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The Home Network Concept
<The Home Network is an Extension of the Home electronic device Interface>
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Many people work hard, but are they not a little bit lazier when they get home? Too lazy to get something from the next room, there are many who would like to be able to get things while they stay in put in one place.
It is the same with home electronic device. With the advent of MP3 technology, once you've become used to recording everything into the computer after buying a CD, it becomes tiresome to look for CD's at home or to switch CD's on a CD player.
You'll then want to hear that recorded MP3 in another part of the house, with the same single click. There must be many of those who would like to connect their PC with an audio deck in another room.
In a home, the home electronic device is the main character.
At home, the starting point of all thought is at the home electronic device, and to connect 2 devices together, interface specification is important. (This connecting of the two is the most important so the thought of a "network" really doesn't arise at this point.)
A more natural way of thinking about it is that the home network is a collective of these interfaces, and something that is built as a result.
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<1394 Is a Useful Interface>
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We use home electronic devices daily as a given, but they can be fairly tedious to set up.
When an appliance is first bought, we try very hard the first time to connect it ? but after moving to a new place, doesn't it get a little tiring to hook everything up again?
As explained in the introduction of the 1394, when connecting a TV, two video decks and a stereo, there is a lot of wiring to be done. Why is it that such an obvious feature, such as a single-plug-in-to-connect feature is not used between multiple appliances? Though it is very "possible" in the current analog set up, it has simply become something that we "don't" do.
1394 says that we should clarify these inconveniences, to actively interconnect appliances to use units mutually.
Up to 63 units can be connected, and it is an interface that connects just by plugging in, making it possible to interconnect everything in the room, and will probably even extend outside.
At this point, it can be considered already to be a home network.
In other words, in a home network, the structure of the "network" is not important it should be built without the conscious effort by the user. This being possible is important for it to be accepted by a multitude of users.
This is the "Network as a result" mentioned earlier, and with the 1394 home electronic device coming into widespread use, the 1394 home network is an obvious conclusion.
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<400Mbps is the Adequate Required Specification>
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The home network in IEEE1394 belongs to the field of multimedia and/or audio/video systems.
This network uses a large amount of visual data, requiring a large transmission capacity.
For example, imagine there are 4 people in a house doing something in individual rooms.
The father is processing pictures on the PC, getting data from the common family storage on the first floor.
The mother is watching TV on the first floor.
The son is playing games in his room, and the daughter is watching a DVD and listening to music.
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The son is playing games in his room, and the daughter is watching a DVD and listening to music.
The bandwidth used in this situation would be roughly 100Mbps. Just with the things we can think of now we use nearly 100Mbps, so it is probably smart to have greater capacity ready for the future. However, having too much capacity will raise the cost of the home electronic device, making it difficult to be accepted by the consumer. It can also be considered that the needs will be limited by the number of rooms and people in a typical house. Therefore, the best range of bandwidth required for a home would be around 400Mbps, and a S400 of 1394 is thought to be the best solution for the backbone.
Also, to acquire a larger transmission capacity for the whole house without changing the interface specifications of the home electronic devices, it is also possible to divide the house into a number of blocks, and make them independent networks to be bridged by a server.
5 years from now, the kitchen of a newly built home will look like this?
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