1394 Trade Association: Why FireWire?

WHY DOES FIREWIRE MAKE SENSE FOR MY HOME THEATER?

You have a lot of choices when connecting your home theater components to one another. This article explains the costs and benefits you will encounter with two of the more commonly available choices.

HDMI vs. FireWire

HDMI is commonly used to deliver a digital signal to a television, but it represents a one-way, dead-end connection that cannot be used cooperatively like 1394 can. It can only carry a single HD signal at a time and can only move it and no other data in only one direction. Essentially, it's a work horse, but a relatively unintelligent one. Furthermore, HDMI uses uncompressed signals that are difficult (and sometimes illegal) to record without costly encoding systems. The same video signal, if sent over FireWire instead of HDMI, will consume much less bandwidth, so it is far more practical to record for time-shifting or storage (if copyrights are honored).

HDMI requires more cables, as HDMI-connected devices cannot be daisy-chained
If recording to DVD is desired, requires costly encoders
HDMI does not allow devices to discover one another and work together
HDMI is not designed (nor able) to carry other data between computers and home theater systems, thereby preventing the user from capitalizing on the full range of services a media server can provide to a home theater set-up

Ethernet vs. FireWire

Ethernet is great for moving large quantities of certain types of data. Like HDMI, it provides a lot of bandwidth to handle these large quantities of data. However, it doesn't provide the Quality of Service required for watching video and audio that are synchronized to one another (i.e., a movie or television show or any other form of what we normally call video). When you actually start making demands on Ethernet to deliver both audio and video, synchronized to show up at precisely the same time, it starts to fail as an end-to-end solution for your home theater. As our home entertainment network gets more congested, FireWire shines as the only solution that provides everything we'll need.

So Why FireWire?

What you already know:

Like Ethernet and HDMI, FireWire has the bandwidth necessary to deliver multiple HD streams across a home entertainment network. Unlike either of those technologies, FireWire also provides Quality of Service - the guarantee that your video AND audio information will show up at the right time and place and your movies don't all look like bad foreign-language dubs.

What you might not know:

FireWire also allows you to record your HD signal to a hard drive AND to LEGALLY burn DVD copies of your premium HD content. No other technology provides that protection. Because FireWire provides the ability to daisy-chain components, the back of your home theater system stops looking like a cable company exploded on it, and instead is as easy to look at as it is to maintain. FireWire is the most universal cable available: it allows computers and camcorders and cameras and hard drives and televisions and DVRs and DVD players and and and... to all talk together and "play nice."

As your home theater gets more sophisticated, your cabling solution should be equally elegant. Connect with the best, and choose FireWire.

If you're ready to read a more technical presentation, follow the link about HANA's reasons for choosing 1394, at the right.

HELPFUL LINKS

How-To Index

White Paper:
Home Entertainment Networks
and Flying Cars

Why HANA Chose 1394 Over Ethernet (PDF)

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