Ramifications of new Thunderbolt announcement

[dehuszar]

Hi all,

Just saw this article get posted about the next versions of Thunderbolt using the USB-C transport.

Given that folks are using ExpressCard to Thunderbolt adapters to connect XITE cards to their laptops, what's everyone's over-under that XITE might be able to make the leap as well, perhaps via similar adapters?

[jksuperstar]

The announcement suggests support for PCIe 3 is included, which also implies a similar adapter (USB-C/Thunderbolt3 <-> ExpressCard or PCIe slot) would work for the XITE.

[dehuszar]

<schwing>

Better start saving my pennies.

[Sounddesigner]

Keep in mind there is still laptops being made with Expresscard and I'm sure this will be the case for quite some time. I don't know why many consumers overlook it for the 'new' it's been the superior laptop protocol for dedicated dsp for a long long time now and still is. Nothing outperforms Expresscard and I'm sure Dell and other companies are aware of this fact that's why they sell laptops with Expresscard slots. Sometime that wich works has already been among us but companies like Apple love to sell consumers 'The New' because of their 'Planned Obsolence' model. New isn't always better just often more profitable.

Universal Audio jumped into the Thunderbolt arena 3 and a half years ago with Apollo and because they chose the bleeding edge their Windows userbase have been unable to use it all this time. The UAD Apollo Windows users have to use the inferior firewire every since Apollo was released and still do because UA chose a bleeding edge format that was not mature, and still is not mature after 3 and a half years. Meanwhile SCOPE XITE-1 users have been enjoying the 2 top performance protocols for 6 years now cause Sonic Core made the smart decision of using the dual protocol approach of Expresscard and PCIe and stayed away from Firewire/Thunderbolt/USB/etc. Expresscard was the right choice for S|C and still is. Expresscard might not be as ubiquitis as some other protocols but chasing 'ubiquity' and 'the new/latest-and-greatest' is what gets companies and users into trouble some time. Consumers are always chasing the 'latest and greatest' and 'ubiquity' wich sometimes is just popularity-contest-winners, thus we end up buying more than what is needed or buying what truly is not better. The latest can easily become the late. In the old days there often was no ubiquity (endless choices) when specific audio hardware needed purchasing, repair, and or parts there was just a few select places to go to and sometimes ONLY the manufacterur but that was what worked. Endless laptop choices imo aren't needed tho such does add comfort. JMHV and 2 cents on the matter YMMV.

[dehuszar]

Are there any that have touch screens, are light weight, and can flip around like the Lenovo Yogas?

...because that's what I need.

[Sounddesigner]

Are there any that have touch screens, are light weight, and can flip around like the Lenovo Yogas?

...because that's what I need.

For your specific needs I wouldn't know personally. But there are quite a few Expresscard laptop companies worth investigating including the one you mentioned lenova. Your specific needs may only get met after the wide adoption of Thunderbolt (if wide adoption occurs) I don't know but there are a few Expresscard companies worth investigating in the meantime. If need be you can start a thread in the XITE-1 forum to round up a list of all known Expresscard laptop dealers.

[dehuszar]

I hear what you're saying, but it sounds like USB-C might finally have the bandwidth that SFP needs in a common ubiquitous port. This remains to be seen, but 40Gb/s is nothing to shake a stick at.

I don't actually think that many laptop's at all have USB-C yet, but they most invariably will by Christmas time.

[Sounddesigner]

I hear what you're saying, but it sounds like USB-C might finally have the bandwidth that SFP needs in a common ubiquitous port. This remains to be seen, but 40Gb/s is nothing to shake a stick at.

I don't actually think that many laptop's at all have USB-C yet, but they most invariably will by Christmas time.

I'm all for it if It works properly and do deliver top performance with regards to bandwidth as you say. But I truly want both Expresscard and Thunderbolt 3/USB-C to be available. USB-C alone may have a longer Round-Trip-Latency than Expresscard as USB protocol tends to demand historically speaking so some of us would still prefer Expresscard cause our Native plugins may benefit more from Expresscard/PCIe. But the USB-C-only (that wich excludes Thunderbolt) option would be nice as well for those who prefer it. I'm curious how Thunderbolt 3 RTL will be threw USB-C as well to see how good that option is. I see they conformed Thunderbolt 3's hardware connector to that of USB-C to try and get it more wide spread acceptance, I'm for it if it works simply cause I know it'll keep more XITE-1 users satisfied but in the end if the top performance isn't on all fronts then I personally would likely still prefer Expresscard.




EDITED: I meant USB-C not USB-3, sorry. Too many different protocols are confusing me.

[garyb]

I hear what you're saying, but it sounds like USB-C might finally have the bandwidth that SFP needs in a common ubiquitous port. This remains to be seen, but 40Gb/s is nothing to shake a stick at.

I don't actually think that many laptop's at all have USB-C yet, but they most invariably will by Christmas time.

it's not just bandwidth. it's also timing. USB sucks for Scope because of the way it works. thunderbolt has BOTH USB and PCIe. this is not new. Expresscard has always carried both formats.

[tlaskows]

I used to have an USB 2.0 sound card and it could go low (128 samples)... But I know that it's a different scenario for Xite-1.

