The peripherals just haven’t materialised as quickly as many had expected, and unless you want to drop $US1000 on an Apple Cinema Display, even getting something as simple as a hub is an exercise in futility.
But! There is hope, trapped behind glass at this week’s Intel Developer’s Forum. While we were unable to set these enticing new Thunderbolt devices free to roam the world and bring 10Gbps of full duplex bandwidth per channel to the nerd masses, we did capture them on camera so you can dream of a day when you can actually order one of them.
Blackmagic Intensity Extreme
Forget the Mountain Dew-fuelled name for a moment; Blackmagic’s Intensity Extreme is the world’s first 10-bit HD/SD editing solution with Thunderbolt speed. Get high quality HDMI, s-video, and composite 10 bit capture and playback. All of which sounds awesome — until you realise they’re charging a $US100 premium over their PCIe card with the same features.
Cost: $299
Shipping: Q4 2011
Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D
If you’re working on the next Avatar-inspired 3D film, besides checking the “piss off Roger Ebert” box on your bucket list you’ll probably want to take a look at the Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D. The Thunderbolt-enabled video-capture device accepts SD, HD, and 2K capture and playback, and supports two simultaneous full resolution 1080p HD streams for stereoscopic 3D video.
Cost: $995
Shipping: Available now in limited quantities.
Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock
I know, we talked about this yesterday. But of all the Thunderbolt peripherals out there, this is the one I need right now. Turn your one Thunderbolt port into three USB ports, a Firewire 800 port, a gigabit ethernet, and, yes, another Thunderbolt port so that you can daisy-chain the Thunderbolt items you’ll eventually be able to buy.
Cost: TBD
Shipping: 2012
Sonnet Echo Express PCIe Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis
Suck it Mac Pro. Now I can add PCIe cards to my Thunderbolt-enabled MacBook Air. Capture cards, video cards, 8Gb Fibre channel cards, RAID controllers, they can all be attached to my micro-machine — and I can still fit my laptop in my backpack.
Cost: TBD
Shipping: TBD
AJA IO XT
Look at that, another video solution. The speed of Thunderbolt gets video production folks all weak in the knees, and the AJA IO XT is another tantalising video capture and playback solution. Single and dual ink SDI support, HDMI input and output, two 3G/HD/SD inputs and outputs, the list goes on and on. Let’s just say that if your business is show business, the Thunderbolt port is your new best friend.
Cost: $US1495
Shipping: Q4 2011
Thunderbolt Cable
Hey you need cables right? Apple tends to put a premium on their cables. White is a very expensive and difficult colour to work with — just ask white iPhone 4 owners. SO it’s a relief that Intel tells us we should start seeing non-Apple Thunderbolt cables in the next couple of weeks.
Cost: Cheaper than Apple
Shipping: Soon
Tracius
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 12:08 PMSo absolutely nothing compelling to the average consumer.
Adam
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 12:28 PMYeah.. why does this matter?
jeremy
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 1:00 PMThis matters for the same reason USB and firewire mattered – it make devices more easily expandable. A true universal “dock” for laptops and tablets.
Drew
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 2:20 PMWhat’s wrong with universal USB port replicators? Are they not universal enough for you?
MotorMouth
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 4:26 PMBut FireWire never mattered and neither does this. Why wait when you can go out and buy a USB 3.0 drive enclosure right now for $20, slot in a fast SSD and get RAID-like performance on a tiny budget? Just as USB 2.0 rendered FireWire pointless, USB 3.0 makes this largely irrelevant. The only really good use of it I have seen so far is Sony’s new Z Series laptop, which uses it to interface the ultra-slim notebook with a dock that holds the Radeon graphics and Blu-Ray player.
Sally
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 1:35 PMCan’t wait till these come out, esp the port Belkin port expander, I need that right now.
Andrew
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 1:58 PMIts fun that the most compelling thunderbolt periferal is the one that replaces it with other more useful ports.
Big Windows
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 2:28 PMIs this just about speed… Is USB 3 as quick or will future USB specifications be as quick?
The Pedant
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 4:29 PMIt’s not just about speed, but latency. It’s basically like having external PCIe cards.
USB is great for some things, but there’s a reason that Firewire has held on in the pro audio and video markets for so long, and Thunderbolt only improves on that. It’s fast, sure, but it hooks directly into the bus on systems in a way that USB never could. Thunderbolt can get video frames to the CPU and get back out again before USB has even finished negotiating when the bus is free to send.
Big Windows
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 5:13 PMWhy is it that USB cannot do the same thing. Is the USB controller a sort of road block?
MotorMouth
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 4:29 PMUSB 3.0 is probably close. It is certainly as fast as you could possibly need, in that your devices will max-out their bandwidth before USB 3.0 does. I did some tests while copying stuff between the old and new machines. Basically, it read and wrote about 8 times faster than USB 2.0 and about 1.5 times faster than eSATA (although that was a slower drive).
yrrnn
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 7:18 PMI really really want to see Thunderbolt succeed and take over USB as the standard port. Hopefully it’s just a matter of time. Intel need to get their act together and push this more.
Adam
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 9:37 PMAbsolutely none of this is telling me why “Thunderbolt’s gonna matter real soon”. Geez, this site used to be good. What’s happened?