USB to Firewire adapter gives Unibody MacBook customers a glimmer of Firewire hope

Chauncey Dupree
|
October 30, 2008
|
Share

Frankly, we had given up hope of finding a Firewire interface for our MacBooks without employing some insane soldering skills.  Imagine our surprise when we happened upon Pixela's USB to Firewire adapter.  Before you rip your credit cards out, we have to break out the bad news...

It's WindowsXP (like you'd run anything else?) only at the moment.   Hypothetically, that leaves Bootcamp and virtualization as options, but much too much trouble to get a Firewire port for most.  When pressed on whether they'd make Mac drivers, Pixela has said they'd consider it.  How about hurrying up with that decision...Apple, care to send a few engineers their way?  It isn't like they don't make any Mac software.

If you are still willing to plop down for this piece of tech, it is currently running $120 retail.

Via ZDNET

Comments (28)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 12:12am

Windows XP seems not to be the only limitation. If I read the product page correctly, this "thing" will only import NTSC or PAL DV streams, so no connecting an external hard drive or sound card or anything else with this!

dj_aris (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 1:45am

Those new USB equipped cameras Steve talked about, do they have the ability to tranfer DV video via USB? What format do they actually support?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 1:53am

most current ones use mp4. many of the older ones (1 year+) go with mp2 files

Vaganza (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 12:50pm

Most of those that have USB will ONLY support transfering still images through USB, those cameras also have FireWire for transferring video. FireWire IS the standard for video editing...period.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 07, 2008 - 2:31am

i can understand dumping 6 pin FW due tue space .. but like sony they coud at least have put a 4 pin in there some where..

come on apple baby steps ..
befor thay dump FW they HAVE to make a adipter like there USB 56K modem to wean us off in steps.. ( like DTV)
BWT my new 5Dmk2 is CF based so i can get by without FW

funny its the lowend macs that need FW for all those legicy DVcams from the 00" most folks cant afford a solidstate PRO cam like a p2 card panasonic system

Jonathan (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 2:53am

What about other firewire to usb adapters, if you search for them on the internet you'll find them. Wouldn't they work or am I missing something?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 3:50am

We're talking about going from USB to FireWire, not the other way around.

PB&J (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 4:11am

I know when I was in HK and Singapore I saw some FW to USD cables..

Just looking on ebay I can see:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/5ft-USB-To-Firewire-iEEE-1394-4-Pin-iLink-Adapter-...

Or, get a combi FW/USB hub say from Lacie.

Vaganza (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 12:29pm

The Hubs don't work with one another, the FireWire will only talk to FireWire, and the USB with only talk to USB...they just make it convenient to combine 2 devices into one case.

Vaganza (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 6:11am

The basic architecture of both make it a little more difficult than simply changing the pins. USB uses Master/Slave controller, while firewire is peer to peer. USB requires all the data to go through the system bus, while FireWire does not, not to mention FireWire is bi-directional.... still baffles me that so many are going USB 2.0 over FireWire, USB 2.0's ONLY advantage is cost...and it isn't even that much less expensive. You get 45W of Power through FireWire instead of 5, you get better transfer rates over large files, with less chance of data corruption, the devices talk to each other rather than require the processor to direct traffic....

I just don't get it.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 8:38am

Just because you build a better mousetrap doesn't mean you'll win. You also have to know how to sell it and form the right partnerships so it'd be the standard.

Look at all the failed Sony proprietary formats that they have claimed to be the better solution only to FAIL cause no one cared.

Vaganza (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 10:37am

FireWire isn't proprietary, what I find Odd is more and more devices are adding FireWire, so many PC boards have it on there now, so many hard disks come with it now. The partnerships are already out there, it just seems to me dumping FireWire on the MacBook was rather arbitrary.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 6:20am

Manufacturers would not *replace* the USB 2.0 chip with Firewire, the Firewire chip would be an addition to the USB chip, so in reality, the "set" of chips would cost more than double the USB chip by itself.

Cost is a factor. Reducing the number of ports is also something they take into consideration. If they can use one port that does pretty much the same as two, they are more likely to go with just the one to make design easier.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 9:02am

Well here is me watching $800 flowing out of my wallet for a MB Pro....

