Is firewire 400 and 800 on the same bus?

I have heard of the problems putting a camera and external hard drive on the same bus for capturing video. Does the 400 and 800 ports share the same bus and will using both with one connected to an external 800 drive and the 400 port for the camera be a good solution for capturing video?
Much appreciated.

yes, on PowerBooks w/1394a and 1394b ports, and on the G5's with 1394a and 1394b ports, they all share a common bus
sometimes if you have a lot of activity on the bus, you might have some frame drop out with a camera connected (but this is not a constant)
it never hurts to add a PCI card or cardbus card for PowerBooks and create a second FireWire channel that is independent of the builtin ports

Similar Messages

Running FW 400 and 800 at the same time

Somebody told me there are problems running a 400 drive and an 800 drive at the same time. Is that true? I'm considering what drive to buy for audio on my macbook which only has one 400 and one 800 port. Will I be able to back up from the 800 to a 400? The 800 drive has one 400 port so I can't daisy chain it as a 400. Does the 800 bus offer any advantages to audio recording besides faster archiving?

There shouldn't be any problems, and I've never heard of any.
However, chaining or bus sharing FW400 and FW800 (on any Mac) will always pull the overall bus speed down to the slower FW400 transfer rate. Which, when working with audio, will make no noticeable difference at all.
It's the same when bus sharing USB1 and USB2, the slower connection always takes precident.

Audio interface for 24" iMac - conflict between firewire 400 and 800?

So, what I have now:
2.8ghz iMac, latest model, newest firmware, running OS 10.4.11, connected to an M-Audio Ozonic Firewire 400 interface, and I was hoping to run said interface while ALSO connecting a firewire 800 hard drive for samples, or for recording to.
Alas, as soon as I turn on the firewire 800 drive, a model sold by Other World Computing and containing an Oxford chipset, all audio stops on the Ozonic keyboard and is replaced by clicks and pops. The only way I've found to get the audio back is with a complete restart of the system, with the firewire 800 drive OFF.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the M-Audio device, it's a small keyboard and firewire audio interface in one unit. Perhaps not the highest quality, but my Powerbook G4 1.67 with firewire 800 CAN run both the Ozonic and the firewire 800 drive at the same time. With no interruption in sound playback.
I did some research and discovered that in the iMac I bought, the two firewire channels, 400 and 800, appear to be on the same PCI E bus, and perhaps will NEVER work together.
Is that right? I thought the whole point of firewire was how it's able to negotiate such communications and work seamlessly with other firewire devices. I know, I know, I'm living in dreamland, it's just sad that a much older Apple product (my PPC notebook), can do something a brand new model cannot. Sigh.
Any advice? Any chance 10.5 fixes this?
If not, should my next audio interface be USB 2.0? Any thoughts from the Audio pros out there (besides 'you bought the wrong machine) would be great.

Sorry I can't help with your specific query as I have never used that Audio hardware.
I am a video man myself and went for the 24" 2.8Ghz iMac as i believe the Firewire 400 and 800 Buses are seperate. I know on older iMacs and even the MacPro the FW800 and 400 buses were on the same bus and when connecting a firewire video camera to the FW400 bus, the 800 would lower it's speed to 400 to accomodate or in some cases would lose the connection all together.
I currently have a FW800 Hard drive connected to the FW800 port and a video deck in the FW400 port and they both run at full speed 800/400 respectively.
This leads me to believe Apple have fixed the Firewire sharing problem.
I know it's no help but just though I would share my experience with the Firewire on the new iMac.

Firewire 400 and 800 problem ? Need confirmation

OK, I have been running 2 external Lacie HD's over a USB hub into my MacBook Pro. A couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed more storage so purchased 2 Western Digital MyBook Pro's at 500GB.
I got these two specifically because I knew they supported Firewire 800 and wanted to take advantage of the high speed connection.
All is going well until yesterday.... Let me explain my set up. Firstly I am a DJ and use a Firewire Audiophile soundcard from M-Audio, this connects to the 400 port on my MacBook Pro, and the HD's connect to the 800... When I play music I get audio drop outs... I have looked through the forums and I am under the impression that both the 400 and 800 ports on my MacBook Pro run on the same connect, so is this the cause of the audio drop outs ?
I connect the 2 HD's via USB and have no problems, am I right in thinking that I have wasted good money on getting 2 HD's that I'm not going to be able to use the 800 port with ? When I run the audio through the internal soundcard I get no drop outs !
Also.... Just to annoy me even more I have a 20" cinema display so if I have use USB I decided to connect the two HD's to this and then to the MacBook Pro, now the problem here is when my MacBook Pro goes to sleep one of the HD's wakes up the MacBook Pro as it has been removed incorrectly ??? Do I now have a problem with one of my USB ports on the cinema screen also ????? I have put my iPod in the port and no problems ?
Does anyone know how I can solve these problems without having to spend even more money ?
And can someone confirm if the 400 and 800 ports are on the same connection, if so, whats the point ???
Thanks
- Neil

neil,
I wouldn't do that right away.. USB audio interfaces are usually at the more consumer end of the market, I don't think it's the best way to go just to solve your problem.
did you read the part in my post about PCexpress cards that give you a totally new and independent FW800 bus? seriously, I think this is your best bet. these cards first came out when the original series of MBP didn't have FW800 on them (only 400) much to the consternation of video pros.. so 3rd party vendors made a card solution. as I said, they aren't expensive, I would have thought around or under $100 US. connect one of those to your MBP's express slot and your problem is solved. you'll have a powerful, dedicated FW channel just for those FW800 drives you bought. then, your m-audio interface will be fine. and even if you still want to get rid of it and get a better interface, you won't be forced to go to USB which generally means opting for a lower end of the market interface.
also one other thing.. I don't know what your actual audio i/o needs are. but if you only ever work with stereo out and stereo in, ie, you never need more than 2 physical outputs and 2 physical inputs, then you have other options. the MBP (and in fact all macs) have optical digital audio built in. you can buy a 2in 2out digital to analog/analog to digital converter and connect it to the opticals. then, you'll never need to worry about FW or USB bandwidth ever again, nor will you ever need to think about drivers or compatibility or updates either.
on my MBP I use logic pro. and on this system, I only ever need a stereo out to hear what I'm working on with good quality.. and when I record actual audio tracks, it's only ever one source at a time, like a mic input or an instrument. so I do not need an interface at all, I use the opticals and I love it. I bought a mindprint trio, not the USB one, but the one that uses optical i/o. it just connects to the same connectors on the MBP that you would connect headphones or a mic, but obviously uses the digital optical signal not analog audio. it sounds really very good. the trio itself is a very handy little box that conveniently lets you do a lot of things to work comfortable when recording. and I just use built-in sound, no drivers needed ever, which is very much a rare relief in the audio world, believe me.
anyway, hope this helps. and seriously check out a card for FW800, in my opinion it's the best solution to your problem no matter which way you go.

Logic Pro 9.1.7 firewire 400 and 800 not working

I am having issues with Logic Pro 9.1.7 recognizing FW 400 and 800 connections, and/or my FW interface (mbox2 pro). When I open up LP I often do not hear any sound and have to reboot or reconnect FW cables, per another post suggestion with ProTools 9. After 30 minutes of restarting twice, unplugging / plugging in FW cables, turning off/on FW drives, it's finally up and running.
But the weird thing is that sometimes it opens up fine and other times it does not. I don't understand this variable, as my setup always remains the same.
I am guessing this is a Mac OS issue, but I'll list my setup in case anyone has any suggestions:
MacBook Pro OS 16.6.8
Mbox2 Pro interface (blue) - connected via FW 400
Firewire drives on both 400 and 800 connections
I realize this could be a host of issues other than Logic Pro 9, such as Audio Midi Setup (which often doesn't recognize my Mbox2 Pro). But again, thought I'd start here.
thanks

Hi
glankrudolph wrote:
I realize this could be a host of issues other than Logic Pro 9, such as Audio Midi Setup (which often doesn't recognize my Mbox2 Pro). But again, thought I'd start here.
If Audio MIDI Setup cannot see/recognise the MBox, then Logic will be unable to see it. Audio MIDI Setup is at OS level: if your MBox does not show up it is likely to be:
Driver issues (highly likely)
Cable Issues
FW socket issues: hardware fault.
CCT

FW 400/800 share the same bus?

