Hoping for Firewire Digi001

[Jerry Finklestien]

Anyone else got their hopes up that we might see a firewire I/O for Protools LE 5.2 finally come out at the AES show?

[Slim Shady]

no, you're the first to bring it up.

[Jerry Finklestien]

I wasn't aware of that. I thought that maybe others had already been talking about Digidesign moving in this direction with future updates of the Digi001.

[Jerry Finklestien]

I'm sure that whatever Digi has in store it will be amazing.

[Slim Shady]

sorry, I intended that to be funny, but I'm afraid it appeared rude. If you do a search on this forum for 'digi002' you will find a plethora of rumors, hopes, dreams, complaints, and digi-bashing a-plenty on the subject you're interested in.

[Jerry Finklestien]

Really? There is no reason to bash digidesign. They make amazing products and solid ones too. I love my digi001 and I look forward to whatever they turn it into next.

[Park Seward]

Looks like Firewire is on its way.

From Digi:

Firewire Hard Drives With Pro Tools

Digidesign has performed preliminary tests using Firewire drives with Pro Tools. Although Firewire drives are not yet officially supported by Digidesign, Digi has enough confidence in the performance ability of the latest Firewire bridge technology, the Oxford 911 chipset, to inform Pro Tools customers that Firewire drives are an option when used with the guidelines listed below. Because Digidesign is not able to officially support Firewire drives at this time, it is recommended that you review the compatibility documents provided by the Firewire Drive manufacturer to make sure the drive meets the guidelines listed below.

Technical Requirements

CPU

*

Apple G4 450 MHz or higher

System Software

*

Mac OS 9.1 or higher

*

Firewire Enabler (version 2.7 or higher)

*

Firewire Support (version 2.7 or higher)

FireWire Enabler and FireWire Support are Mac OS Extensions included with OS 9.1, or run the Software Update Control Panel to update to the latest version of these extensions in OS 9.1 or higher. These extensions must be enabled in your System Folder/Extensions folder.

Firewire Drives

*

Oxford 911 Firewire bridge chipset *

*

7200 RPM drive

*

100 MHz ATA bus

Digidesign Products

*

Pro Tools®|24

*

Pro Tools®|24 MIX

*

Pro Tools®|24 MIXplus

*

Pro Tools®|24 MIX3

*

Digi 001

*

Digi ToolBox XP & Audiomedia III

*

Pro Tools 5.1 and Pro Tools LE 5.1 or higher

*

Pro Tools FREE

Performance Expectations

*

Maximum of 32 tracks during playback and recording with two drives, with 16 tracks allocated per drive when using the models tested.

*

A single Firewire drive adhering to these standards may be an option to playback and record up to 24 tracks.

*

Track count and performance will vary depending on available CPU cycles and edit density.

Drives Used for Preliminary Testing

*

Glyph XProject — www.glyphtech.com

*

EZ Quest Cobra+ — www.ezq.com

Other Firewire drives should have similar results given the previously stated requirements.

* To date only Firewire drives using the Oxford 911 Firewire bridge chipset meet these performance specifications. Check with the drive manufacturer to verify that the drive you buy has the "Oxford 911" chipset.

[Jerry Finklestien]

It is true that digidesign is checking out what all the fuss is about firewire but the question is, do they think it is a serious technology or are they very sceptical as everyone else seems to be about it. It is a great idea to have an I/O that will work with any computer and not just the apple G4 tower but will performance suffer?

I have talked to people who have the Motu 828 and many of them say that it has a variety of problems. A few say that it works amazing but I think they are just hardcore Motu Digital Performer folks who are afraid to admit that a firewire system is not as good as a PCI card based system.

I wonder what digidesign really thinks of firewire I/O interfaces?

[Muzza]

IMHO the trouble with FireWire is that is not a dedicated bus. There may be a huge bandwidth but there are problems with the nature of it. There is some bandwidth chewed up in signal negotiation.
The problem is that people tend to put lots of things on it and still expect it to perform.
I don't know what the bandwidth requirements of the MOTU 828 is whn you have 8 channels in full flight, but I imagine it would be pretty hefty (anyone got some facts?)
If you then put a FW drive on there performance will suffer. The only way to get around this is to get a FW card and separate the drives that way.

I think Digi may be viewing the FW option with caution as they don't want any damage from supporting a 'possibly flakey' product.