[Ardour-Dev] Funding: Build and Sell Hardware

[John Rigg]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 09:45:03PM +0100, Paul Davis wrote:
> > The way things are going, only the low end of the market (ie. people
> > who don't use DAWs) will be using PCI/PCIe cards with built in
> > converters before long.
> > 
> > For low channel counts (8 or less) firewire is taking over.
> 
> You must have missed apple's recent announcement :)

I did miss it :-)

> Its unclear what will happen to firewire now that they have dropped it
> from their most accessible laptops. It may make little difference, it
> may make all the difference in the world.

I was thinking of devices like the Prism Orpheus at the high end and some
of the Presonus stuff at the more affordable end. I'd imagine people who
have just invested in an Orpheus might be a little worried if firewire
is about to become obsolete (fortunately I'm not rich enough to be among
them ;-)

> > For higher channel counts everyone will be using digital
> > interface cards and external converters. It's already happening.
> 
> the question is still how the data gets from the external i/o box into
> the computer: PCI and its derivatives, firewire or something else?

Perhaps the days of the general purpose computer as a recording
device are numbered, at least for pro work. Maybe embedded devices
are the way to go. Linux is already making inroads in the digital
mixing console market (eg. Midas XL8 and PRO6). AES50/SuperMAC/HyperMAC
interfaces are increasingly common at that level.

John