Amiga.org
Operating System Specific Discussions => MorphOS => MorphOS -- Application questions and support => Topic started by: Piru on October 04, 2010, 08:55:45 AM
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Guillaume "Yomgui" Roguez of the Blender MorphOS Port fame has been busy working on FireWire stack for MorphOS (Helios). It's progressing rather well:
[youtube]vtrKtMmysnQ[/youtube]
Here I've upgraded my get61883 code with a MUI gui and a vlayer display. I've integrated also FFMPEG DV decoder.
So what your're watching in this video is a realtime decoding and displaying of the firewire DV stream from my DV cam.
And for sure: Helios FW stack powered ;-)
The new version doing video cams isn't out yet I think, but version supporting block devices such as HDDs and Macs in Target Disk Mode (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Disk_Mode) is here:
aminet:driver/other/Helios_0.4-svn_r560.lha (http://aminet.net/package/driver/other/Helios_0.4-svn_r560)
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Nice!
It's great to see some end-user functions coming to fruition on Helios.
I read that Yomgui was working on isochronous reads - I see he has got things working nicely.
Webcam functionality on MorphOS machine would certainly be nice to have :-)
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Too bad that the only camera I have around that has FW on it has lower resolution and less camera capabilities than my cellphone :D
Or to put it differently, this would have been nice 5 years ago when FW still was relevant.
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@Kolla
Yeah, I wish the MorphOS team and MorphOS developers would stop focusing on dead-end hardware. Firewire was never a big deal and it fell into even greater obscurity after USB2.0 became widespread. MorphOS would be better served by having better driver support for video cards and USB2.0. Or even better, port the OS to an architecture that isn't a dead-end.
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Or even better, port the OS to an architecture that isn't a dead-end.
Dead-end OS on dead-end hardware - why not? :)
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@Kolla
Yeah, I wish the MorphOS team and MorphOS developers would stop focusing on dead-end hardware. Firewire was never a big deal and it fell into even greater obscurity after USB2.0 became widespread. MorphOS would be better served by having better driver support for video cards and USB2.0. Or even better, port the OS to an architecture that isn't a dead-end.
Doesn't Poseidon support USB 2.0 ?
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Doesn't Poseidon support USB 2.0 ?
Read it as "better (driver support for video cards and USB2.0)" and not as "(better driver support for video cards) and (USB2.0)"
Btw - USB3 is here now.
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Thanks Kolla. That's exactly what I meant to say.
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@Kolla
Yeah, I wish the MorphOS team and MorphOS developers would stop focusing on dead-end hardware. Firewire was never a big deal and it fell into even greater obscurity after USB2.0 became widespread. MorphOS would be better served by having better driver support for video cards and USB2.0. Or even better, port the OS to an architecture that isn't a dead-end.
I appreciate that you have an opinion, but consider the possibility that that's all it is - your opinion.
While I'm sure that there are some that would agree with you, I'm not one of them.
If you want an X86 Amiga like OS, use AROS. The MorphOS development team has repeatedly stated that for the foreseeable future they're staying with PPC systems and not considering a port to X86 architecture.
If PPCs are dead why are Applied Micro and Freescale still developing new processors? Yes PCs have moved on from these processors, but I like having something different.
Right now, the only thing that really differentiates Apple desktops is their OS and I don't care for it.
MorphOS developers may listen to your opinion, but in the end they're going to continue to advance in the same direction they always have - focused on what they'd like to see in new releases.
You don't have to use or pay for the OS. Don't like it? Don't use it.
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FireWire (even FW 400, never mind 800) craps all over USB 2.0 from a great height. Far from being dead-end, FireWire 3200 does the same to USB 3.0. In addition to being significantly faster, it's also backwards-compatible with the older standard, unlike USB 3.0 you can just plug a new FW 3200 device into an older FW 800 port and get the faster speed.
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@Kolla
Yeah, I wish the MorphOS team and MorphOS developers would stop focusing on dead-end hardware. Firewire was never a big deal and it fell into even greater obscurity after USB2.0 became widespread. MorphOS would be better served by having better driver support for video cards and USB2.0. Or even better, port the OS to an architecture that isn't a dead-end.