On the 17" powerbook 1.67GHz, do the FW 400 and the FW 800 ports share the same bus?

Hi. Confirming what I just read... If I get a seperate firewire card for my lap top then my mac will read it as a different port and therefore I can operate at 400 firewire from my firewire card and operate at 800 firewire on the internal port?? Just confirming that if I have two seperate (the external card and the internal ports) that the mac will read them differnetly and thus not slow speeds to the 400 speed universally??
Did that question make sense?! Thanks!

Can You Daisy Chain Firewire 400 and 800 Mixed?

I would like to purchase an External Drive. I'm looking at a FW800. What I'm wondering is, Can I daisy chain devices mixed in.
I Want to run a FW800 Bilingual cable from my Powerbook to the External Enclosure. From the Ext. Enclosure, I'd like to have take my second FW800 port and take a cable that converts Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 and plug in another item. Is this possible?
Can I mix and match FW devices using separate protocol in a daisy chain configuration?

Russ,
Yes, it is possible. I have a drive that works on FW800, FW400, or USB2. Connected to the second FW800 port on that, I have an adaptor cable, a FW400 cable to a FW400 drive, and another FW400 drive connected to that . All 3 drives are on the desktop of my PowerBook. When I read your post, I had the only first drive connected to the iBook with USB2.
The only problem I've run into was trying to copy a 200G drive on FW800 to a 250G drive on the FW400 port on the PowerBook. Working overnight, it managed to copy ONE Gigabyte! I hooked them up as they are now, and copied the whole shebang in about 45 minutes
I picked up an empty drive case, 800/400/USB2 combo from OWC and a 250G Maxtor drive at CompUSA for about $100 less than I could get a 250 FW800 drive anyplace. http://www.macsales.com

Firewire 400 and 800 together

I have 2 external HD firewire:
120Gb Firewire 400 and 500Gb Firewire 800.
They work fine EXCEPT when I connect both HD to my PB.
I have to use 1 at a time, not together.
Do I have to do something to use them togheter?
Its both LaCie HD
PB G4 17" 1.67/1x1Gb/100Gb Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I tried once hooking a 400 drive into the 400 port, and an 800 drive into the 800 port, then transferring a big file between them. A 1.2 GB file finally stalled at about 10 hours. I then daisy chained the 400 into the 800, and the 800 to the PB, and that worked fine. I now frequently hook 4 of them, only 1 of which is 800, and as long as it is hooked thru the 800 to the PB, it works fine. If I unhook the 800, and plug the chain into the 400 port, that works fine. I don't have the right cables to go the other way, but that would slow down the 800. I can hook it in as 400 in the case of hooking it all up to my MacBookPro without FW800.

Firewire 400 and 800

I use my powerbook for digital video editting. I connected to dv camera to the firewire 400 port and connect an external hard drive to the firewire 800 port. Recently when doing this the device that is connected last does not show as being connected. If I connect the the hard drive first them imovie does not show a camera connected and likewise if I connect the camera first then the hard drive does not mount on the desktop. If anyone has any ideas on what I can do to get my firewire ports to work simultaneously please let me know.

