USB, Firewire, PCI???Which is best

[vgermani]

Hi,

I currently own a USB 24/96 sound card. Although it works, my USB bus is quickly becomming overused and things are quirky.

Could someone please explain the difference in the bandwidth, responsiveness and overall quality of the different types of interfaces? Specifically, when will one of these buses saturate and which will allow for better latency.

I am leaning towards firewire since you can plug several interfaces into 1 firewire card but I still need to understand more.

Thanks

[crazytom]

In simple terms, listing from bad to good:

1. USB (low bandwidth) OK for recording 1-2 tracks at a time.

2. Firewire (double USB bandwidth plus some) Can record 8 tracks at a time. Also easier to set up and transport if you're using a laptop.

3. PCI (it doesn't get any better than this). The big gun...some PCI's can record up to 48 tracks in some cases.

[crazytom]

Ooops. Forgot about latency:

I'm not 100% sure about all of these, but I'm sure they'd follow in the same order. To get rid of the latency issue, use a small mixer. Latency, for a large part, depends on the computer system and well as the hardware and it's drivers. AFAIK, the lowest latency is with a Delta 1010 (PCI) and a Mac with OS X -> 9ms!!!

[knowdoubt]

Originally posted by crazytom:

2. Firewire (double USB bandwidth plus some) Can record 8 tracks at a time. Also easier to set up and transport if you're using a laptop.


Actually Firewire's bandwidth is quite a bit more than that. My MOTU 24i has a Firewire interface from the converter breakout box to it's PCI card (the PCI card in this case is merely serving as MOTU's system link for the ability to combine several of their variant outboard audio interfaces simultaneously via it's included Firewire controller hub & ports) & with it I can record 24 tracks of 24/48 with no problem on a P2-350. PCI has the highest bandwidth but Firewire's bandwidth is plenty high enough that it's not an issue for audio recording.

Firewire is becoming more and more popular as an audio interface also because of it's simple convenient interface (small light weight cable & connector capable of relatively long runs carrying 24 tracks... yeah baby). Also it's now more viable for manufacturers since more & more PC MOBO's are available with onboard Firewire & this will allow lower cost for sound device manufacturers since no PCI card necessary when depending on the PC's built in Firewire.

USB 2 has relatively the same bandwidth as Firewire (only slightly more) but I doubt it will every achieve the same reliability & status as Firewire for audio because of it's inferior protocol.

For more of my dribble & others on this same subject you can check out this thread - http://www.audioforums.com/forums/Forum4/HTML/003578.html



[This message has been edited by knowdoubt (edited 01-27-2003).]

[GZsound]

Just a maybe dumb question here, but I don't see PC's being sold with Firewire interfaces but instead USB.

Is there a PC future for Firewire? I know Firewire can be added later but if it's so hot, why not stock in new PC's?

[usul]

There is also a difference in latency issue between USb and PCI that is independent from the processor or RAM (I have both USB and PCI audio cards). This is probably due to the lower bandwidth in data transfer capabilities of USB connection, also if you are dealing with a single stero input and a single stereo output.

regards

[GZsound]

Do you still use both USB and PCI soundcards?

I have a USB S/PDIF optical card and a PCI ADAT optical, S/PDIF coaxial sound card. I would like avoid having to buy an optical to coax converter and instead just use the USB for my S/PDIF and the PCI for my ADAT inputs.

I uninstalled the USB card when I installed the PCI card but I thought of reinstalling it to make things simpler.

[knowdoubt]

You can find Firewire on new PC's if you look for it. My nephew's 3 year old Compaq came with Firewire. It should become a little more prevalent since many new chipsets are incorporating feature support for it but even still I see to often a MOBO manufacturer not implementing it even when the chipset has built in feature support for it.

The bigger question is - how long before PC's & audio peripherals will be available with Firewire 800 (IEEE 1394b) that Apple is already incorporating in some of their puters? Double the bandwidth of the Firewire 400 we're discussing & USB2. It also uses fiber optic cable capable of running 100 meter transmission lines. Check it out here - http://www.apple.com/firewire/

[This message has been edited by knowdoubt (edited 01-28-2003).]

[This message has been edited by knowdoubt (edited 01-28-2003).]

[Matthew Skinner]

A few additions to what other people have written....

Firewire is EXTREMELY difficult to write drivers for, it more than tripples the driver development and as most firewire devices are very new they drivers are far behind that of PCI cards. Theorically the latency will be the same between firewire and PCI but currently because of the length to write a driver they are very very unoptimised for low latency. In a years time firwire will be the more common interface I believe and will be achieving very similar if not the same latency.

Does this mean you should run out and purcahse a firwire card now ? No i personally wouldn't as theres some new technology about to be released over the next 3 months which will change firewire and allow lots more firewire devices to be released. Thats MLAN by yamaha (new 24bit 192khz MLAN chip), it means a firewire soundcards driver will be written by yamaha. This is as far as i'll go.... All macs built in firewire ports already support MLAN.


