Firewire Updates For Scheduled FreeBSD 4.8 Release

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Firewire Updates For Scheduled FreeBSD 4.8 Release

Posted by timothy on Saturday February 15, 2003 @07:04AM from the making-movies-and-more dept.

Dan writes "Hidetoshi Shimokawa has added new functionality to Firewire scheduled for FreeBSD 4.8 release. New features include built-in DV support, improved recovery process & timeout stability and Write/ioctl support for /dev/fwmem0. He has not tested this on PAL and is looking for volunteers."

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Dump without tape! by noctrnl9 · 2003-02-15 07:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think this is going to be great for dump/restore backups. not to mention the potential to dump raw DV footage from the source to a portable drive while in to field. Then there is the fact that 100MB/s (1394b) & 400MB/s (1394(?)) is just a question of time.
1. Re:Dump without tape! by essdodson · 2003-02-15 12:54 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I don't know if you were implying it or not, but it seems some folks have figured out how to use a DV camcorder to store data. :)
  
  --
  scott
2. Re:Dump without tape! by drinkypoo · 2003-02-15 18:08 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  That doesn't sound very hard. I'd think one could pretty much wrap the data up so it would look like the proper type of MPEG frames and spit out as you would any other DV stream.
  Anyone have a link to someone who's done this? How much capacity is there on a DV tape?
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
3. Re:Dump without tape! by Groganz · 2003-02-15 18:28 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  And it would make a hell of a movie combined with some magic mushrooms, lsd, or other hallucinogenic.
4. Re:Dump without tape! by xA40D · 2003-02-16 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  to a portable drive
  
  Last time I saw a portable Firewire drive, the performance sucked big time. Turns out the actual drive was IDE.
  
  --
  Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
5. Re:Dump without tape! by noctrnl9 · 2003-02-16 18:11 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Actually I was referring to the roots (AT&T) of the dump/restore commands as a means of archiving. In addition, there is the fact that 1394 is a standard that allows peer to peer isochronous and asynch video/audio/data transfer. this means the: iLink port on the PS2 can be networked with another PS2; a 1394 drive could be networked with a computer that has a 1394 port (replacing the SCSI tape drive; or a DV camera could transfer information to a fro. Once the divice drivers mature. I know the applications of the technology will open various combinations of data transfer over a wide (50MB/s 1394a, 100MB/s 1394b, and 400MB/s 1394{?}) data pipeline.
6. Re:Dump without tape! by Beetjebrak · 2003-02-17 01:26 · Score: 1
  
  Try playing a C64 data tape in a normal deck or a CD-ROM in an audio player (if it will play at all). That's the kind of stuff you're going to experience! Hopefully it'll be more pleasing visually..
  
  --
  Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
7. Re:Dump without tape! by Blademan007 · 2003-02-18 16:02 · Score: 1
  
  1394 already does 400MB. 1394b however will do up to 3.2GB. 1394ta 1394b
8. Re:Dump without tape! by faeryman · 2003-02-18 16:31 · Score: 1
  
  Check out Backfire. Sadly, it hasn't been updated in ~2 years though. The idea of that project is to encapsulate the data as movie frames, so it should be possible.
  
  If you search on google around the Groups, this topic appears a few times. I don't know of anyone who has gotten it to work though, and for as many people who question the integrity of data stored on a DV camera, there's just as many who think it would work fine. Maybe if the data was compressed with some sort of error checking/correction beforehand..
  
  --
  
  ,
  faeryman
9. Re:Dump without tape! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 02:33 · Score: 0
  
  You mean 400Mb. Megabit not Megabyte.
10. Re:Dump without tape! by The+Gline · 2003-02-19 12:07 · Score: 1
  
  The idea is not a good one if only because DV's error correction is not robust enough for this sort of thing. Another poster mentioned compensating for this ahead of time w/compression and redundancy, but the idea still gives me the shudders.
  
