[TailsToo]

Steve is confirming that new camcorders don't need FireWire.:

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/16/firew...ers-and-apple/

[TailsToo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

I'm afraid you're wrong, and you'll just have to face reality, as much as you hate to (as do I):

For the consumer market, it HAS ALREADY REPLACED Firewire.

There are virtually no devices sold in the consumer market that have a Firewire port that don't also have USB as an alternative (except for a small handful of low-end audio interfaces, I can't think of a single one).

The pro market is different. But the pro market is decidedly NOT the target for the MacBook - Apple has just made that clear.
*sigh*

The point is that by Apple dropping FireWire in their best selling notebook, it will only hasten FireWire's decline for all but niche products.

If I'm WD, it costs more money to offer both USB and USB/FW hard drives. When the market for those FW hard drives drops, I am much less likely to offer them. The Pro market will be hurt by this too!

[fisherKing]

apple wants all "pros" (i use a firewire audio interface) to buy a 15" or 17" mbp...but i WANT a smaller machine.
the macbook would be fine for me in terms of size (altho i miss the 12" powerbook, my fave mac ever).

what i am hating about apple (and in 12 years of macuse, have never felt like this) is: no choices. glossy screen, no firewire on the smaller laptop...

the apogee duet (which i wanted to get) is recommended for logic (and even garageband); but it's a firewire interface. so i can't do the macbook (the better size for my tastes).

am seriously disappointed...

[FireWire]

Don't worry, I'm fine! The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!™

[Big Mac]

Glad to know that!

[analogika]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

No it doesn't, because the hard drive is not user-removable in many of Apple's machines (the Mac mini and the iMac, for instance, as well as all MBP models prior to the current one, and all PPC-based laptops).

If you want to fix those machines without a massive hassle, you need a laptop with a FireWire port.

Good point.

However, in my experience, since most hardware failures that render a machine unbootable will also bork Target Disk Mode, the WAY simpler alternative for machines that won't boot due to system corruption or users "cleaning up" their hard drive is simply carrying around a little FireWire emergency boot drive (which I do).

[Eug]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Good point.

However, in my experience, since most hardware failures that render a machine unbootable will also bork Target Disk Mode, the WAY simpler alternative for machines that won't boot due to system corruption or users "cleaning up" their hard drive is simply carrying around a little FireWire emergency boot drive (which I do).

That's not necessarily true.

I've had three iBooks fail because of the video or LCD attachment (yes three), but I was still able to use FW Target Mode with all three of them to access the data on the drive. And as you know, the drive on the iBooks is not user accessible. I also had PPC desktops go flaky and was able to get the stuff off them too via FWTM. Yes I do back up regularly, but I still like to get everything off the drive just in case.

I also had another iMac screw up with video, but I was still able to boot it up fortunately. Ironically, the FW port was borked, so I had to use USB to transfer the files off. Score one for USB!

I'd be more comfortable if they'd pull out all the stops and implement USB Target Mode, but I'm pretty sure they won't (even if they could). Failing that, a user accessible hard drive in the iMac, and Time Machine that actually worked properly would be welcome.

[Big Mac]

See, this is where I disagree with the mainstream. If Apple doesn't want to include Firewire on a particular line anymore, it shouldn't try to implement some half-arsed USB TDM solution. Apple shouldn't waste time reimplementing a solution within the bounds of an inferior piece of technology when it could just keep Firewire around and avoid the whole problem. Apple helped to create the USB monster by not putting Firewire in the original iMac along with USB.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by analogika 

However, in my experience, since most hardware failures that render a machine unbootable will also bork Target Disk Mode

I've yet to see a machine get messed up enough that Target Disk Mode won't work. I think the code for it is in the boot ROM, so it should load before the disk is even accessed - I'm guessing the logic board or the RAM would have to be shot to bork TDM. OTOH, I've seen plenty of cases where a hard drive (the most delicate component of a laptop, which tends to take a lot of abuse) develops some bad sectors which keep the drive from booting, but which can still be mounted via TDM in order to salvage whatever can still be recovered. I've seen even more instances where a hard drive ends up with directory damage or some other software issue which is easily fixed by TDMing it to my Mac and running DiskWarrior on it.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

See, this is where I disagree with the mainstream. If Apple doesn't want to include Firewire on a particular line anymore, it shouldn't try to implement some half-arsed USB TDM solution. Apple shouldn't waste time reimplementing a solution within the bounds of an inferior piece of technology when it could just keep Firewire around and avoid the whole problem. Apple helped to create the USB monster by not putting Firewire in the original iMac along with USB.

Of course I'd prefer FireWire to still be there. I think we all would. But if they're going to be leaving it out, they had better damn well implement a USB target mode, because TDM is essential functionality if you want to be able to effectively troubleshoot a Mac, and doing it via USB would be better than nothing at all.

