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Japanese Firms Create Home (Appliance) Network
JOstrow writes "The Japanese companies Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Sharp, and Sanyo are teaming up to create a standard for home appliances communicating over a network. Usage examples cited are ovens that download recipes and heating systems that can be adjusted remotely with a cell phone. The first products adhering to the standard, called iReady, are expected to be available by next year. The iReady adapter will be ready for use '...not only with commercialized Bluetooth and low powered wireless appliances but also wireless LAN and future transmission media.'"
Seriously though, perhaps we could use peer-to-peer networks to share recipes, with a rating system kind of like what Shareaza uses. I have a cookie recipe that I can share... It would be kind of interesting to join a network of like-minded recipe people and have recipes downloaded each day.
So will this allow my Palm to replace my TV Remote control?
-AD
I can't wait until my oven prints out emails.
will I be able to view my p0rn collection with it?
will work for Karma
So, when you walk into a department story are you meant to ask if the appliance is 'iReady ready?"
I have difficulty imagining the usefulness of this, but I'm really glad they're working together to develop a common standard instead of each company doing their own thing. I suspect someone will find something really cool to do with this technology that nobody's thought of yet, now that the framework exists.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Oh, I understand the i-thing now. It shows the generation of neat, but possibly mostly useless or very successfull new personal technology.
e-mail, emac, ecommernce, etc etc... for 1990's technology.
imac, iRiver, iTones, iReady etc for 2000's technology.
So next we have
oMac, oMan, oRobit, oBeowolf/playstation3/cluster etc etc... for 2010,
then
uMac, uBrain, uBenevolentRobotMasters, uMars,
for 2020's technology.
The only question I have is what about "y" and sometimes even "w"?????
Anybody know when they'll be releasing the iWife module?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
...may I propose SACP (the Simple Appliance Communications Protocol) + a generic per appliance MIB.
As I understand it this essentially X10, except actually feasible.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
his name starts with the letter "M", and I don't mean "malda".
wow this site sux0rs I'm gonna play w/ myself lolf kthx
I think some form of A/V network would be more useful than linking appliances. Why can't I just link my TV, VCR, Digital Tuner, DVD, Receiver, etc with a single cable and let them figure themselves out?
:(
Play on DVD tunes the TV to the right input, sets the receiver surround mode, knows to control the receiver's volume instead of TV's, etc. Watching TV, press record and the VCR knows what to do. Let me walk over to the kitchen and continue watching my DVD there. Etc.
A universal remote doesn't really make things that much simpler (constant mode switching, two different volume modes depending on where audio is routed, needing to know what plugs into what, etc). The alternative is an extremely complex/expensive crestron-type system.
Of course, under the DMCA/etc, you'll probably see this as a "what we're allowing you to do" connection instead.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
but yet hails the future of technology in the homeplace. Smart networked appliances working together in unison with a 'master-of-the-household' system are what dreamers, and architect-dreamers have been thinking of something to do with for years now, but only to be foiled by incompatabilty and privacy issues. The only point of reference we have now in current age technology are the giant private corporation printers, and servers, that call back to a datacenter to report need of repair, need of future maintenance, or need of parts. But for the homestream....nothing. It's about time that companies started to herald this (old) breaking technology.
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep
Westinghouse has a new line of connected apliances available. They do such interesting things as, your alarm clock tells you if the coffee maker is not filled with water and coffee, when you go to bed. Or you can use the barcode wand on the microwave to scan your tv dinner, and the microwave will look up how to cook it on the internet. They are already available to purchase at Amazon. The appliances are about average for luxury appliances, but the "home hub" (an alarm clock + windows CE pda, the one require piece) is a bit pricy at $500 if you ask me.
The future, as supplied by mega-corporations: More and more of what you need less and less.
Do you really want your toaster to be twice as expensive, half as reliable, licenced instead of owned, and subject to planned obsolescence?
until a virus burns your house down, or turns the gas on the stove on and it doesn't light, then no one notices...
:)
Although it'd be worth if if the fridge has an auto-update
Another Bad Creation. Need I say more.
