USB and Firewire vs. Network Card?

Yes: The user. He or she doesn't care about all that. Heck they may not even know what an Ethernet is. Something with ether in there, maybe...

They want to be able to plug it in without having to buy any additional hardware, without needing a Ph.D. in computer science, and fast. So if they all have PCs or laptops my guess would be USB is the ticket. If it's an office environment like mine here, I am always glad when something has an Ethernet port because I can create any number of those on the LAN while USB gets clumsy with all the cabling.

Yes, latency. Bit rate means very little in real world.

Even 100M ethernet beats 480M USB for real data transfer.

I think it would - a lot. The only advantage USB has over the RJ45 is the power sourcing capability. The advantages of making a camera or whatever being yet another IP address node are obvious.

Dimiter

------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff Transgalactic Instruments

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snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Probably.

If you look at home studio audio interfaces there are USB ones that can do up to two, maybe four channels while firewire ones can do 18 or so. I never bothered to figure out why but the fact remains.

For the manufacturer USB is simpler/cheaper to implement than ethernet (read internet). I don't know anything about firewire, but I guess it is closer to USB than to ethernet.

There is also the plug 'n' play side of the story. As far as I know there is not yet a pnp protocol for ethernet capable devices (not counting router protocols and stuff) as there is for USB & firewire.

--DF

Depends on your target audience. If your device is to be used by computer experts, then ethernet is the way to go. If not, use something plug&play like USB or firewire. Computers are more likely to have strict firewalls installed these days. Connecting an ethernet device and access it from a computer is not so trivial as it used to be.

Does it really? How? I would have expected overhead from the packets would have given ethernet a disadvantage.

If you are satisfied with raw ethernet, that might be the way to go. Otherwise, the IP protocol stack and the TCP/UDP on top of that will add overhead to the ethernet option.

Besides, advertising a DVD player with a network output might cause the motion picture industry to throw a fit.