Sorry, but Firewire is a professional standard used on prosumer and professional level video cameras, such as MiniDV and HDV cameras.
It's also used for pro-level musical recording hardware - i.e. audio interfaces, control interfaces, etc. in both home and high end professional studios.
It's USB that's seen as a lower end interface. Useful, yes and common, but not as capable as firewire.
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Great news, nice to see Helios is progressing nicely. Firewire is a nice professional standard and should be support.
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@Iggy
Nowhere in my post did I say ANYTHING about x86 or even hint at a direction that I think the developers should take regarding a new processor for MorphOS. Nor did I mention AROS or any other operating system. It isn't opinion that PPC processors and all the Macs now running MorphOS are a dead end. It is FACT. They are no longer manufactured. PPC is dead. Get over it. As for not using MOS, I don't use it any longer. It's overpriced, runs on VERY outdated hardware and doesn't have any productivity software that meets my needs. My PegII is just an expensive paper weight these days.
@ral-clan
As for Firewire being a professional standard, that was 10 years ago and even Apple is dropping support for it. Even if this new Firewire stack gets completed, you won't see any audio/video professionals running out to buy an ancient Mac running MorphOS and doing any audio/video editing. Why? Because decent audio/video editing software doesn't exist for MOS and even if it did, why would they handicap themselves by using hardware that's several years old and several orders of magnitude slower than anything else on the market?
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It seems that Final Cut Studio 3 still loves that Firewire.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs/
:)
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@Pyromania
Great. Maybe you and the MOS devs can port it to PPC Macs for MOS?
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@Pyromania
Great. Maybe you and the MOS devs can port it to PPC Macs for MOS?
You were joking or being sarcastic right? FCS 3 is Apple's intellectual property and they would have to port it to MorphOS.
:)
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Yes, I was being sarcastic.
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Hello everyone. It's my first post on a.org! cool :drink:
(...) even Apple is dropping support for it (ndr: the Firewire) (...)
Apple has not removed any software or hardware supports.
Even thirdparties applications also (all video sw support Apple FW).
See the latest MacMini : it's supposed to be the low-end of Apple's computer and have everything
http://images.apple.com/macmini/images/features_portdiagram_20100615.jpg
Only constructors of "media for the mass" want to bury it, due to the simple reason of the extra cost of a 1394 bridge in the HW design.
Furthermore, supporting 2 kinds of external ports is really a mess for some devices... and specially when purpose is the same (I don't care about efficiency here). See the removal of FW port inside the iPod serie for ex.
Then second reason: USB is an Intel idea, the one that drives modern computer designs. It's normal that they don't want seeing FW dominate the market.
Dead-end OS on dead-end hardware
:laughing: I've also a good sens of humour.. I'm going to demonstrate it:
Btw - USB3 is here now.
Good! Just need to wait 20 years and maybe have an OS4.56 support :mickeymouse:
... or not
(...) less camera capabilities than my cellphone (...)
What're missing camera capabilities?
For sure FW cameras are not designed to be a phone!
Final notes:
I'm really proud to have make this stack. Now MorphOS has it. Used or not... It has it, it works. What else?
Now I think I'll work on a simple video editor (something less complex than Blender).
Note: Blender 2.52 on Mos works now to edit and save videos. I've just to sync the code because my current svn sync uses an old FFMPEG api.
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Great work Yomgui. Thank you for your hard work on Firewire support and new Blender fixes.
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I think that "low-resolution" Red cameras (http://www.red.com/cameras/tech_specs/) are not able to reach current smartphones...
...yes with FW 800/400.
:biglaugh:
And About USB3.0: currently I know only 1 USB3.0 camera on the market, this one is the Flea3 by Point Grey. This manufacture is also well known for his good FW cameras.
I don't want to start a USB3 vs Firewire S3200 war. But don't forget even if USB3.0 has more manufacturers in his side, this one doens't have any well designed and normalized software protocols like the existing IIDC on Firewire.
I let you read this annouce (end of 2009): http://www.daptechnology.com/index.php?id=640
So for a dead hardware I think it's quite alive (maybe it's a ZOMBIE!!!)