Another use I've heard/read about is a "smart" refrigerator that can tell you, for example, when you need milk. Of course, most homes have solved this complicated problem with the extremely advanced pen/paper system (some VERY rich people substitute a dry erase system, but I've only read about homes so equipped in magazines) combined with opening the refrigerator door.
I really wish manufacturers would come up with something truly useful and unique to do with these appliance-connectivity solutions. I love spending money on mostly unnecessary gadgets, but I need a LITTLE justification.
I think a crucial aspect here is the tendency of Japanese competitors to work together on advancing new technologies. Japanese companies also have a history of actually HELPING each other in diffucult times, especially companies with a similar business. Obviously, this is in direct contrast to Microsoft, which has the kill-all-competition mentality.
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
"Honey, the toaster's been hacked again." *sound of sirens in the background, getting louder* ... Can anyone else think of some appliances that could potentially be broken into and cause damage to someone's home? Hell, no system is perfectly secure. There's always a way in, and always someone willing to find it. So what if some happy-go-lucky hacker finds his way on to the net.appliances with a modified >appliance-of-choice and a laptop? Suddenly your oven's on while you're away being a Salaryman and the little ninjas leave their homework on deadly types of blowfish on the oven, and poof, someone's house goes up. Or an apartment complex.
But maybe I'm just pessimistic.
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
What's with putting 'i' in front of everything? can't four japanese mega-corporations working together come up with something original?
iBullshit.
BEFORE:
RIAA or similar: You are hereby charged for downloading copyrighted content from this internet account.
YOU: No no! The Virus did it!
AFTER:
RIAA or similar: You are hereby charged for downloading copyrighted content from this internet account.
YOU: No no! The Oven did it!
RIAA: Did you realize that the recipe for those cinnamon rolls was copyrighted?
YOU: WTF! You can copyright a cinnamon roll recipe?
etc etc etc.. ad infinitum.
(and other possible encounters... too)
There already is a whole raft of standards for home interconnection, and then home to outside world.
How does this new standard add to that?
Look at OSGi, uPnP and LonWorks just to show a few of them
yes, eventually this will be cool, but a stove with a recipe is worthless if it cant fix the meal for you...
But hey, let 'em at it, maybe something cool will come out of this.
Atleast it is a standard!
Great instead of war driving there will be war cooking
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Most new "modern" appliances with features that are anything near digital are already too difficult for the run-of-the-mill house caretaker, whether that be a woman or a man.
People want something simple that WORKS....I doubt there will be a widespread acceptance of this until the technology generation, the kids of the 90s, grow old enough to have to use household appliances(and take care of a house/apartment), which won't be for another 10 to 15 years.
Until then, therefore, I predict these things won't catch on too well. But you can never really predict consumer acceptance of a radical new idea, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.
As far as networking kitchen appliances goes, this has the potential of being exceedingly silly, the bullshit net-ization of something just for the hell of it.
The idea of remote-controlled ovens makes me nervous. These just aren't the kind of things you leave unattended. Automatic drip coffee makers, which have been around for a couple of decades, are acceptable because you're at home, and the device is really just heating and pumping water on a timer; little chance of burning a pyrex pot of Yuban. It's cool to think of leaving a frozen dinner in the oven in the morning and having the oven start cooking it at 6:00 pm for when you get home. But if I forget about it and go to Taco Bell, or if I'm late, the thing better call or e-mail me, and it better be able to reliably turn itself off. In the end, though, no labor is saved, and I have to plan the meal and program the oven.
I don't know why we still don't have the most obvious network-enabled kitchen appliance: microwaves with bar-code scanners that set cooking times automatically. It's a ready-made metadata tagging schema, all it takes is an updated library of cooking times for a given SKU, pegged to the specific wattage of your unit and updated at night like a TiVo program guide. This is perfect for the kind of quick, unplanned meal that microwaves were made for. And how may times have you smelled burnt popcorn in the office because someone screwed up the cooking time? Hello, we went to the moon three decade ago! Bonus revenue stream: Agree to let the manufacturer track what you cook and eat, and you get some targeted marketing and coupons.