When this new chip is released a whole flood of new firewire devices will hit the market. I already know of an aditional 20 audiocards which will be release with firwire support, i cant release info on these to public.


Also fibre optics only support 30 foot runs without a signal amp to boost the signal. The same as firwire in its current wired form. Every 10 meters you need a signal boosting box whether its optical or a coaxial wire. The excpetion to this is when you use very very expensive optical cables which makes the cables unviable to mass production. Firewire will stay with its current form or move to cheap cables like CAT5 or an adat optical leads which requires a boosting box to be used. Running 100 meters of adat cable means big $$ and using signal boosters. There is theoretical value and real world values.

There are already products widely available to allow you to transfer the current firewire over cat5 and optical cables. Firewire has been around for at least 10 years already. Isn't it funny how long it takes for it to be supported and take off in a market ?

[vgermani]

That's great info but I'm confused now. In another topic somebody wrote the following in reference to speeds of interfaces:

"USB - 12Mbits/sec or 1.25Mbytes/sec
Firewire - 400Mbits/sec or 50Mbytes/sec
USB 2.0 - on paper 480Mbits/sec but in real life its closer to 300Mbits/sec
PCI - 100Mbytes/sec and higher"

If PCI is almost a factor of 10 faster than firewire (megaBITS vs megaBYTES) then how can the latencies of firewire ever approach that of PCI?

BTW--what is the DVD standard for khz? Is it 96 or 192?

[brzilian]

Originally posted by vgermani:
That's great info but I'm confused now. In another topic somebody wrote the following in reference to speeds of interfaces:

"USB - 12Mbits/sec or 1.25Mbytes/sec
Firewire - 400Mbits/sec or 50Mbytes/sec
USB 2.0 - on paper 480Mbits/sec but in real life its closer to 300Mbits/sec
PCI - 100Mbytes/sec and higher"

If PCI is almost a factor of 10 faster than firewire (megaBITS vs megaBYTES) then how can the latencies of firewire ever approach that of PCI?

BTW--what is the DVD standard for khz? Is it 96 or 192?

That would be a factor of 2, not 10:

(100Mbytes/sec)/(50Mbytes/sec)=2

1 byte=8 bits

[brzilian]

Originally posted by GZsound:
Just a maybe dumb question here, but I don't see PC's being sold with Firewire interfaces but instead USB.

Is there a PC future for Firewire? I know Firewire can be added later but if it's so hot, why not stock in new PC's?

Sony has had Firewire ports on their VAIO systems for years as well as Compaq.

[brzilian]

Originally posted by crazytom:
.

2. Firewire (double USB bandwidth plus some) Can record 8 tracks at a time. Also easier to set up and transport if you're using a laptop.

Its actually 30x faster. (400/12)

[vgermani]

you're right...I just looked at the bits to bytes thing and didn't look at the rest.

Besides, aren't musicians only supposed to be able to count to 4 (maybe 6)?

I have heard that both Apple and Intel are trying to move towards a standard that will stop people from having to open up boxes and plug cards in to systems as we do today (pci) and use more external "pluggable" standards such as firewire and usb. No doubt it will get there someday probably soon...

I loved the firewire on my Sony Vio. Way ahead of it's time.

[knowdoubt]

Actually Matthew, I believe Firewire 400 (IEEE 1394) in it's current wired form is only spec'd to run up to 4.5 meter cable length.

FWIW the next generation of Firewire, IEEE 1394b (developed by Apple) currently being released as 800 Mb/s bandwidth will eventually reach 3200 Mb/s bandwidth & the spesification standard allows for a greater variety of cable interface options than the current IEEE 1394 (Firewire 400) with bandwidth & maximum cable length dependent on cable type & yes, with very expensive glass optical cable it will be capable of transferring data over 100 meters without external booster amp at 800 Mb/s as currently released but the roadmap outlined in the IEEE 1394b standard will eventually take it to 3200 Mb/s. However, that's all of little practical concern for us today. It's fun though to think of the future possibilities it should open up for high end professionals with big bucks working with High sample rate multi channel audio & (HD) video.

[GZsound]

According to the latest issue of Electronic Musician: "There is a lot more development in audio devices for USB than for Firewire. Cakewalk's vice president of engineering has stated he thinks USB has a strong future for audio."

"Microsoft has delivered native USB 2.0 native support in it's first service pack to Windows XP. Eighty percent of PC's shipped in 2003 will have integrated USB 2.0 support."

Electronic Musician also recognized the best interface would be a SCSI 160 but for now it looks like USB 2.0 is going to be the interface of choice for PC and Firewire for Apple.

[brzilian]

Originally posted by GZsound:
According to the latest issue of Electronic Musician: "There is a lot more development in audio devices for USB than for Firewire. Cakewalk's vice president of engineering has stated he thinks USB has a strong future for audio."

"Microsoft has delivered native USB 2.0 native support in it's first service pack to Windows XP. Eighty percent of PC's shipped in 2003 will have integrated USB 2.0 support."

