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Interoperable Remote Controls

Posted by Hemos on from the please-please-make-it-happen dept.

Lord Prox writes "From the HAVi website: "Ever dreamed of how your ideal home could function in the new millennium? A TV with voice recognition capability? Or connected to a video telephone link so that the TV is muted and calls are answered automatically by a voice command? How about a video camera that automatically displays a picture on the TV screen when a visitor arrives; or starts a recording if the same thing happens unexpectedly during the night?" Apparently 8 of the leading consumer electronics companies are trying to get rid of all those remotes and do some cooperation over IEEE 1394. Whitepapers and FAQ available."

6 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Why Firewire? by Wheel+Of+Fish · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why use a physically wired connection for this "system of the future"? Why not WiFi or some other wireless protocol?

    Running FireWire between components in the same room is feasable (though messy), but connecting to cameras at the front door and devices in other rooms is gonna be a pain.

  2. Use of firewire by leerpm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is interesting that they chose FireWire over other technologies. But what about the use of Ethernet? I believe FireWire is limited to a range of around 30 feet, unless you have a repeater.

    Would it be possible to build a Firewire-to-Ethernet adaptor product that allows 2 firewire enabled devices to talk to each other over Ethernet, with two adaptors on each ?

    1. Re:Use of firewire by evilviper · · Score: 5, Informative
      It is interesting that they chose FireWire over other technologies.

      No, Firewire is pretty much the only option, unless you want your TV and VCR communicating over Serial SCSI or Fibre Channel (the two serial SCSI interfaces other than Firewire).

      But what about the use of Ethernet?

      Yikes! First, you'd need a very smart device to be able to form ethernet and TCP/IP packets, deal with error checking, addressing, and everything else ethernet and TCP/IP (or UDP/IP) have to do. So, Firewire has a tiny fraction of the overhead, while not requiring you to wory about addressing and more.

      Firewire devices usually have pass-through, so you can daisy-chain them... Never see that with ethernet.

      Can you imagine how much computing power it would require to send raw video and audio data over ethernet? Sure, it would be possible with a computer, but your VCR and DVD player doesn't have a 3GHz processor, nor would you want it to require one...

      I believe FireWire is limited to a range of around 30 feet, unless you have a repeater.

      It's more than 30 feet, and you can use numerous repeaters if you need to... Not really a problem.
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  3. Re:Only european and asian companies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anyone notice that the companies participating in HAVi are all either European or Asian?
    I hate to break your spirit, but I think most consumer electronics giants nowadays are Asian or European. Most of the American consumer electronic giants exited the market years ago.

  4. And if you're too lazy to use a remote directly.. by sonicattack · · Score: 5, Funny

    There's always this baby

  5. FireWire is by far the best choice by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ethernet? No. FireWire is designed for hubless, daisy-chainable, high speed, peer-to-peer device communications and control from the ground up. And you are incorrect about the distance limitations. Feel like you need TCP/IP specifically? No problem.

    Additionally, FireWire is already widely used on almost all digital video cameras, decks, and equipment, is emerging on DVD-A devices, and is the standard interconnect for OpenCable set-top boxes specified by CableLabs.

    This was what FireWire was made for. Unfortunately, its adoption and use has been crippled by an entertainment industry deathly afraid of the prospect of 100% digital transport, copies, recording, and manipulation by the end customer. What a shame.

    IEEE-1394b, the current iteration of the standard, supports speeds from 100 to 3200 Mbps at distances up to 100 m, and supports its "native" 9-conductor shielded twisted-pair copper, ordinary CAT-5, and various flavors of optical cabling.

    See the informative IEEE-1394b Technical Brief and What is 1394? for more information.

    For even more information, including information about Wireless FireWire, see Intel's 1394 Technology site.