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I think that "low-resolution" Red cameras (http://www.red.com/cameras/tech_specs/) are not able to reach current smartphones...
...yes with FW 800/400.
:biglaugh:
Holy crap, I've seen rocket launchers which looked less threatening than that thing!
(http://www.red.com/images/pages/cameras/tech-specs/banner.png?1230207622)
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@ ferrelsl
I'll gladly take firewire over USB2 any day
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Firewire isn't dead?. It's on the new Dell business laptops we get in at work. It's been proven over and over to be superior to USB.
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@ferrellsl
So when did you realize that amiga (in any form) wasn't going to make a comeback? :)
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@ferrellsl
So when did you realize that amiga (in any form) wasn't going to make a comeback? :)
Ah, so you've had a look through his posting history aswell then... ;-)
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I'm sorry if anyone thinks my comments have detracted from Yomgui's efforts. I applaud him for it and I think he's one hell of a great programmer. I'm just pesimistic about the future of MOS. I'd really like to see it thrive as an alternative OS but the tangents taken by the MOS dev team seem truly crazy at times.
@klx300r, spihunter, and GolemDK
And nowhere did I dispute that Firewire is superior to USB2.0. It is obviously superior. So I'm not sure where you guys are getting that from since I've never posted such a statement. What I DO dispute is that there's any real use for Firewire on MOS since there obviously isn't a single audio/video editing package for MOS. I also pointed out that Apple is even dropping support of Firewire on several of its systems, specifically its newest Macbooks. Nobody these days really cares that Firewire is better than USB2.0. It's like the old argument about Betamax versus VHS tapes. Just because it's technically superior doesn't mean that it'll become the accepted/adopted standard demanded by us all. I've worked with a couple different news agencies and they don't care about Firewire one bit. They DO care about being able to move their data onto a laptop or workstation for editing. As long as they can move that data via DVD-R/W, USB cable or flash memory stick, they're quite happy. Firewire, or the lack of it, isn't a deal-breaker for them. The lack of any audio/video editing on a MOS box IS a deal breaker, as well as the handicap of ancient hardware. As I said earlier, just because there's a Firewire stack on MOS doesn't mean that suddenly audio/video professionals will now scramle to buy up old Macs for editing. It's outdated hardware and there's no MOS editing software anyway, so don't expect me to be thrilled with the news about MOS getting a Firewire stack. My reaction is, "So what?" Where's an application that will make use of it?
Same goes for MOS as a whole. I think it's a great OS. But until it has native apps for productiviy, I.E. a real office suite, native audio/video editing, and easy-to-use DVD/CD authoring software, it will continue to languish. What about somebody porting OpenOffice to MOS, or at least AbiWord and GnuCalc? MOS will continue to be just a toy until that happens.
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@GolemDK and Boot WB
Before Commodore bit the dust, that's when I noticed! The writing was on the wall a couple years before they went under.
What makes you think I'm so misguided as to believe that the Amiga in any form will rise from the ashes like a Phoenix and become mainstream again? On the contrary, all I see in the Amiga community is a bunch of disjointed attempts to scam hardcore Amiga enthusiasts out of their hard-earned cash with overpriced, under powered jokes like the SAM and the X1000.
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@yomgui
Amazing! thx for your hard work! I'll keep an eye on FW devices now :-)
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@ferrells,
I think it was the phrase "dead end hardware" that set people off. It's true that most consumer equipment no longer has it and Apple is dropping it on it's regular consumer based computers.
It's still widely used on the "Pro-sumer" and Pro market for camera's and harddrives and such. You are right that higher quality product does not always equal success! I think everyone here knows that!.
Firewire is just an overkill for the consumer market were USB works just fine for everything.
I'm sorry if anyone thinks my comments have detracted from Yomgui's efforts. I applaud him for it and I think he's one hell of a great programmer. I'm just pesimistic about the future of MOS. I'd really like to see it thrive as an alternative OS but the tangents taken by the MOS dev team seem truly crazy at times.