Connecting my toaster oven to my home network shouldn't involve anything more than it alerting me that the Hungry Man is done without having to set an alarm. But you know where this is headed: Pop a DVD into your media PC, and a Microsoft wizard pops up and says "Looks like you're watching a movie. Would you like me to cook some popcorn?" Or if my wife has programmed it: "That's your third serving of hot wings this week you're about to cook. What about your diet?" And the f*&^&%$g thing calls her, too.
One part of this which is definitly novel is the talk of using appliance networks to minimize environmental impact. Not a bad idea. Thats the ECHONET they talk about in the standard.
A blog about stuff.
Let's see now, my garbage disposal locks up, causing a buffer overflow in my toilet. Meanwhile, my Smart Car fails to map my driveway and crashes.
Welcome to the brave new world.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
"Hacker burns down womans house with cell phone" "Malicious user ruins families turkey" "Woman not amused by recipe for 'Cooked lart'" "Top 10 ways to keep your refrigerator from BSODing"
Setec Astronomy
....make the biggest god damn miniature shit you've ever seen!
I just hope these folks think a lot about security; I had to configure my Apple Base Station to use MAC address for all my wireless devices (two iMacs, a G4 PowerBook and two 5450 iPaqs) since the little bastards across the hall took to fucking with it whenever they could see it.
For once I'm actually glad someone is just a PC user; if they were using Linux or OS X and knew about Kismet or KisMAC I'd have an ongoing problem.
Why can't kids just do graffitti throw rocks through windows like I used to?
A message from our sponsor
That's great. As if people war-driving to screw up your computer wasn't bad enough. Now they're going to cut your heat up to 100 degrees and kill your fridge so you won't even have cold beer. Life sucks enough as it is. iGiveup.
History has shown that whenever the manufacturers of a new technology mention recipes, what they really mean is "we can't figure out what possible use this would be to the average person, but we still want to sell it."
So of course this tech will wait until we find that one great use. But until, then there's plenty of druggery to be avoided:
You finish the orange juice, and scan the SKU. OJ is added to your shopping list, which your spouse can sync to their palm at work and use at the market on the way home.
Upon returning from shopping, you scan stuff as you put it away, or punch in produce codes (we all get jobskills as checkers as a side-effect). If you're like me, you buy some tomatoes, throw them in the crisper, and discover them three months later. A nice alert could be handy.
You plan out a couple meals, and the ingredients are added to your shopping list and you're alerted when mealtime comes what you had planned. On some random morning, you ask what you can have for breakfast and based on a recipe list and your current stock, you're given a set of choice. Choosing one, your fridge tells you to take out the milk and four eggs, and the cabinet tells you to take out the bread. (I'm not a cook-- we're making french toast). The stove tells you to turn it on medium and put battered bread on a skillet.
Obviously, for simple recipes this is useless and for complicated ones it doesn't save you anything more than looking back at a recipe, but if anything, we're a lazy population. More importanly, this could all be done with one standalone appliance with a barcode reader (kitchen pc, anyone?) But just because there's another way doesn't mean it can't catch on. People have powered toothbrushes and use the full-service pump at gas stations. We pay for others to wash our cars and change our oil, and buy lap dances rather than trying to pick up women and take them home. There may be a market for automating your grocery stock.
"Business is War."
Any mention of Japanese and fair in the same sentence is a invitation for laughter. Japanese companies have a recent history of helping each other due partly because of recent anti monopoly regulations from decades of monopoly abuses, and now competition from other asian markets. Microsoft may have helped develop "embrace and extend", but the Japanese developed "dump and pump". Flood the market with inexpensive products, and when the competition keels over, pump up the prices. Now they're in the same boat as we were in the 70s, and they're doing everything they can to survive.
i for one welcome our new eNetiConAppliance overlords.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
... hmm, definitely not. Even SIEMENS has a thingy called instabus .
However, this reminds me of the hero in UBIK (the author was honored here) who always had difficulties with his appliances refusing to work as he was chronically out of credit.
The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please." He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. "I'll pay you tomorrow," he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked. "What I pay you," he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't have to pay you." "I think otherwise," the door said. "Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt." In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. "You discover I'm right," the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt's money-gulping door. "I'll sue you," the door said as the first screw fell out.
