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This is the chip used: http://www.conexant.com/products/entry.jsp?id=626 - it can actually do HD 1080p decode, and the graphics performance is 200Mpixels/s.

The patents in question cover encoding techniques and similar, so no, voice communication would not be covered.

However, the patents were apparently previously owned by Broadcom. Broadcom are signatories of a letter to the IEEE assuring them that all of their relevant patents for 802.11 will be licensed on a royalty-free non-discriminatory basis (I can't find Broadcom's letter, but the content will be similar to this one signed by Conexant). This would appear to mean that the recipients of these lawsuits *already have a valid licence to the patents in question*.

For full D1(720x480) you only get 7.5 frames/sec from 16 cameras, but for security that is plenty. I think the 4 port cards may be able to do 30 fps per camera.

I checked their website; the 4-input card is capable of full-framerate (30000/1001 fps) video at 720x480. The company for which I previously worked (and still do some work on the side) built a DVR system around cards that used four CX23416s to encode four inputs to MPEG-2 at the same resolution and framerate. We've been having trouble getting someone to build more cards for us. It also doesn't help that this chip is no longer in production; we're sitting on maybe a few hundred of them, but those won't last forever. I might end up taking a look at this card as a replacement, especially if it'll work with Linux as well as Windows.

Looks like someone finally found a use for PPPoE! I've wanted that damned protocol to die for quite a while, but I can see it being useful in this situation. DSL, on the other hand, is where it deserves to die a painful death, along with whatever suits decided that "emulating the dial-up experience" is better than an always-on connection.

The v.92 standard (not to be confused with the simple v.90 standard) was released by Conexant (formerly Rockwell International Corporation, the dudes who helped pioneer MODEMs together with folks like USRobotics, Hayes, etc.) can interpret call-waiting signals and issue "modem-on-hold" command(s) to the remote modem.

This new feature is "pretty darn" useful as it re-establishes POTS as a viable networking channel as users will no longer feel like they are being forced to choose between: a) receiving telephone calls, b) being connected to the Internet, c) ordering, installing, rewiring, securing, and budgeting an additional POTS line, or d) subscribing to "overkill-type" high-speed services just to send someone an email.

Due to the sheer demographic penetration of POTS versus other newer high-speed and wireless technologies, ISPs might want to consider upgrading their modem pools to support the new standard (and market support for the new standard as the no-more-busy-signals-ever-again (and-we-mean-it-this-time) godsend it, well, is!). 'Nuf said.

Greets.

Conexant are helping the development of linux drivers for winmodems based in both the conexant HCF and HSF chipsets. The current beta version for the HCF is running happily in my desktop at home :-)

In many cases, the hardware manufacturer doesn't care about Linux support and refuses to release hardware specs to Linux driver/kernel/whatever developers (or anyone else except other hardware manufacturers who turn their chips to cards and so on). So, if your plea is directed at the hardware manufacturers, it makes sense. However, in most cases there is nothing most developers of Linux can do, so you may be barking up the wrong tree.

I remember when Creative finally released the first open source Linux drivers for the SB Live. Shortly after that, Alan Cox popped up, did some Linuxification to the drivers, and since then (more or less), the SB Live has been supported by the official kernel.

On the other hand, my Conexant HCF modem is still unsupported, although we may see some drivers soon. In theory. Conexant has refused any co-operation (to the best of my knowledge) with open source developers.

(I know of at least one project with Conexant and UCLA directed at using photonic crystals to point cell-phone antenna output away from the head for just this reason.)

It is a Conexa nt BT865 which is a "YCrCb to NTSC/PAL Digital/Video Encoder" (not that I know for sure what that means...) but I dunno if it has the "PCI push" feature or not... specs on the web page are sketchy.