@klx300r, spihunter, and GolemDK
And nowhere did I dispute that Firewire is superior to USB2.0. It is obviously superior. So I'm not sure where you guys are getting that from since I've never posted such a statement. What I DO dispute is that there's any real use for Firewire on MOS since there obviously isn't a single audio/video editing package for MOS. I also pointed out that Apple is even dropping support of Firewire on several of its systems, specifically its newest Macbooks. Nobody these days really cares that Firewire is better than USB2.0. It's like the old argument about Betamax versus VHS tapes. Just because it's technically superior doesn't mean that it'll become the accepted/adopted standard demanded by us all. I've worked with a couple different news agencies and they don't care about Firewire one bit. They DO care about being able to move their data onto a laptop or workstation for editing. As long as they can move that data via DVD-R/W, USB cable or flash memory stick, they're quite happy. Firewire, or the lack of it, isn't a deal-breaker for them. The lack of any audio/video editing on a MOS box IS a deal breaker, as well as the handicap of ancient hardware. As I said earlier, just because there's a Firewire stack on MOS doesn't mean that suddenly audio/video professionals will now scramle to buy up old Macs for editing. It's outdated hardware and there's no MOS editing software anyway, so don't expect me to be thrilled with the news about MOS getting a Firewire stack. My reaction is, "So what?" Where's an application that will make use of it?
Same goes for MOS as a whole. I think it's a great OS. But until it has native apps for productiviy, I.E. a real office suite, native audio/video editing, and easy-to-use DVD/CD authoring software, it will continue to languish. What about somebody porting OpenOffice to MOS, or at least AbiWord and GnuCalc? MOS will continue to be just a toy until that happens.
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Most of the HW MorphOS supports does have a FireWire connector. No-one is forced to use FW and people can keep using USB2 if they like. At least I welcome an easy way to quickly connect a Mac to a MorphOS box and have access to the HDD (Target Mode). USB2 can't do that, unless if I open the Mac, remove the HDD and place it to a USB enclosure.
Sure you could use smbfs but samba is slower than firewire, and there are quite a bit of setting up to do, unlike with this firewire target mode.
I bought a device that can be used to connect 2.5" and 3.5" SATA HDDs in various ways. Connectivity includes USB2, FW400, FW800 and eSATA. Out of these USB2 is clearly the slowest. Now I have an option to use firewire as well.
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Same goes for MOS as a whole. I think it's a great OS. But until it has native apps for productiviy, I.E. a real office suite, native audio/video editing, and easy-to-use DVD/CD authoring software, it will continue to languish.
Someone still uses those old school laser discs? :-P
What about somebody porting OpenOffice to MOS, or at least AbiWord and GnuCalc?
OO probably could be nice to have but I dont think any of apps mentioned above make difference. MorphOS is small and you can not make it better by just porting random number fo *nix applications from yesterday (especially as the operating system needs more work). I can agree FireWire is on the same boat with PPC but it is still better have FiWi stack than no FiWi stack at all.
MOS will continue to be just a toy until that happens.
What is wrong with toys, you dont like toys? :-)
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This is great!
In some other thread I've read something about MOS running on PowerBook (excuse me if I`m wrong, I never was into MOS)?!
In such a case I'd considered buying a used PowerBook and MOS! ;-)
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Firewire is also used on almost all high-end external drives, like the two Lacie drives I have sitting here on my desk which replaced the USB 2.0 drive I had previously. It's two to three times faster, with a fraction of the CPU usage.
Being able to connect these drives to my MorphOS machines too will be fantastic.
Given that firewire ports have been on every piece of MorphOS hardware (apart from Efika) since the Pegasos 1, it's been kind of ludicrous that there has been no firewire stack before.
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Ferrls
You clearly are an amiga os4 fanboy. Yomgui is not an official morphos dev. If you havent noticed most independent devs with a brain usually code for Morphos over os4 that should tell you something.
FW drivers in any incarnation is a major feat for an Amiga like platform.
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FW drivers in any incarnation is a major feat for an Amiga like platform.
Yes, it's right up there, along with floppy driver support :)
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You know its funny that its usually people who have contributed nothing, or not much that have the most critiscism for those that do contribute, those that are working on something to benefit all users of the system.
