Product name: 9 PIN/ 6PIN BILINGUAL FireWire 800 - FireWire 400 Cable IEEE-1394B male to male
Description of 9 PIN/ 6PIN BILINGUAL FireWire 800 - FireWire 400 Cable IEEE-1394B male to male
This cable is to connect the standard 6 Pin, 400Mbps Firewire (IEEE 1394) connector to the newer 9 Pin, 800Mbps (IEEE 1394b) connector. Throughput is limited to the slower connector.
IEEE1394 is a high-speed serial input/ output (I/O) technology for connecting peripheral devices to a computer or to each other. It's one of the fastest peripheral standards even develop-and now, at 800 Mbps. IEEE 1394 has many key features.
- Plug-and-play Connectivity
- Highly Efficient Architecture
- Real-time Data Delivery
- On-bus Power
- Support for a Wide Range of Devices
Some knowledges of IEEE-1394 firewire cable:
1) difference between 4Pin, 6Pin and 9Pin Firewire connectors:
Each is a different size and configuration of connector. The 4 pin and 6 pin are ieee 1394a compliant which supports speeds up to 400mbps. The 9 pin connectors are ieee 1394b and support up to 800mbps. The ieee 1394b are generally backward compatible with the slower version but the speed would be limited to 400mbps when connected together.
4 pin is the smallest of the connectors and is generally found on portable devices such as camcorders and some laptops. It's a small rectangular shaped connector with an indent on one side.
The 6 pin is the most ubiquitous and is found on most devices like desktops, laptops, external drives, etc. It is similar in size to a USB and similar in shape. It is a flat rectangular connector with beveled edges on one side making the ports look like an elongated "D."
The 9 pin is the most recent type. It is found on newer high speed devices and computers. It is a block shaped, rectangular connector.
2) USB and firewire:
Firewire and USB, although similar are different, competing formats. You can not connect a device of one type into the port of another. They communicate in different formats and have different data transfer rates. If you do not have a firewire port on your computer, you can add one via a firewire PCI or PCMCIA card.