While I agree with the spirit of your rant, in my opinion, you're thinking way too low-level. Every time we design another way of transmitting roughly the same signals we're wasting time. There is an excellent interface standard that's already being used for A/V: SCSI.
``Probably, from an objective viewpoint (in the way that FireWire is "better" than USB). Does it actually offer the consumer anything more?''
First, FireWire is a subset of the IEEE1394 standard, which is a PHY for SCSI. Second, IEEE1394 supports a load of link types, from 100 mbit/s on copper to 3.2gbit/s on optical fibre. Third, it's in active development and expected to replace both Ethernet, Fibre Channel (usable as a SCSI PHY) SAS (another SCSI PHY) in the future; it has obsolescensed the popular SCSI Parallel Interface already.
Also, since it's SCSI, it's possible to work without a host bus. For example: if a digital camera supports the SBC (SCSI Block Command Set) and/or RBC (SCSI Reduced Block Command Set) sub-standards and knows a bit about common file systems, it can write directly to an attached hard drive. If a SCSI Display Command Set is developed, the same displays will be able to be used for DVD players (yuck, but a consumer favorite it seems), signal receivers, digital camera's (still or motion), Personal Computers (IBM-compatible and otherwise), and UNIX workstations. It will unify the display market.
Register
RE: Backward steps
While I agree with the spirit of your rant, in my opinion, you're thinking way too low-level. Every time we design another way of transmitting roughly the same signals we're wasting time. There is an excellent interface standard that's already being used for A/V: SCSI.
``Probably, from an objective viewpoint (in the way that FireWire is "better" than USB). Does it actually offer the consumer anything more?''
First, FireWire is a subset of the IEEE1394 standard, which is a PHY for SCSI. Second, IEEE1394 supports a load of link types, from 100 mbit/s on copper to 3.2gbit/s on optical fibre. Third, it's in active development and expected to replace both Ethernet, Fibre Channel (usable as a SCSI PHY) SAS (another SCSI PHY) in the future; it has obsolescensed the popular SCSI Parallel Interface already.
Also, since it's SCSI, it's possible to work without a host bus. For example: if a digital camera supports the SBC (SCSI Block Command Set) and/or RBC (SCSI Reduced Block Command Set) sub-standards and knows a bit about common file systems, it can write directly to an attached hard drive. If a SCSI Display Command Set is developed, the same displays will be able to be used for DVD players (yuck, but a consumer favorite it seems), signal receivers, digital camera's (still or motion), Personal Computers (IBM-compatible and otherwise), and UNIX workstations. It will unify the display market.