I agree with Piru, if you prefer USB2, use it, but it certainly can't hurt that I can use my prosumer camcorder with firewire on morphos. It is still quite a standard for many dv cameras, regardless of what you think.
Besides this many guys that do video projects (like me) use many cameras, some older too, some of them have usb2, and some of them have firewire, some have both. having firewire supported can't hurt, and I applaud the efforts of those who are making that happen.
Steven
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@ Ferrells
It's quite easy. I have an external hdd with Firewire and I can connect it now to my Mac mini and Pegasos and access it with MorphOS. That is an increasement of usabilty. I have that stuff and I can use it now (well, actually I wasn't able to test it myself yet, since I am not at my main home currently). It is a very easy situation and a very nice advancement. Big thanks to Yomgui, his stack increases usability of the system.
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@Magenetic
OS4 fanboy? Not hardly! I actually prefer MOS over OS4. It's faster and has a much slicker interface than OS4. I actually have OS4 and MOS dual-booting on my PegII but I rarely use either one these days. I just have no reason to use them anymore. They're both hobbled by a number of issues and it's just easier for me to use Linux or Windows to get things done.
And I never implied nor stated that Yomgui was a member of the official MOS dev team. Where did you get that from? I said he was a MOS developer as is anyone who writes code for MOS. Why do so many people on this board read between the lines and see things that simply aren't there?
As for FW drivers being a major feat for MOS, I have to refer to kolla's last post......
Yes, it's right up there, along with floppy driver support :)
I DO see the advantage of being able to tie a MOS box and a Mac together to transfer files. But that's about it. You could just as easily have copied your data to a USB stick and transferred files, but that's too easy for a lot of folks on this forum! :-)
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Welcome to Amiga.org Yomgui, please enjoy and stay a while.
:)
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@ferrellsl
We have to use Firewire to transfer from our 10,000 Petabyte drive, that much data will not fit on our largest USB Flash drive.
:)
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@All:
Even if it's not SBP2 related thread... don't forget to report me your SBP2 tests and speed. And if possible indicate the hardware and chipsets used.
Don't hesitate to compare with USB2 with various copy way: Ambient, by shell with "copy buf=128" and increase the buf value until 2048 (more is limited by my code... 2048*512 = 1MB buffering).
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Hello everyone. It's my first post on a.org! cool :drink:
Apple has not removed any software or hardware supports.
Even thirdparties applications also (all video sw support Apple FW).
See the latest MacMini : it's supposed to be the low-end of Apple's computer and have everything
http://images.apple.com/macmini/images/features_portdiagram_20100615.jpg
Only constructors of "media for the mass" want to bury it, due to the simple reason of the extra cost of a 1394 bridge in the HW design.
Furthermore, supporting 2 kinds of external ports is really a mess for some devices... and specially when purpose is the same (I don't care about efficiency here). See the removal of FW port inside the iPod serie for ex.
Then second reason: USB is an Intel idea, the one that drives modern computer designs. It's normal that they don't want seeing FW dominate the market.
:laughing: I've also a good sens of humour.. I'm going to demonstrate it:
Good! Just need to wait 20 years and maybe have an OS4.56 support :mickeymouse:
... or not
What're missing camera capabilities?
For sure FW cameras are not designed to be a phone!
Final notes:
I'm really proud to have make this stack. Now MorphOS has it. Used or not... It has it, it works. What else?
Now I think I'll work on a simple video editor (something less complex than Blender).
Note: Blender 2.52 on Mos works now to edit and save videos. I've just to sync the code because my current svn sync uses an old FFMPEG api.
Welcome to Amiga.org Yomgui! It used to be a very friendly and positive place to hang out, but there are a few members that now feel that they need to crap in almost every thread with their negative opinions and random facts thrown in to make them feel smart, or important.
Congratulations on your latest work on the FW stack. It is a valuable software work that will be used by many users, like myself.
I look forward to your next project.
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Yes, that is true! ;-)
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Firewire may be of questionable value now but was, and likely still is, a much better connectivity system than USB. It has far lower overhead than USB, especially at high transfer rates. Bit of a shame it didn't win the race.
USB may be ubiquitous and devices cheap, but technically, it is a bag of arse for high throughput data transfer.