Tough times to come.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
So now that Microsoft has entered the car market, and already have lots of the computer market, what would stop them from entering the stove, or kitchen market... Seems kind of risky to me if you think about it...
Hello people, anyone remember Maximum Overdrive.
And what happens to my Eggos when I have the pop-up killer running?
Seriously. Some appliances may well be worth networking (the TV for instance), but most of them are not and this new trend will only make things more expensive.
Although it would be nice if the department's coffee maker could advertise via IM or e-mail that the coffee is ready.
If it works like their own TRON alliance more power to them. Frankly none of American companies ever cooperate (semiconductor companies like TI or Motorola) and hence it's up to the Japanese counterparts to bring in the ubiquitous world, which we were promised years ago.
What was it, 4 years ago, Slashdot had an article just like this about a company making a home appliance network? IIRC, someone made this same joke.
It's still funny, though.
I think I first read about appliance networks being under development maybe 15 years ago. The example mentioned was that your stereo could turn itself down when the phone rang. Something like 7 years ago, Novell hired a CEO out of Sun who decided home appliance networks represented the future of the company. The networking medium was to be the electrical wiring in the home. (Yeah, for a while, they thought WordPerfect was their future too.)
New year's resolution: Just laugh, and don't comment.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Don't forget these bold, savvy offshoots: mLife and tMobile (or however they spell them).
And I think it was the Wall Street Journal carried an article about X going into things to give them an edgy, exciting aura-- X-Files, X-Box, Windows XP, and many others.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
I did.
And my mind got bent out of shape trying to understand why the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) cares about recipes.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Most Japanese homes do not have central heating and so each room has a seperate space heater. Most appartments have just one heater that's left off when you are not home. With network enabled heater someone could call their heater in their appartment to tell it to heat the place up before you get home. I can't see this catching on for any other reason than that.
What about the following progression of 2 iterations of e, i, followed by o.
e-mail -> iTones -> eNet -> iStation -> oRover
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Why would I want to leave my coffee to go stale overnight?
From the ECHONET / iReady article :
:
Download from the internet a recipe or washing machine instructions to ensure ideal operations.
I hope these aren't meant to be downloaded to the same machine. Getting a washing machine and an oven mixed up could produce some strange results:
"Okay, so I just put the clothes in the washing machine like this, and push this button to get the wash cycle."
"Um... why is it adding a tablespoon of oil to the wash?"
"Now it's heating the clothes without water... they're turning brown"
"Okay, its put the water in (finally)"
"And I guess it's sort of mixing them. I always imaginged a bit more effort needed to get stuff out of clothes"
"Well, I must say those clothes look good enough to eat - shame about the dirt"
Or alternatively
"I think I'll cook a roast today. Lets see, I push *this* button to get the recipe"
"Hmm. Expected time: 2.5-4 hours. Sounds about right"
"Okay, this looks about right. It's putting everything into the water, and soaking it, but no heat yet"
[2 hours later]
"Still no heat, and everything is getting rinsed in even more water"
"Oh dear. I don't think hanging that out in the sun is going to cook the food very well"
Ask me about repetitive DNA
What a bloody awful name.
STOP WITH THE i PREFIX, PEOPLE. IT'S NOT BIG OR CLEVER.
Apple should have excusive rights to the i prefix so they can use it tastefully.
I beleive what your looking for is firewire it has the bandwith to move video and audio and can be used for control as well. The design allows things to be daisy chained for less clutter. Now you see them on the current DVHS decks and some TV's and receivers. Unfortunatly DVI is taking over that segment because firewire gasp dosent have any content protection and it's digital. DVI is substandard in it's control function and routing though it seems to be more common as a video out than firewire (would be strange to see a video card with firewire that supported it as an output device)
As an asside somebody should have pulled there ability to call a tape with macrovision VHS compatable or NTSC it's realy not compliant with the specs of either. This is the technology that got the movie companies used to copy protection.
No sir I dont like it.
The computer senses that your stove is using a milliliter/second of natural gas yet the burners haven't been activated, disables the stove and warns you so you can fix it before any accumulates.
The computer senses the coils in the refridgerator are getting too hot and warns you before the compressor dies so you have time to figure out what to do with your food.
