(Page 1 of 1 pages for this article )

Thursday, October 02, 2008

4-Pin Firewire:  What Were They Thinking?

The Most Fragile Connector Of All Time

I’m a calm man.  I really am, ask anybody.  I never get worked up about anything.  But once in a while, annoyances mount to the point where even Mr. Frosty can get a little miffed.

I saw my first Firewire connectors about ten years ago, when I bought a Canon XL1.  The tiny size of the 4-pin connector amazed me - how could this little jack, plug & cable throw around enough data to make video?  Hey, it’s all magic to me; then as now, I’m thrilled when it works.  But even back then it looked rather fragile.  So, I babied my Firewire jacks, to the extent possible.  The six-pin jacks are quite sturdy affairs; while breakable, you really have to screw up bad to hurt them.  But the 4-pins?  If you sneeze towards them you are at risk.

Why this rant now?  Well, in the last couple of months I have been party to the destruction of not one, not two, but three of the little buggers.  I didn’t do it myself, but through carelessness or something two jacks and a cable have bent or lost pins.  “Big deal,” you can say, “just get replacements.” Oh, but that is where it gets interesting.

One of the busted jacks is on a Sony HVR-M15AU, an HDV deck currently on sale for right around $2k.  I use it for ingesting tapes in my office at work.  It also gets loaned out to the engineering department when they need to work with HDV tapes. After one such loan, the deck started acting, well, dead.  It lit up and ran, but no connection through the Firewire port.  So I removed my glasses, snuggled up my eyeball to the back panel, and lo and behold, the third pin was absent. 

We have a pretty competent maintenance staff, so I requested the jack be replaced.  Several weeks later, the maintenance supervisor tells me that Sony says that part is no longer available.  What?  The deck is still on sale!

This dance is still going on, but what kills me is that this is all so unnecessary.  Couldn’t Sony, or the IEEE, or SOMEONE have seen that this little plug was a disaster waiting to happen?  Or maybe someone could come up with a retrofit kit to a 6-pin Firewire plug.  Hell, I’d buy four today!

Of course, I suppose it could be worse - we could be reliant on miniUSB.  Who thinks up this stuff?  Munchkins?

(Page 1 of 1 pages for this article )

JVC used to have 4 pin connectors and cables that had screw together cowlings. Seems like a great solution to the 4 pin connector, except that the cowling makes the head of the cable almost as large as a 6 pin connector.

Posted by DanConklin  on  10/03  at  07:27 AM

---

As an electronics engineer I have designed equipment for several companies. We’re talking expensive professional gear, not consumer throw-away stuff. When we pick parts we ask for assurances as to how long they well be manufactured. We also made sure we had multiple manufacturers for most everything.

We ourselves guaranteed parts and repair for five years after we stop making the equipment. Several times we did get caught up by single-source manufactures that stopped making a part. They always gave us warning and the opportunity to buy a final “lifetime” supply of the part, which we did.

I ask the same of any company I buy professional equipment from. So if everyone made that same requirement for their professional gear, and NEVER bough from a company again that violated that rule, even Sony would make sure replacement parts were available. And they would have to charge more for the equipment to make that guarantee.

In Sony’s defense I have to say that a $2k tape deck does not sound like professional level and anything with a 4-pin Firewire plug doesn’t qualify in my book either.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Peace,

Rob:-]

Posted by Rob  on  10/03  at  09:30 AM

---

For HDV $2k is a professional price point. Sony and Panasonic both make cameras over $50k that use these annoying 4 pin firewire cables. For prolevel gear I wish they would use just 6pin firewire cables!

Cheers
Robert C. Fisher

Posted by RC Fisher  on  10/04  at  10:57 AM

---

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below: