800 Mb/s FireWire-Over-Cat5e Repeater

Point Grey Research announced at the Vision 2008 the addition of the LDR (Long Distance Repeater) to its FirePro family of professional IEEE 1394b components. The FirePro LDR is a compact and cost effective solution for applications that require multiple IEEE 1394 devices to be extended beyond the standard 4.5 m cable length.

Using a Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) physical layer to transport FireWire data using GigE signalling, the FirePro LDR can transmit and receive IEEE 1394b 800 Mb/s data in real-time over 100 m of standard Category 5e (Cat5e) cable. This allows users to construct a dependable, high-speed FireWire-based network of multiple cameras that is physically separated by up to 100 m from the host system.