  --
  Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
11. Re:Dump without tape! by drinkypoo · 2003-02-20 16:28 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt it. Since it's digital, and MPEG, I suspect that it would just be detected as invalid video. Then again, I could be wrong. If anyone finds any cool sekrit messages from the aliens in their DV-encoded backups, let me know.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:fp. and last post, because *BSD is dying! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-15 07:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

"1400 NetBSD users"

We are 5000 students in our school using NetBSD..
We also use Solaris/Sparc and OSF1/Alpha (Digital Unix) but all the workstations are on NetBSD.
Video Tape Backup Howto by Groganz · 2003-02-15 14:05 · Score: 5, Funny

1. Point your video camera at screen
2. cat /dev/ad0s1a
4.8? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-16 13:41 · Score: 0

Wasn't 5.0 released about 3 weeks ago?
1. Re:4.8? by cant_get_a_good_nick · 2003-02-16 17:21 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Wasn't 5.0 released about 3 weeks ago?
  
  1) 5.0 isn't considered a stable release yet. I think 5.1, maybe even 5.2 will be the first stable release on the 5.x series. It's considered a test release.
  
  2) Lots of people are just plain conservative. Some people still use the 3.x series because they see no need to upgrade. I'm sure some folks still use the 2.0.x series kernel, and look for updates.
2. Re:4.8? by Strog · 2003-02-19 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  Yes 5.0 was released a month ago. 4.8 will have things back-ported to it and bug fixes. Many people consider a .0 release too much risk for production environments. FreeBSD releases are very well supported for a good period of time.
  
  Look at the releases page. You will notice that 3.5 was released 3 months after 4.0.
Re:FreeBSD developers admit the truth by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-17 16:15 · Score: 0

I think it is telling that only a few months ago someone realised that SMPng would touch the VM code, and, um, maybe we should tell the VM guys about SMP. Oops. So all of the driver functions that may have to allocate memory using the VM must be executed serially. Suuuuuuck go the CPU cycles.
That's actually useful by Animats · 2003-02-17 18:30 · Score: 1

I'mw riting FireWire support for QNX, and having that to look at will be helpful.
Linux support for FireWire isn't very general yet. The bus reset logic needs work, and the isochronous support only appears to support one device (on channel zero) at a time.
Re:BSD is dying by LuckyStarr · 2003-02-18 08:32 · Score: 1

funny. now that i just realized how cool it is and after switching dozens of machines to it.... it dies.

i figure i am always a little bit too late...

--
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
Re:BSD is dying by buggered · 2003-02-19 09:25 · Score: 1

Whew!, you really had me worried there for a second. But I logged into my machine and FreeBSD is running just fine.

And it appears to me that you left all of the Mac OS X users out of your calculations. There are a million or two of those. Technically aren't they FreeBSD users?
Re:FreeBSD developers admit the truth by Stinson · 2003-02-20 14:05 · Score: 1

So what do all you folks who still think BSD is alive say now?, well, i'd have to say BSD is still alive now, maybe freebsd is in the past as you say, but don't forget freebsd != BSD, open/free/net/bsdi = BSD. But here's also something to think about. Whats linux in right now, 2.4.20? something like that? they're already working on 3 anyways, so does it make them in the past if they were to release something like 2.4.21? "oh god! they're releasing more under that OLD branch!".
Re:BSD is dying by TheRaven64 · 2003-02-21 05:53 · Score: 1

Platforms always seem to become popular just after I stop using them (NT derivatives, Linux etc.) I plan on stopping using FreeBSD and moving to the Mac in a few months. Watch this space...

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Elegy for *BSD by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-21 09:19 · Score: 0

Elegy For *BSD

I am a *BSD user
and I try hard to be brave
That is a tall order
*BSD's foot is in the grave.

I tap at my toy keyboard
and whistle a happy tune
but keeping happy's so hard,
*BSD died so soon.

Each day I wake and softly sob
Nightfall finds me crying
Not only am I a zit faced slob
but *BSD is dying.