Perfect for new Macbook Pro (2008), November 25, 2008

It's hard to imagine how a simple cable could suck, but this has it nailed. Both the 800 and the 400 ends of the cable fit very loosely, so the slightest movement causes the connection to be temporarily broken. For most firewire devices, this means that the device will lose synch, interrupt whatever you were trying to do, and spend a painfully long time trying to re synch with the computer. It doesn't help that the cable is as stiff as a coat hanger, so the slightest movement will move the connectors. If anything touches this cable it will break the connection, so you end up tip-toeing around this thing trying to keep it happy. Yes, it does work. If you have to get from 400 to 800, it will do it. But this one is guaranteed to make you angry.

Apple decided to remove firewire 400 from all of their current generation laptops and add only firewire 800. There are still a lot of devices on firewire 400 and thus you have 3 choices.1. Buy this cable.2. Buy an adapter.3. Buy all new hardware. :-)I chose 1 - simply because it is easier for me to have a cable that converts 400-800 rather then using an old 400 cable with a dongle adapter. In my experience dongle adapters usually get worn and due to their size end to stick out of ports and break with an accidental leg/arm movement etc..... I have had it happen to me in my mac pro...and what a project it is to fix. Therefore...cables win.Hope that helps.

I purchased this because the Macbook Pro (2008 Edition) does not have a firewire 400 port but it does have a FW800 port. Since I have a few devices, including my Presonus Firepod audio interface, that require a FW400 connection Tripp Lite's converter cable was perfect. I haven't had any problems with it and it's more flexible than the single-piece converters that I've seen.