What is FireWire 800?

Now FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b), the next generation of FireWire technology, doubles the throughput of the original FireWire interface to 800 Mbit/sec and dramatically increases the maximum distance of FireWire connections!  FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b) can be added to a desktop computer using a FireWire 800 PCI card or in the case of a laptop computer with a FireWire 800 CardBus card.
(Note: to differentiate the original version of FireWire from the 800 Mbit/sec version, the original version is now being referred to by many as FireWire 400 or IEEE 1394a). 

Dramatic Increase in Distance
Not only is FireWire 800 twice as fast as before, but it can be used over much longer
distances.  FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b) allows the use of various types of cabling, each offering different speed/distance capabilities.  A FireWire 800 cable will connect devices up to 15 feet away, while a FireWire 800 optical repeater will connect devices up to 1000 meters (3300 feet) away!

Compatibility with Current FireWire Products
FireWire 800 provides two modes of transmission:

1. The pure beta mode (a FireWire 800 device connected to a FireWire 800 port with a FireWire 800 beta cable)
2. The backward-compatible legacy mode (a FireWire 400 device connected to a FireWire 800 port or vice versa with a FireWire 800/FireWire 400 bilingual cable)

FireWire 400 devices use a 6-pin or 4-pin connector while FireWire 800 devices use a 9-pin
connector.  Existing FireWire 400 devices can be plugged into either type of port with the appropriate cable.  FireWire 800 devices can achieve FireWire 800 speeds only when connected to a FireWire 800 port.

Bus Power
Both FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 provide significant amounts of power on the FireWire bus (up to 45 watts, with a maximum of 1.5 amps and 30 volts).  Allowing many devices to be powered through the FireWire cable in place of needing their own power supply, such as a FireWire WebCam and portable FireWire drives.
(Note: only 9-pin and 6-pin ports carry power, 4-pin FireWire ports cannot supply power.)

FireWire versus USB 1.1 and USB 2.0
FireWire and USB are both widely used in the computer and consumer electronics industries.  USB 1.1 is well suited for computer mice, keyboards, and other lower-bandwidth input devices.

Even though USB 2.0 provides a tremendous speed advantage over the older v1.1 USB standard, FireWire remains the high-speed interface performance king for external devices such as hard drives, DV camcorders and 4X and up DVD burners/writers.

Support for a Wide Range of Devices
What can you use FireWire for?

Mass storage
Storage devices especially portable ones are being radically transformed by the
adoption of FireWire and FireWire 800.  Not only does FireWire permit an external hard disk drive to be mounted by simply connecting a single plug, it can even provide enough electricity to power the drive.  FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 mass storage devices include: FireWire 800/USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure Kit (turns IDE hard drive into a FireWire 800 drive), FireWire 400 & FireWire 800 hard disk drives, magneto-optical drives, high-capacity removable FireWire drives, tape drives, and FireWire CD/DVD products.

Digital Video
Digital video (DV) camcorders capture video and audio and can send a perfect copy
to a computer for editing, adding special effects, and making other modifications to
create a finished video with a FireWire 800 card and digital video editing software.  FireWire provides the high-speed connection required to download digital video quickly. FireWire 800 even has the necessary throughput for bandwidth-intensive applications that were not possible over the original FireWire, such as multiple-stream, uncompressed, standard-definition video.  The long-distance capability of FireWire 800 also gives production studios and similar businesses more flexibility to locate each piece of equipment where it’s most appropriate, rather than having to put everything adjacent to the computer.

Digital Audio
FireWire delivers the bandwidth required for high-quality digital audio.  Even FireWire
400 has enough bandwidth over a single connector for hundreds of channels of noise free,
high-resolution digital audio and up to 256 channels of MIDI. FireWire 800 can
handle twice as many simultaneous real-time streams.  Support for extremely long cabling gives you more configuration options with FireWire 800 than solutions such as USB, enabling you to use a FireWire 800 enable computer as a virtual patch bay that connects audio devices in situations ranging from a personal studio to a huge multi-room production facility. You can even hot-swap devices in and out of the audio processing chain as your needs change.