Ridiculous because FCP runs just as fast on a computer costing half the price in a more convenient size (minus Color and Motion of course)....

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 9:23am

Not sure what all the fuss is about. If you still want firewire you can get an expresscard module and use the slot most people never use on their MacBook Pros. Go here:

http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/cons_wtb.jsp#1394

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 9:35am

Macbooks, not Macbook Pros. A Macbook Pro has a FW800 port, so it already has FW capability without any need for the expresscard module, although a FW400 to FW800 cable may be required for it to work for FW400.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 10:31am

It also downconverts video from DV to an MPEG stream. Even if you don't care about HDV or audio interfaces or hard drives, the webcam-quality 640x480 (IIRC) that you get from this is a step down from a direct FireWire connection, and there's no device control, and.....

Vaganza (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 12:33pm

I was wondering about that....so you have to basically download the whole thing at lesser quality.....you have no device control to allow you to select the frame on the camera you want to start with....

Why is it good to get rid of FireWire again?

Cost?

Puhleeze I've seen less expensive computers come with it.

Oh, and I've looked, Canon does not have a DV that captures through USB 2.0 and Sony only has a few, what was Steve thinking again?

UserWithBrain (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 4:47pm

HOW ABOUT YOU JUST USE THE RIGHT CABLE!!!

Get a firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable and not try to think up some stupid USB or expresscard solution. Trust me, those cables are out there and they work. you people...

Mr Lizard (not verified) | November 01, 2008 - 7:20am

And you would connect that to the new MacBook how?

That's the crux of this post.

UserWithBrainThatActuallyWorks (not verified) | November 01, 2008 - 8:11pm

I think you missed the point of the post entirely. The Macbook doesn't have Firewire 400 or 800.

Econimist (not verified) | October 31, 2008 - 5:19pm

I think the main reason for dumping the FW port on the MB is to keep a level of product differentiation between the MBs and MBPs.

Bringing aluminium enclosures to the MB removed one point of differentiation to lure all the switcher MBP wanna-bes, but to avoid losing Pro users to the MB they had to remove a fairly key feature for those users from it - Firewire!

A lot of cameras in the pro-sumer space now use AVCHD to record on HDD or SD/Memory Stick - so I think the removal of FW from the MB was a smart move by Apple.

Of course if Apple had hardware competitors for OS X computers then they may be less able to segment their market so ruthlessly!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 01, 2008 - 8:11am

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fw_adapter.html

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 03, 2008 - 8:00am

OMFG, PEOPLE - WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE MACBOOK HERE! IT DOES NOT HAVE FW800 ON IT!

STOP RECOMMENDING FW800 TO FW400 ADAPTERS!

Sorry for shouting, but come on! Do you people even read the articles?

tobias (not verified) | November 01, 2008 - 9:01am

use an external hd, which is a good idea if your editing video anyway, and connect it to the macbook vis usb 2.0. then connect your firewire cable to the external drive, daisy chain style...

my thoughts are because you are using the external hd as your scratch disk and the data will be captured/stored to it, could this be a possible solution at least in regards to video. perhaps it would work for others task as well.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 03, 2008 - 5:51am

Again, this won't work! It's not just the connectors. USB and FW do use different languages and there is no, again no translator that will add FW features to USB.

peterthethinker (not verified) | December 07, 2008 - 2:48am

if you buffer FW in to a FIFO then send it over USB it can work.. its just not cost effective!!!
i dont mind the price of a MBP just to get FW i just want a small screen ... I LOVE my 12"G4 PB...

BTW FW is packet based in a very similar way that TCP/IP works
and usb > ethernet (TCP/IP) converters are easy to get
so relly its not THAT hard to convert it ..
we thought that USB PC to PC was impossable many years ago but now they make them for $30

in a pinch you could get a FW > ethernet streaming converter(expencive!!!!)
and operate your CAM from a ethernet jack..I have seen it done in my college video studio because 100 foot FW cables
dont exsist...it works well. but still very pricy

this is going to hunt Apple for years..

Jeff (not verified) | January 08, 2009 - 2:20pm

Will this adapter allow me to transfer video from my Canon Camcorder to imovie on my new Macbook Air???