association are achieved
>on schedule, then these large corporations will be part of the flow to
>HANA."
>
>The technical work within the 1394 group is converging on IP as the
>control plane for all network devices (that is, TCP/IP encapsulation for
>A/V devices). Johansson is proposing to transport A/V streams as
>out-of-band isochronous data, while connecting link segments with L3
>bridges.
>
>In the proposed HANA-based home network architecture using 1394 and
>1394-over-coax, the group plans to put in place a "bridge" that
>translates a 1394 bus to 1394-over-coax or, in the future, another
>controller that bridges 1394 and Ethernet networks. It will also install
>a proxy device that helps the network discover what legacy devices are
>out there, and send control commands. The proxy device would translate
>HANA commands--transported on IP--into A/V device commands and send
>them, Johansson explained. "Proxy devices are like having a guide and an
>interpreter in one," he said.
>
>Indeed, beyond the lack of clock synchronization, the biggest issue with
>DLNA for 1394 promoters is its treatment of legacy A/V devices,
>according to van der Ven. "The new Ethernet router that comes with the
>latest Universal Plug & Play features talks to DLNA devices, but it
>stops legacy devices from interfering"--effectively banishing the legacy
>products from new home network technologies.
>
>All material on this site Copyright 2006 CMP Media LLC. All rights
>reserved
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
>
>- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings
>at FreeLists.org
>
>- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the
>word unsubscribe in the subject line.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at
FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts:
