Building Your Encoding Hardware - A Practical Guide to Video and Audio Compression - page 470

tests. If you go to the end of the circuit and join it to a cable that seems to be faulty, test
it from the other end to see if you get a satisfactory signal. You also gain a spare circuit,
which is helpful when you need to mount a new service quickly. Part of the diagnostic
process is to eliminate a bad wire. Substitute a known good circuit for a suspected faulty
circuit in order to isolate the problem.

29.16 FireWire Interfaces

FireWire carries DV video and multi-channel audio, and it also connects hard disks to
your computer using dual twisted pair cabling. It is a very versatile and powerful periph-
eral connection system, also known as IEEE 1394 and iLink. Refer to the 1394 Trade
Association's web site for more details.

29.16.1 Connectivity

The 6-pin connector supplies bus power and the smaller 4-pin connector does not. There
are variants of the connectors for use on proprietary equipment.

Buy some cheap FireWire disks for storing completed projects on. That way
you can remount the project again very quickly. Disks with capacities of less
than 40 GB are very cheap.

You can get patch bays for FireWire, which allow you to rack-mount a lot of FireWire
equipment and bring the connectivity out to the front of the rack. ADC makes a useful
product for this market, as shown in Figure 29-9.

Figure 29-9 ADC FireWire patch panel. Source: courtesy of ADC Telecommunications.

1394 Trade Association: http://www.1394ta.org/