Remote monitoring of the status of your clothes in the dryer, the amount of hot water left in your hot water heater, the efficiency of your boiler/heat exchange device, the freon left in your air conditioner, the heat generated by your ceiling fan motor... I am looking forward to the day when I can just go to my web browser, type in http://stove and its current status is a nice webpage for me to view.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
One of the best things that this technology could do is
to standardize on how devices talk to their control panels.
This implies that the control panel is separate and distinct
from the device it controls. A washing machine's panel
for example isn't necessarily hard-coded and hard-wired
to the washer itself. Now, it would be possible for grandma,
who can hardly see, to have just three big buttons for the
washer, with loud audio feedback. But the slashgeek could
have the mega-LCARS interface that sets the washer based
on the rfid tags on the clothes that are tossed in, along with
woolen-color vs. cotton-whites incompatibility warnings.
Big, simple interfaces for seniors is overlooked by most
device makers these days. Lots of tiny, low contrast buttons
with nested menu structures only confuse most non-geeks.
Downside of this will be that you'll need a monthly subscription
for -everything- and selecting interfaces will also be an additional
charge, like cellphone ring tones.
Derivation is based on "Linux is not free if your time is not worthless", which statement 1 does not imply. Take that class again buster.:-)
What I gained from connecting these systems under one roof was
The biggest difficulty in setting up the system was not technical, but administrative. Although I had to write a device driver and some custom software, these proved to be relatively stable once debugged. The problems were in correctly specifying our living requirements, translating them into specifications, and testing the result. The first friends to visit us after I installed the system rang the doorbell and were greeted by the answering machine message (oops!) Now the system is very stable, but I would never think of modifying its configuration less than a month before leaving for a vacation.
Diomidis Spinellis - Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective
#include "/dev/tty"
submitted for a story by yours truly a few months ago
go look for WBYCM1 wbyhh03 wbymw1 and wbybm1
the microwave sounds neatest, scan a UPC and the microwave is ready to cook..
they all interoperate, and you can access your appliances from the internet (i.e. slow em down if you are running late)
'no privacy policy listed though
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Seems to me that this is a technology that not only doesn't fill a need, it complicates the problem it's allegedly solving. I'll bet Diebold is behind it!
A time server would be a really handy thing to have in a home network, imagine all the clocks in the appliances having the same, correct time all the time.
Sure beats the blinking 12:00 syndrome.
I am very skeptical about this also.
But one possible use would be for a single control by your door to put everything into power saving mode when you go away for a trip. Eg stove, turn off clock display, thermostat turn down.
Notication from the fridge if there was a power outage (and how long) so you know food might be spoiled.
Serivice Rep: "Hello, this is customer service."
Guy: "Yeah, I uh, think my microwave is broken."
Service Rep: "Yes sir. See it right here. It's broken."
Guy: "What do I do to fix it?"
Service Rep: "Buy a new one."
Guy: "I just bought this a month ago."
Service Rep: "Actually it was thirty eight days sir, according to this, and on September 25th you put something metal in there, and that is your problem that caused the failure according to the info it sent. The machine locked itself up automatically for "safety" purposes, it's a child lock feature, you know, litigation and all these days, oh, and it really is broken. If you would have read the manual like it told you to, which is under menu 72-d on you microwave's display, you would have noticed that you just voided the warranty, and your unconditional, money back guarantee just expired eight days ago... (Like a chipper jerk) anything else I can do for you?"
Guy: "Uh, I, uh..."
Service Rep: "Thank you for calling our service line." (Click)
by pumping cash into the stock markets worldwide and reinflating the bubble, they've not only brought back the undead companies of the bubble year, but started a new race on things like chinese internet companies, and now ... the java toaster ...
....
i dare these designers to name one reason why any of my kitchen appliances would need to communicate with each other. or why the heck my phone would make a better interface to any of these devices.
stooopidity is racing ahead again
I miss the good 'ol days of being paranoid, when all a fellow needed was a tin foil hat and a good conspiracy theory and you were good to go.
With all this electronic noise how am I supposed to hear instructions from the mothership?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I think it's something quite cool! Really, I want a computer in my house to know exactly what food I've got in my fridge, and whereever I store that stuff. I want it to know what I need to buy, and what is about to get too old to be eaten. Why should I spend my time looking after these things, when it could be done well by a computerized system?
OK, so on my way home from work, I tell my PDA-like gadget what I want for dinner. It connects to my home system, which contains the database of what I have in my house, and compares that with the recipe of my desired dinner, then decides what I need.
Then it runs out on the web (or rather some future Semantic Web, it shouldn't be that hard to create, really), and collects today's prices, compares my position with the position of the shops, and reports back to me where I should go to get what I need for today's dinner.
The machines did most of the job. I just told it what I wanted, and it, after checking it out, reported back what I needed to shop and where to get it at the best price. Who wouldn't want a system like that?
So, the problem is: You don't want a bunch of big companies sneaking into your private life and know all your purchasing habits, as well as controlling the information flow in this process.
If we leave this to a bunch of industry giants, guess what's going to happen? Joe Sixpack won't care anyway. But if we design it, base it on free software with full disclosure of how the data is used, we protect our privacy with cryptography and make sure we control our own data, then, this is no future I would fear.
RFID tags would be a part of this, and it's a part of the same problem complex: If the data gained from RFID tags is mine, then I see little problems with it, but if I can't control it, then it's Bad[tm]. RFID-tags are not evil by default, it is what we make out of it.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Everytime someone gets excited about a "home appliance network" (which seems to be every year, like clockwork, for the past 20 years or so), I ask myself: "Why? What does my toaster have to say to my lamp? What does my microwave have to say to my toaster?"
Other than a very few uses (your PC talking to your A/V components, for example) this is a technology in search of a problem.
Do that many people really spend so much time using their appliances that they need to have their own network? And, of course, this is just one more thing to break - maybe it's a conspiracy by appliance manufacturers to reduce the reliability and "it-just-always-works" nature of most appliances.
...as the brand name for a line of sex toys.
Bob: "Damn...had to throw away the contents of my freezer again this morning...all my clothes ran in my washer as well...and now my TV is stuck on PBS..." ;-)
Fred: "Script kiddies got into your home appliance network again?"
Bob: "Yeah, li'll bastards..."
-psy
I spent all day trying to fix the oven, after some script kiddies cracked it.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
Its only a matter of time before SCO gets DDoS'd by 100,000 dishwashers
Error: Id10t detected
I'd swear that I saw a story about some people's toasters gaining intelligence and revolting against humanity when hooked up to a home network in a book a few years back.
I don't remember the title, but the last line of the story was a refridgerator saying "WHERE HAVE ALL THE TOASTERS GONE?" when they were disconnected.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
most av devices have a complex enough central processor to skip the foreplay and jump straight to GigE where you can start implementing higher levels of control (network level: tunneling, firewalling, routing, all that).
I'm gonna need you to go ahead and get me those TPS reports..
So skynet has another terminal to hide in?
Actualy GigE would be rather hard to deal with at least with a stock MTU of 1500 bytes thats a lot of interupt handaling. You can run it as IP over firewire just as easily with a larger packet size and keep the cable simplicity along with nearly the speed of gigabit (800mbs half duplex vs 1000 full) I dont know enough about the CPUs in this sort of gear to make an educated assumption but with standard intel alpha and sun CPU's you need a lot of horsepower to go full datarate gigabit at a standard MTU.
No sir I dont like it.
Does firewire have any way to syncronize timing? Isosycronous scheduled packet which can be used for timing data or something?
thats the biggest problem with AV. you can move the digital source wherever you want but as anyone who'se ever tried to setup even a shoutcast server which feeds a number of computers in one household, it is im-freaking-possible to get them all to play in anything resembling unison.
Firewire can run isochronous data as well as async. I think your issues with shoutcast etc is more in the PC side thats not a real time envornment and loves to buffer data that is setting all the streams a bit askew from each other. Even the audio cards in PC's have different delays in them. For that application I use ethernet to audio converters (there are several on the web including build your own) look for ones that use a server in multicast mode there shouldent be any noticable delay that way (the difference between devices should stay under a few ms from switching delays)
No sir I dont like it.