I have the same issue and I thought the ADS unit or the Hard Drive was bad. If I disconnect the FW800 cable from the external HD, then repower the drive, it will boot and I can plug the FW800 back in and it will mount on the desktop.
FOUND A FIX!!!!
I found this in the knowledgebase:
Short Version to reset NVRAM and it fixed my boot issues with external FW800 HD.
Boot Mac while holding down the Apple-Option-O-F keys
at the prompt type:
RESET-NVRAM (press enter)
RESET-ALL (Press enter)
Then your mac will reboot.
After I did this, my drive mounts normally!
If you want the whole thread, search for "reset NVRAM".
Matt Caswell
Mesa, AZ

Firewire 400 and 800 PCI Express Card Question

I just put in a Firewire 800 PCI Express card in my Mac Pro. If I add a Firewire 400 PCI Express card also to my Mac Pro will the 800 card work as in 400 speed due to the PCI Express 400 card being added to the Logic board?
Thanks!!
Sky..,

Each card operates independently.

Firewire 400 and 800 won't work

Any trouble shooting tips I have a terabyte maxtor one touch. I've shut down unpludded all and started plugging in one at a time no luck. usb works fine.

Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work!
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 30 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that didn't work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try. Yours is the 10.4.10 Combo update ( PPC, not for Intel systems). Others reading, download the Combo that applies to your system.
If that still didn't get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
For those of you with Macs that are not PowerBooks or iBooks, a bad internal battery can cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good! Also, here is Apple doc.#88338 on getting FireWire to work.
Here's another
Fw Faq.
 Cheers! DALE

How to tell if Firewire 400 or 800? In any OS and this laptop: Toshiba Satellite A350D - BA3.

Hello.
I was wondering how someone can tell the difference between Firewire 400 and 800 in their computer and in this model of Toshiba laptop: Toshiba Satellite A350D - BA3?
If a person looked in device manager or something would it say? With Usb it says Enhanced when it is usb2 compared to usb1. I don't know what usb3 says, I don't have it.
With firewire there is large sizes and small. On my laptop it is a mini firewire and it looks like a 4-pin inside. On the toshiba.ca site, in the product specs, it only says firewire.
I am planning on buying a cord that has a large connection on one end and a small connection size at the other end. Eg: Some cables for firewire are a 4-4pin, 6-4pin, 6-6pin, 9-4pin,9-6pin,9-9pin. There are also firewire 400 to 800 adapters. I'd like to buy the right cord for an external enclosure I bought to connect to the small laptop firewire port. The enclosure is a Vantec NexStar 3, 3.5" enclosure, usb2, eSATA, Firewire a/b. It has two firewire b ports in back, but an included cord converts b-a (the a is still to big for the laptop firewire).
Does anyone know if any of the mini ports are as fast as the larger ports? Will a 9-pin firewire 800 cable converting to a mini connection go at the mini connections speed if it is only firewire 400, I don't think it can force full F800 speed?
Thanks.

Hello.
I was wondering how someone can tell the difference between Firewire 400 and 800 in their computer and in this model of Toshiba laptop: Toshiba Satellite A350D - BA3?
If a person looked in device manager or something would it say? With Usb it says Enhanced when it is usb2 compared to usb1. I don't know what usb3 says, I don't have it.
With firewire there is large sizes and small. On my laptop it is a mini firewire and it looks like a 4-pin inside. On the toshiba.ca site, in the product specs, it only says firewire.
I am planning on buying a cord that has a large connection on one end and a small connection size at the other end. Eg: Some cables for firewire are a 4-4pin, 6-4pin, 6-6pin, 9-4pin,9-6pin,9-9pin. There are also firewire 400 to 800 adapters. I'd like to buy the right cord for an external enclosure I bought to connect to the small laptop firewire port. The enclosure is a Vantec NexStar 3, 3.5" enclosure, usb2, eSATA, Firewire a/b. It has two firewire b ports in back, but an included cord converts b-a (the a is still to big for the laptop firewire).
Does anyone know if any of the mini ports are as fast as the larger ports? Will a 9-pin firewire 800 cable converting to a mini connection go at the mini connections speed if it is only firewire 400, I don't think it can force full F800 speed?
Thanks.

Firewire 400 or 800 for External HD

Hello. I presently have an eMac and will be upgrading to an iMac early in 2008. I am looking at purchasing a Lacie Porsche Ext. Hd 500 GB which has FW400 on it. This will suit my eMac as it has a 400 port on it and I can use it now. My question is, will the FW400 be sufficient for the iMac or would I be better advised to try and get an External Drive with both 400 AND 800? Thanks for any comments or guidance.

