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Firewire Updates For Scheduled FreeBSD 4.8 Release

Posted by timothy on 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."

8 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Dump without tape! by noctrnl9 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 noctrnl9 · · 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.

  2. Re:fp. and last post, because *BSD is dying! by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  3. Video Tape Backup Howto by Groganz · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. Point your video camera at screen
    2. cat /dev/ad0s1a

  4. Re:4.8? by cant_get_a_good_nick · · 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.