On2 Technologies has announced that BBC journalists covering the Gulf crisis are being equipped with the latest technology for transmitting TV reports over satellite phones. The software encoding system -- LNG (Laptop News Gathering) -- enables correspondents to heavily compress their reports before transmitting them over a satellite phone or narrowband Internet connection. Despite the extreme compression, little of the original video quality is lost.

The transmission system is the result of a partnership between TVZ Ltd, a company with strong links to the television newsgathering business -- and Fourth Broadcast Network Ltd. (4BN), specialists in web and internet-based software development, integration and services. The BBC has ordered 13 LNG software licenses in addition to the three it has already purchased. The software is being loaded onto Panasonic Toughbook laptops and used in conjunction with AVID editing software. All 13 units will be dispatched to the Middle East where TV correspondents have to be ready to "travel light" on media trips organised by the military.

Executive Editor BBC Newsgathering Peter Mayne said, "The LNG system has been rigorously field tested by BBC correspondents in West Africa and we are satisfied that the system is rugged enough to cope with whatever our newsgathering teams might be faced with in the Gulf. The LNG software integrates well with our editing platform on one laptop -- a distinct advantage for teams that need to travel light."

The VP5 compression software used in the LNG system -- produced by On2 Technologies offers considerably better results than other comparable encoders. Fast action video sequences can be encoded at a bit rate of 2mb/s in order to achieve excellent broadcast quality, whereas slower sequences can be processed at 750kb/s to obtain similar results.