What are "firewall Inputs"? (1 Viewer)

[Bob_Lawrance]

Can someone please explain it to me?

Thanks

 

[Jason Caudill]

Bob,
Do you mean Firewire? If so it is a high speed digital connection used by computers for applications such as video capture from a camcorder. It is also being introduced as a secure connection for home theater applications such as hd, dvd-a, sacd, etc. Someone probably knows more than me but I think these are the basics. Jason

 

[Sihan Goi]

Firewire, like USB, is a high speed, 400Mbps digital connection. Its currently used in DVcams and other computer applications, but there are plans to use it as a connection for audio/video/HT applications. For speed its great, but it suffers from a few problems much like S/PDIF. IIRC it has to do with the timing/clocking of the signal, but I'm not an expert on this.

 

[Bob_Lawrance]

Thanks for the replies,

So do you mean, this would be used for stuff like video on demand?

 

[Mike Veroukis]

I just answered this question in another thread, so I'll just quote myself here...

Just to make sure you understand what Firewire (aka IEEE1394) is, it is in fact a digital communications protocol. If you're familiar with computers it's similar to something like SCSI. Firewire can be used for any high-bandwidth data transfers. iMacs come with built in FireWire support (or at least they used to) and you can purchase FireWire PCI cards for your PC. These are generally used for downloading video from digital cameras but you can get FireWire hard drives as well. Is it sorta like USB? Yes, sorta, but FireWire should be a lot faster (in fact it's faster then SCSI III).
So how does this work with receivers? Well, most modern receivers are digital and FireWire is the perfect choice to transfer digital data like PCM, DVD-A, DD, DTS or HDTV signals in the digital domain.
FireWire is a nice feature, but unfortunately the main drive behind it is that the main movie houses wish to introduce encryption schemes in the digital streams to prevent piracy. That however probably belongs in it's own thread.

Honestly, I'm not sure what video on demand is... But one example of how FireWire can be used right now is to replace your optical or coaxial digital connections. So if you're running an optical wire from your DVD player to your receiver, in the future you may be able to use FireWire instead. The idea is that everything will be FireWire at some point, not just audio but HD video as well. Interestingly, this will make hooking up your computer to your HT even easier.
Off topic but perhaps interesting:
And just to make things a bit more clear, a Firewall is a security device that protects a network (or a single computer) from outside intruders (hackers). FireWalls are not used in HT devices (yet) but as HT equipment converges more and more with computer equipment and networks I'd expect to see some form of abuse followed by some form of protection. Just imagine needing a password to access your receiver!
- Mike