What is IEEE 1394A ?
The 1394 standard have been defined, and continue to be maintained by the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE). The technology
allows for high-speed connections between computers and related devices and
helps bridge the divide between computers and consumer electronics. The
technology is flexible, easy to use and offers high bandwidth at a low cost.
The IEEE 1394 multimedia connection enables simple, low-cost, high-bandwidth
isochroous (real-time) data interfacing between computers, peripherals, and
consumer electronics products such as camcorders, VCRs, printers, PCs, TVs, and
digital cameras. With IEEE 1394-compatible products and systems, users can
transfer video or still images from a camera or camcorder to a printer, PC, or
television, with no image degradation.
IEEE 1394 interfaces have already been incorporated into a variety of devices,
including PC cameras, DV camcorders, DV recorders, digital still cameras,
high-speed hard disk drives, CD-ROM drives, DVD-ROM drives, DVD-RAM drives,
digital TVs, set-top boxes, scanners, and printers.
1394A Features
The 1394 standard is a high-speed serial bus designed to deliver high data
transfer speeds at a low cost, and with the low degree of latency required by a
peripheral bus or by a backup to a traditional parallel bus. Among the its key
features are：
High speeds：speeds of 100, 200 and 400 megabits per second (Mbps) are
currently supported.
Flexible topology：Devices can be daisy-chained and no central bus
supervision is required.
Hot-plug support：The bus is dynamically reconfigured whenever new nodes
are added, which means users don’t have to configure node IDs or unique
termination schemes.
Cable power：Low-cost peripherals can be powered directly from the 1394
cable, so no dedicated power supply is needed.
Open IEEE standard：IEEE adoption has increased industry acceptance of
the standard.
Optimum performance：Each cable connection can be up to 4.5 meters long,
yielding a total cable distance of 72 meters.
FireWire/1394 – A Compelling Computer Interface
More and more digital video camcorders, hard drives, scanners, printers, CD-RWs
and other peripherals are relying on the FireWire interface to connect desktop
computer to these devices. This fast, configurable, reliable, and easy-to-use
interface standard can form the basis of your connections to peripherals while
aringing the power and creativity of digital video editing to your computering
experience. IEEE 1394A PCI card is just a kind host adapter based on this
compelling interface.
Incredibly Fast Data Transfer Rates
IEEE 1394A PCI card is OHCI-compliant and can transmit FireWire data at rates of
up to 400 Mbits/sec – equivalent to 50 Mbytes/sec. These speeds make short work
of transferring your large, media-rich files saving your time and increasing
your productivity. Moreover, the card provides isochroous data transmission that
guarantees bandwidth for your multimedia data streams, ensuring uninterrupted
full-frame, full-motion video and CD-quality audio.
Simple, Easy, Convenient Connectivity
IEEE 1394A PCI card makes adding FireWire devices to your computer a snap. Just
use the thin, flexible FireWire cables and small, simple connectors to link
together a daisy-chained system in no time at all. Your peripherals can be
spaced as far as 15 ft. (4.5m) apart – giving you the flexibility to place up to
62 peripherals where it makes the most sense to you. The FireWire-enabled
devices are hot-pluggable – so you don’t have to turn off your computer to
connect or disconnect devices. For plug-and-play convenience, devices are
recognized instantly when they are added to the configuration and can be used
immediately.
Connecting Devices
There are two ways to connect 1394/FireWire devices to the host card. Devices
can connect in serial in a “daisy chain” or through a repeater connected to one
of the card ports.
Daisy Chain Connections
When you connect devices in a daisy chain configuration you can connect up to 63
devices in a row. This scheme is simple and convenient, but has one drawback.
Since 1394/FireWire devices are “hot-pluggable”, you can connect and disconnect
devices while the computer is turned on. When you disconnect the device, the
other devices that come after it are temporarily disconnected until you
reconnect them to the chain.
The 1394/FireWire card supplies power to devices through the cable connection.
This power has some limitations. See the section on this later in this chapter
for more information.
Repeater Connections
If you use a 1394/FireWire repeater to connect devices to the card, all
connected devices are independent of each other. You can then disconnect any
device without disturbing the other devices connected to the card.
An additional feature of using a hub is that the repeater can also provide power
for devices that use more power than the 1394/FireWire cabling supplies. This
allows connecting one or more devices that use more power.
1394 Cable
The 1394 standard have a maximum connection cable length of 4.5 meters (15
feet). This means this is the maximum distance between devices.
If you need to connect two devices more than 4.5 meters apart, you can use a
repeater to extend the cable length between the devices.
There are two types of 1394/FireWire cable. One type, 6-pin to 6-pin, supplies
power to the device it connects to. The other type is 6-pin to 4-pin, for
devices that are self-powered and do not require power from the 1394/FireWire
bus.
If you connect devices in a daisy chain and any device needs power from the
cabling, all cabling must be 6-pin to 6-pin. If you use a repeater, you can use
either type.
Power Considerations
The 1394/FireWire bus provides limited electrical power through the connector
cables, as noted above. Some devices will have their own power supplies. Other
devices may need more power than is available from the bus and can be powered
from a powered repeater. Make sure to check the power requirements of any
devices you plan to use before you connect them. Consult the device
documentation for this information and the connection instructions.
About Tekram IEEE 1394A Host Adapter
High performance transfer interface： A host controller card with a PCI
interface. It provides a high-performance IEEE 1394-1995 interface with the
capability to transfer data between the 1394 phy-link interface, the PCI bus
interface and external devices connected to the local bus interface.
High speed： Three independent IEEE1394 bus ports, each of which can transfer
data at 400Mbps.
Automatically install： When you plug an IEEE 1394/FireWire device into one of
the card’s three ports, Windows 98 will automatically install the new device and
the appropriate driver.
Hot-plug support： Easily connect or disconnect devices without having to first
shutdown your computer.
Digital Video Editing Software Included: You can quickly create
professional-quality video for home and business use with award-winning MGI
VideWave 4.0SE digital video editing software for Windows PCs. The VideoWave
4.0SE software has powerful editing and special effects tools that make creating
videos a breeze. It automatically clips your video into “takes” – saving you
hours of work before you ever begin editing. Capture, edit, produce and share
your video – all with one application!
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External RAID subsystem 