On2 Technologies has announced that ABC News is purchasing the Laptop News Gathering (LNG) system to enable its correspondents covering the Iraq crisis to send reports back to base. The Disney-owned company is buying 15 LNG software licenses that will be installed onto laptops. Two "receive" terminals will be placed in New York and London.

The technology 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 ABC News order comes just days after the BBC invested in 13 LNG licenses to give its journalists in the Gulf the capability to transmit their reports to London via the Internet or satellite phone.

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.

On2 Technologies claims to be a leading technology firm at the forefront of video compression. The Company states that it revolutionised video encoding with the creation of its advanced full-motion, full-screen, video compression and streaming technology (TrueMotion VP3/VP4/VP5). On2 licenses its high quality video codecs for use in set-top boxes, consumer electronics devices and wireless applications. In addition, On2 offers a suite of products and services, including high-level video encoding, customized technical support, and consulting services.