Sound at the Speed of Light: The Future is "Light Peak"

In the world of data transfer cables there's about to be a new kid in town, and it's name is "Light Peak."

Forget USB 3.0 or Firewire 800, or even eSATA. This thing has the potential to blow things wide open. It is set to replace all of them and more.

Light Peak is expected to hit the street later this year. And when it does it will be able to transfer data at 10 Gbps.

According to Wikipedia:

Light Peak is Intel's code-name for a new high-speed optical cable technology designed to connect electronic devices to each other in a peripheral bus. It has the capability to deliver high bandwidth, starting at 10 Gbps, with the potential ability to scale to 100 Gbps. It is intended as a single universal replacement for current buses such as SCSI, SATA, USB, FireWire, and HDMI. In comparison to these buses, Light Peak is much faster, longer ranged, smaller, and more flexible in terms of protocol support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak

Think about that. A "universal replacement" for all of our current standard cables. That is a bold statement. And it leads to limitless possibilities.

Let's look at the video industry.

Imagine only needing to stock one kind of cable. In the near future there could no longer be a need to stock S-video, composite, component, and HDMI cables. The signal chain could be one long series of connected Light Peak cables. No need to convert and deconvert within the signal chain, just at the final output.

Then there's the file storage side of video production. Imagine being about to have your storage disks (or even PC) in another room and not having to worry about latency. This would be great for people that do narration or ADR work in a small studio. They could easily (and economically) eliminate the computer noise by placing the computer in another room.

Event Support

What about the transfer of graphics output from a PC to a projector. The cable runs are at least 30 meters with the current prototype. Who knows how long you could run a signal with a little amplification. This could have huge implications for arena size intallations or event production in general.


A/V Installation

Along the same lines, what about new computer interfaces that allow the PC to connect to the projectors over Light Peak. (Of course manufacturers like Extron would have to lead the way.) Video conference systems that used Light Peak to send video to multiple displays. Or even HDTV sent from control rooms to installed displays all around a building or even campus.

Sound Reinforcement

What if someone designed an audio system that took advantage of the technology. It could replace the standard audio cables or even twisted pair solutions. Imagine your system's audio traveling huge distances with practically no delay. Literally at the speed of light. Wouldn't Einstein be impressed? Who says you can't change the laws of physics?

Industry Acceptance

Of course all of this will rely on manufacturers creating new interfaces to leverage the cababilities of Light Peak. It will require that the equipment makers included Light Peak ports on their cameras, hard drives, etc. It will also take software companies to incorporate it into new versions of the standard tools. Plus, there will have to be drivers written to allow hardware like video cameras, hard drives, audio interfaces, displays, etc to connect to computers using this new cable.

At this point, the possiblities are endless. It remains to be seen if the technology will be accepted. With all the different formats that it attempting to replace, this could end up being another format war. However, just for the moment, it creates a clean slate for the industry and encourages the blue sky theorizing that could some day lead to sound at the speed of light.

-ARK