No one knows at this point what ports the iMac will have in early 2008. Today, just the 24" iMac has a Firewire 800 port. The time you want Firewire 800 is when you need extra speed in data transfer between hard drive and computer. This is usually when you are doing video capture or something else where live access to extra space is essential. For backing up, you just save some time. But actual video playback will improve if playing off a Firewire 800 drive. You can always change the hard drive case on other external hard drives, but LaCie's are awfully difficult to take apart. To offer maximum flexibility find a drive that offers both Firewire 400 and 800, and you should be fine.

Using an external firewire hard drive + interface at the same time?

Hi Guys,
It seems that the issues I am having with BFD2 not streaming properly might be to do with the slow USB transfer rate. (Thanks to everyone who has helped with this issue!)
So... I am thinking of getting an external firewire hard drive for my iMac.
Thing is, my audio interface also uses firewire (Mackie Onyx 1220)... can they share using a hub? Will one slow the other down? What if I also run another hard drive on firewire for my audio, will two FW drives and the audio interface all be able to share the one firewire port using a hub?
At the moment, all my drives have their own direct USB port, is going to shared firewire a step forward or a step backwards?
Cheers and thanks,
Mike

Gorwel Owen1 wrote:
On my G4 (roughly 30 % the power of your MBP)
Is this with an external drive and interface?
No Interface (yes, I use built in audio), but that shouldn't make a difference in CPU use.
I have four Internal drives. But that shouldn't make a difference either
That is very dependent on what you put on these tracks
I was thinking mainly about recording i.e. 8 simultaneous tracks whilst playing back up to about 16. I generally avoid plug-ins until mixing anyway. Sounds like I should be OK.
Absolutely.
but when logic overloads (when the CPU can't process audio in realtime anymore) Logic simply stops playback.
When I tried using a drive and interface on the same bus a few years ago I experienced minor glitching rather than stopping. Perhaps Logic has been improved in this respect.
P.S. How do you 'quote'in the forum?
Just above the field where you type replies in, there are 5 symbols - they are buttons.
The first three work on selected text (making it Bold, Italic and Underlined). The abc-tick is spell-checking and the " sign means Quote. When you click it, the message you reply to is inserted wherever your cursor is.
The preview tab lets you see how the message will look, giving an opportunity to edit. You cannot edit in preview mode though, just look. Only in Compose can you edit.

Simultaneously downloading with the 400 and 800 FireWire on the Mac Pro

During a Mac Pro training Web Cast the speaker related that one could download with both the 400 and 800 FireWire simultaneously, however the speaker never explained how to do that.
How would you go about downloading simultaneously?

The external hard drives have their own power.....turns out that the 400 and 800 firewire busses are the same.....What Apple did was an 800 firewire buss and has 1 port located on the rear of the tower and 2 400 ports (one one the front and one on the back). The 2 400 ports are equal to the 1 800 port, so when you use one 400 port and 1 800 port the 800 port becomes another 400 port. In other words.....I only have 1, 800 buss and not an 800 buss and 2 400 busses....pretty tacky if you ask me......also, I learned that the Canon DV cameras (ZR70MC) is a real hog when it comes to firewire, so, when I have my external hard drives plugged into the 800 buss and the Canon plugged into the 400 buss, it's on overload and their is no buss protocal for who uses what. Which means if the external drives are using the buss the Canon is out of luck......The solution is to install a separate firewire card and plug either the Canon or the drives into it thus freeing up the internal 800 buss for other uses.
The workaround is for me to unplug the power to the external hard drives, plug in the Canon, capture all of my material onto the internal drive, once I've captured all of my files, remove the Canon from the buss, powerup and re-mount the external drives, then, move all of my captured files over to my work space which is located on one of the external drives......what a pain in the butt......but that's the way it works.....

Is firewire 400 and 800 on the same bus?

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