-Tom

[Sounddesigner]

I used to have an USB 2.0 sound card and it could go low (128 samples)... But I know that it's a different scenario for Xite-1.

-Tom

128 is higher than what the best PCIe cards can do. Some PCIe can go to 16 samples but usually the lowest is 32 samples with less RTL. RME are better than most if not all with getting the most out of firewire and USB for they are masters with Firewire and USB and tend to get their latency very low and close to PCIe but the PCIe is still king. For Tracking one wants less latency as possible some won't even touch digital computers or dsp-platforms for Tracking and will stick with Analog consols (like Bob Olhson). "Less is best" when dealing with latency with Native systems since it's a cumulative-latency-environment, thus you want robust protocol and robust drivers that operate at the lowest latency in a strong way cause additional latency is always comming. Even 32 samples can mean two different things with two different engineer's systems due to hidden safety buffer latency, plugin latency, different distances from microphones or monitors, etc that are in addition to that 32 samples input latency plus there is still converter latency and output latency as well as the playback project wich can drive up buffer-sizes when more is added to it. The Round Trip Latency for two 32 samples systems can be significantly different and that's if both can stay at that buffer-size and not have the increase in project size drive it higher.


EDITED

[tlaskows]

Yep,

I was talking on UA forums and someone said their old RME card can do 32 samples. My Scope PCI can only go to about 128.

-Tom

[Sounddesigner]

Yep,

I was talking on UA forums and someone said their old RME card can do 32 samples. My Scope PCI can only go to about 128.

-Tom

If you monitor threw SCOPE's dsp environment it gets lower latency than RME. RME's 32 samples is about 3.5ms Round Trip IIRC but SCOPE PCI is only 1.5ms Round Trip since it does not have Asio and safety buffer latency like RME threw Native. Plus SCOPE's 1.5ms at 44khz is guaranteed to be there all threw-out all stages of music production but RME and other Native-based systems are cumulative-latency-systems wich buffer-sizes tend to increase at some point. RME does have a dsp-enviroment on their interfaces as well wich gets extremely low latency like SCOPE but the environment is extremely weak when compared to SCOPE when looking at functionality and plugins. For Tracking one will most likely want SCOPE, Soundscape/MX4, Waves SoundGrid, UA Apollo, Pro tools HDX, Pyramix Masscore, Metric Halo, etc cause they will have more desired plugins and usually more functionality and usually more complete enviroment than Native interfaces like RME, MOTU, etc that have dsp enviroments.

[tlaskows]

Yes,

I know that Scope is realtime, but I don't use it like that. I run Scope devices thru ASIO into Sonar... Then record/apply effects in Sonar.

-Tom

[Sounddesigner]

Are there any that have touch screens, are light weight, and can flip around like the Lenovo Yogas?

...because that's what I need.

Getac seems to have exactly what you're looking for. Their V110 appears to be extremely lightweight, Touchscreen and flips around like you want . All of their Laptops use Expresscard - http://us.getac.com/notebooks/V110/features.html

[Sounddesigner]

Are there any that have touch screens, are light weight, and can flip around like the Lenovo Yogas?

...because that's what I need.

Getac seems to have exactly what you're looking for . Their V110 appears to be extremely lightweight, Touchscreen and flips around like you want . All of their Laptops use Expresscard - http://us.getac.com/notebooks/V110/features.html

[siriusbliss]

Thunderbolt IS PCIe (and carries other protocols).
It's just a consolidated interface that can ALSO handle future generation faster protocols.


G

[dawman]

Getac's are the only game in town since Panasonic dropped their Military line.
Bad Ass Laptop's just wish they'd speed them up to 3.5GHz so I could run Omnishpere @ and Zebra2 HZ....

[Bud Weiser]

Getac's are the only game in town since Panasonic dropped their Military line.
Bad Ass Laptop's just wish they'd speed them up to 3.5GHz so I could run Omnishpere @ and Zebra2 HZ....

Yes, I also found out they are pretty slow, especially the models available in germany.
1.9, 2.1 and 2.4 GHz isn´t much for a dual core Intel i5 or i7 proc w/ 3-4MB cache only,- and they cost a kingdom here.
Otherwise they look fantastic and have cool specs.

Bud

[Sounddesigner]

Getac's are the only game in town since Panasonic dropped their Military line.
Bad Ass Laptop's just wish they'd speed them up to 3.5GHz so I could run Omnishpere @ and Zebra2 HZ....

Yea, the fastest laptop Getac has is a 2.9ghz dual core. True laptops don't run that fast. All of the ones listed at 3.5ghz and 4ghz are hybrids wich are laptops with desktop processors. ADK, StudioCat, etc sell those hybrid solutions but some of the larger more common companies seem to sell only true-laptops, wich will never be close to the power of desktop counterparts.

Thank goodness for Dell wich have Quad-core laptops that run at 3.1ghz and Quads at 2.9ghz wich use Expresscard and are pretty rugged from what I'm told. The DELL Precision M6800's are customizable thus you can choose wich processor you want and their top 2 processors are pretty fast. Don't know if they'll meet your needs but the top 2 go from 2.9ghz with 3.9ghz turbomode to 3.1ghz with 4.0ghz turbomode, both Quads and of course Expresscard compatibility - http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/ ... vw=classic