Light Peak technology

[Markus Kuballa]

I just found this clip on YouTube and it looks like it could finally give an answer to how flexible or lightweight a BNC cable can be. I'd still prefer going wireless but if not this shouldn't offset any balance on the sled. What do you guys think?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izNoF1SWtSg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[William Demeritt]

I just found this clip on YouTube and it looks like it could finally give an answer to how flexible or lightweight a BNC cable can be.

 

While it definitely goes beyond the needs of HD-SDI and could certainly carry the signal from camera out (curious to hear about it's duplex capabilities), I think it has a few factors going against it. Fiber optics and fiber technology, while flexible, doesn't usually appreciate extreme bending, standing on, etc. Anytime someone steps on the cable, they could split the optic line and potentially destroy the cable.

 

Personally, when it comes to operating with an HD-SDI cable, I have a few of these in my kit, and they haven't let me down yet:

 

http://www.sjmediasystem.com/mb-mbf-6.html

 

Extremely thin, female on one end. I'm not fond of the crimping job, but they get the job done.

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

Thunderbolt (Lightpeaks new name) is using copper only, no fiber

[William Demeritt]

From what I've read, the copper Thunderbolt cables have an inherent limitation of 3 meters, whereas the optic fiber enabled Thunderbolt cables have a 100 meter max run. I think maybe a use could emerge with more development, but for now, a 3m max length on copper cables would be prohibitive for our uses?

[Alan Rencher]

It seems like Apple gimped the technology to get it out of the door quickly to compete with USB 3.0. For one, they're not using those "tiny" connectors, they're using mini display port (which isn't as small as something like s/pdif that uses optical), and They're starting off with copper, so this whole backwards compatibility thing is questionable. Even if they just add optical into the display port to save legacy devices, we would still be stuck with that same connector. Although I must say that I was impressed by some of the early thunderbolt demos.

 

If they can implement the optical version of thunderbolt in the next couple of years, I would be very happy to see a thunderbolt / SDI hybrid connector... I can dream, can't I?

[Sydney Seeber]

It seems like Apple gimped the technology to get it out of the door quickly to compete with USB 3.0. For one, they're not using those "tiny" connectors, they're using mini display port (which isn't as small as something like s/pdif that uses optical)

While the thunderbolt may use a displayport there, that particular setup is designed so they could attach displays, but that's not all the thunderbolt can be used for. Intel wanted a next gen all-in-wonder solution to connect everything to one port and the thunderbolt is what they're offering. It's PCI-E and will be compatible with (I think) every I/O on the market to include USB and firewire. It's not just the cable and it eliminates much of the bottlenecks associated with the other ports when connected directly and not through a firewire or USB adaptor. It can send power as well, so conceivably some computers out there will ship with one port for everything, monitor, I/O, etc. I can totally see Apple doing that for their lower end devices as they sort of already do, even with their desktop. Here's hoping they don't remove the already small amount of ports on the Macbook Pros. For someone like me with a heavy post production background, the thunderbolt is freakin' great. Presently it's nearly impossible to edit much more than DVCPRO HD on a laptop without using proxies. This tech essentially eliminates much the bottlenecks associated with doing so.