MESSE06: DICE II Chip Beefs-up Firewire

US 64 outs, 32 in OK for you? And more.. 10/04/06

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8:40 mins

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Most of us take for granted whatâ€™s happening behind the scenes and under the covers of our gear, it might be worth taking note at this point though â€“ thereâ€™s a new move afoot to take the FireWire protocol and push it right at the forefront of audio technology for live, studio and even home networking. Whoopee, another FireWire chip. No, but really, this new chipset spawned from TC Electronic technology,championed by off-shoot company TC Applied Technology and distributed by Wavefront Semiconductor (got that?), is beginning to take hold. The capabilities it offers are proving to be attractive to companies who want to make use of the actual networking potential of the Firewire protol. With new releases from Presonus, TC Electronic, Alesis and Solid State Logic utilizing the DICE II chipset for their FireWire devices, momentum is gathering. So, what makes this any different to any of the rest?

Up to 64 outputs and 32 inputs guaranteed in hardware â€“ not dependent on host power
Jet PLL super stable clock for optimum audio performance
On-board DSP for running powered plug-ins or mixing functions
FireWire to CAT6 bridging for true audio networking of up to 192 input channels and virtually unlimited outputs
MIDI, ADAT, AES,S-Pdif, DSP and TDM interfaces as standard

These guys are also working hard to create a new independent organization to standardize the FireWire protocol and make it an open source for all to develop for. In the video, we speak at length to VP of Engineering Steven Saffer on the potential of this new chipset to deliver the power behind a whole host of new audio interfaces.