Electronic Musician also recognized the best interface would be a SCSI 160 but for now it looks like USB 2.0 is going to be the interface of choice for PC and Firewire for Apple.


Well duh! http://www.audioforums.com/forums/tongue.gif Microsoft will go out of its way to support USB because they've put alot of money into it and because Apple has championed Firwire as their standard. There's no way in hell Gates would support something Jobs likes...

[GZsound]

I think you are forgetting the fact that Bill Gates has invested 100 million dollars in Apple and has done a lot to save the company. Mr. Gates is in fine shape with or without Apple and I do not believe he is an enemy of Steve Jobs. He sure makes an easy target though..

[brzilian]

Originally posted by GZsound:
I think you are forgetting the fact that Bill Gates has invested 100 million dollars in Apple and has done a lot to save the company. Mr. Gates is in fine shape with or without Apple and I do not believe he is an enemy of Steve Jobs. He sure makes an easy target though..

Sounds like you need a little history lesson.

Rent Pirates of Silicon Valley the next time you're at a video rental store. http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif

http://alt.tnt.tv/movies/tntoriginals/pirates/



[This message has been edited by brzilian (edited 01-30-2003).]

[GZsound]

I don't need to rent a movie created by a group of Microsoft haters to know the truth. In August of 1997 Microsoft invested 150 million dollars in Apple.

The main reason was to avoid lawsuits from Sun and others claiming monopoly. With a viable Apple there can obviously not be a monopoly. And Apple is free to use the USB spec also just like Microsoft is free to use the Firewire spec. There is not necessarily a conspiracy behind every tree.

Just a little history lesson..

[Matthew Skinner]

Originally posted by vgermani:
If PCI is almost a factor of 10 faster than firewire (megaBITS vs megaBYTES) then how can the latencies of firewire ever approach that of PCI?

BTW--what is the DVD standard for khz? Is it 96 or 192?

You have a bad understanding of what the specs mean. The specs dont mean that PCI can deliver the audio twice as fast as firewire BUT what it means is that TWICE the AMOUNT of data can be transfered per second.... Think of a 2 lane highway and a 4 lane highway/freeway. Both have a speed limit of 60 miles per hour so the cars travel at 60 mph but the 4 lane highway can have twice as many cars travel through at the same amount of time.eg if you counted the cars that pass you by on a 2 lane highway you may count 2 per second, on the 4 lane you may count 4 cars per second... The cars dont travel faster !!! Get my point ?!?!?


Firewire and even USB, if the drivers are written correctly can EASILY acceive 1 or 2 ms at 44.1khz on a good computer. Latency is caused by the BUFFER sizes in the drivers not the standard which transferrs the data.

Also regarding DVD theres different standards ranging from 44.1 to 192khz. Most consumer dvd's cannot play 192k yet with 96k being the max but the standards are in place i believe for 192k. Cd's are only at 44.1 but DVD will be in many mutlitple formats to max life interesting. I dont know a lot about DVD yet so dont quote me but i believe this is the case. If anyone knows for sure I'm happy to be corrected.

[knowdoubt]

Originally posted by GZsound:
According to the latest issue of Electronic Musician: "There is a lot more development in audio devices for USB than for Firewire. Cakewalk's vice president of engineering has stated he thinks USB has a strong future for audio."

"Microsoft has delivered native USB 2.0 native support in it's first service pack to Windows XP. Eighty percent of PC's shipped in 2003 will have integrated USB 2.0 support."

Electronic Musician also recognized the best interface would be a SCSI 160 but for now it looks like USB 2.0 is going to be the interface of choice for PC and Firewire for Apple.

Plain & simple - I know of no high end multi channel (at least 8 I/O channels) digital audio device on the market today that uses USB as it's interface to the computer. There are currently several using Firewire.

There may be some USB 2 devises in the future that fit that description, but that's awhile down the road.

Yes, USB 2 will be more readily available on PC's than Firewire for several reasons but Firewire won't be eliminated. Quantity does not = quality. (USB is also available on Macs by the way).

It shouldn't be hard to find a PC that offers both & that's what I would recommend.

[Sugarbaker]

Originally posted by vgermani:
BTW--what is the DVD standard for khz? Is it 96 or 192?[/B]

96k is what is available now, and frankly it's all that is needed. Don't forget that higher fidelity recording takes more space. I would be willing to bet money that you wouldn't be able to tell the differance between 96 and 192... 44.1 and 96 for that matter, unless you are using less than the best D/A converters. And I'm ready to defend my answer with referances, if I get a ton of hateful responces. Just a thought.

Stephen



[This message has been edited by Sugarbaker (edited 01-31-2003).]

[GZsound]

It appears there are several Firewire devices and not many, if any at all, USB II devices.

I was simply quoting an article in Electronic Musician regarding the subject of this forum.

I have noticed there are few PC's with Firewire and that got me wondering. Hey, I use PCI and SCSI for audio so it don't matter to me..Only USB device I use is a Zip drive for backup and transferring files from my internet connected computer into my audio computer.