USB3 for new Blackmagic Products

[Jeff Bernstein]

Before Bob starts sobbing, let me be the first to inform him that Sonnet will have a USB 3.0 PCIe 2-lane card next month with Mac drivers!!!

That should get me another drink ticket for next year!

Jeff Bernstein

Digital Desktop Consulting
Apple Pro Video VAR
XSAN Certified
MetaSAN Master Reseller

323-653-7611

[Jason Finnigan]

sure to be overpriced if it’s from sonnet. I see most are about $30 so theirs I bet will be over $100

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Jeff,

I’ve just learnt that virtually all of the USB 3.0 PCI Express cards use a Linux driver, or a port of a Linux driver, which does not have isochronous support and are only useful for hard disks with simple, slow speed, bulk transfers. That means that these cards will not be suitable for uncompressed HD capture and playback as they’ll just be too slow.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Luke Maslen]

Hi Aaron,

My apologies for typing the wrong name. I saw Brett’s name in the thread and mistakenly typed it. Further to my previous comments about the x58 series of motherboards, I’ve just learnt that virtually all of the USB 3.0 PCI Express cards use a Linux driver, or a port of a Linux driver, which does not have isochronous support and are only useful for hard disks with simple, slow speed, bulk transfers. That means that these cards will not be suitable for uncompressed HD capture and playback as they’ll just be too slow.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Jason Finnigan]

I really doesn’t matter that there ported from linux. a lot of drivers for the mac are unix (since in fact mac os is a flavor of unix).. it’s just a matter of people modifying these drivers to run better on the mac after ported. but I wouldn’t except that to happend from any of the pcie card except. also if the driver isn’t supporting isochronous transfers, it isn’t conforming to the standards of USB. but it may still work as long as you only plug in the single device, basically isochronous support works similarly to to an IRQ, allowing it to take over when other things are going on when it needs it.

would I imaging apple will release a usb 3.0 driver update later this summer when the new mac pro comes out with the core i7 980 based xeon cpus (6 cores each) I would expect it to have built in usb 3.0 but that could be sometime. a friend that works for apple is saying he is hearing it will be out in late july or early august but it’s just speculation

[Luke Maslen]

Hi,

I’ve just learnt that virtually all of the USB 3.0 PCI Express cards use a Linux driver, or a port of a Linux driver, which does not have isochronous support and are only useful for hard disks with simple, slow speed, bulk transfers. That means that these cards will not be suitable for uncompressed HD capture and playback as they’ll just be too slow. Hopefully I didn’t get anyone too excited with the PCI Express card idea.

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design

[Jeff Bernstein]

I need to amend my announcement. It is, in fact, LaCie who will have the USB 3.0 card.

Jeff Bernstein

Digital Desktop Consulting
Apple Pro Video VAR
XSAN Certified
MetaSAN Master Reseller

323-653-7611