FireWire camera

FireWire cameras use the IEEE 1394 bus standard for the transmission of audio, video and control data.

A special form of video cameras is used in the domains of industry, medicine, astronomy, microscopy and science.

With the exception of the standard C-mount and CS-mount, the mounts of interchangeable optics are company-specific.

In the case of photo cameras, single images may be output and, if applicable, voice comments as files.

The application domains of industry, medicine, astronomy, microscopy and science often use special monochrome cameras.

They forgo any signal enhancement and thus output the digital image data in its raw state.

Some special models of color cameras are only capable of outputting raw digital image data.

The enhancement of the raw digital data takes place outside the camera on a computer and therefore the user is able to adapt it to a particular application.

It is based on the IEEE 1283 standard, defined by the organization "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers".

This standard defines a bus, which transmits: It allows the simultaneous use of up to 74 different devices (cameras, scanners, video recorders, hard disks, DVD drives, etc.).

In this mode, the camera behaves as an external hard disk and thus enables the simple exchange of image files with a computer (please cf.

It defines the flow of audio and video data, as well as the camera's control signals.

In the domains of industry, medicine, astronomy, microscopy and science FireWire cameras are often used not for aesthetic, but rather for analytical purposes.

Since this solution utilizes the computing resources in a very efficient manner, it is still used in the context of highly specialized, industrial projects.

The low level drivers and the interface boards put the definitions of the standard IEEE 1394 into effect.

The advantage of this strategy is the simple realization of application software, which is independent of hardware and specific manufacturers.

There are two basic approaches to do this: Many aspects of system integration are not directly related to FireWire cameras.

However, in the context of the realization of application software, there is a special feature, which is typical for FireWire cameras.

By leaving the realization of the protocol to the operating system, and by enabling access to a set of APIs, software can be developed independently from hardware.

Exchanging data with computers), it can access all FireWire cameras that use the protocol DCAM (IIDC).

Using the API unicap additionally permits access to other video sources, such as frame grabbers.