The system is commonly used for connection of
data storage devices and
DV (digital video) cameras, but is also popular in industrial systems for
machine vision and professional audio systems. It is preferred over the more common USB for its greater effective speed and power distribution capabilities, and because it does not need a computer host. Perhaps more importantly, FireWire makes full use of all SCSI capabilities and, compared to USB 2.0 Hi-Speed, has higher sustained data transfer rates, especially on Apple Mac OS X (with more varied results on Windows, presumably since USB2 is Intel's answer to FireWire on Windows machines), a feature especially important for audio and video editors.