[Hawkeye_a]

I cant believe Apple choose to not even include a FW400 port on the MacBook. it's definitely an intentional step back imo. that right there removes the home-movie editing functionality right out of the equation. how many education customers or mac users would want to give up that feature ? macu sers specifically...if half of the Macs being sold are to repeat customers who know and want and love this feature...why would they get the MacBook ?

Personally, i use it with my external HDD, and occasionally for video editing (it's nice to know i can as well). And probably as important is the ability to connect to another mac in target disc mode. invaluable.

Business wise, this is major fumble:
-Apple's 'best selling mac.ever'
-Excluding one of the major differentiators from Windows computer (home video importing/editing)
-same pricing (despite exclusion of video importing)
-With the economy the way it is is Apple's major markets (N.America Europe)
-50% being repeat customer, who know this feature

Bad bad business move imo, and right before the holiday buying season. I was waiting to get a MacBook cause im going to be traveling soon, but because it lacks firewire i cannot justufy spending the asking price especially since i use it almost daily.

And Apple aught to think twice before phasing out FW.....tell that to all those people who have camcorders with FW camcorders.

[TETENAL]

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3174

“The Migration and DVD/CD Sharing Update is recommended for all users. It provides enhanced customization capabilities and improved performance for migration over FireWire, Ethernet and wireless networks.”

If I understand this correctly, Migration Assistant also works over Ethernet. I didn't know that.

[bonniescotland]

Thank you Eug for your response to mduell, who had responded to one of my posts. I said that FW easier to edit with than USB2, mduell said USB easier to transfer video via flash/hard drive. I see your point mduell in the sense of transferring video, but what I meant and possibly didn't explain well was that these usb cameras use a different type of compression than the tape cameras which means that trying to edit the footage is problematic. I actually haven't tried it myself, but I know quite a few people who have and in fact if you google you'll find other posts about the problems with editing the USB2 consumer cameras. My understanding is that it's not so much the fact that it is usb but rather the compression rate that has been used on these cameras. So whilst it may not be USB fault, it does mean that at the consumer end the consumer camcorders which offer FW have a superior and easy to edit compression than the USB cameras. The professional cameras may be a different story, but many of us working as indie filmmakers are using consumer cameras for our short films, but it's also a problem for amateur filmmakers who want to edit their home videos etc, they have problems editing these usb2 cameras because of the compression rate used, but yes I can see that the actual transferring of video via a flash/hard drive camera is probably easier than importing via firewire. I have also heard that importing via USB2 is either impossible or very difficult, but a straight transfer is easy.

[bonniescotland]

So to finish off my point, the fact that macbooks won't have firewire anymore and only usb2 means that it's going to be problematic for people who are trying to edit, because they'll have to use usb2 cameras and these usb2 cameras in the consumer market use a compression rate which is problematic when editing. It's not just the standard def USB2 consumer cameras which are hard to edit, even the high def type usb2 consumer cameras (though they aren't true high def, but often call themselves that) which I think use AVCHD are using a compression rate which are hard to edit. The quality is slightly lower too than the tape equivalents, I don't think it's significantly noticeable if you don't edit, but for some reason once you edit (if you manage to edit without problems) the quality ends up looking much poorer. This is what I've been told by people who have tried it, and also read reviews on the net about this problem. I know someone editing their soccer match who had enormous problems with editing USB2 camera, and the quality looked poor etc, then I lent them my tape FW camera and they were fine. Having said all of that if you (mduell) are personally finding that it is easy to edit with and it looks great, well then that's good news. A lot of what I'm saying is the reports I'm getting from my friends. I certainly would be interested in knowing if others have had good experiences editing with USB2 cameras, because I can certainly imagine that transferring straight from a hard drive/flash drive must be so much easier than importing tape. All the bad issues I have heard with USB2 is why I've stuck with firewire cameras, but perhaps this is just a few isolated incidents?

[analogika]

Australian English doesn't do paragraphs, eh?

[mduell]

bonniescotland: I've watched novice users import AVCHD into iMovie from a flash card via USB; it's not difficult. And dropping Firewire doesn't make it any harder, since (most of? almost all of?) those using AVCHD were already using USB rather than Firewire.

[Big Mac]

AVCHD can't be edited easily on non-Intel Macs. AVCHD requires conversion from its native format. Big Mac doesn't like AVCHD.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

AVCHD can't be edited easily on non-Intel Macs. AVCHD requires conversion from its native format. Big Mac doesn't like AVCHD.

iMovie '08 is a steaming pile of turd IMO. I much, much prefer iMovie '06. iMovie '06 does not support AVCHD. Or at least it didn't used to. I don't know if Apple has updated it to support AVCHD recently though.

OTOH, AVCHD can be burned directly to disc and played back on many Blu-ray players.

[vmarks]

Aquafadas' videopier is supposed to enable AVCHD editing in iMovie 06 (HD).

I haven't tried it yet.

I do like AVCHD. I'll like it even more if I really can use it in iMovie 06.

I've gotten the hang finally of doing things I used to do with ease in iMovie 06, doing them with difficulty in iMovie 08.