Crude as they are, the images are made possible by a new technology _ a lunch-box-sized "videophone" that streams low-bandwidth video over a portable satellite telephone. The footage is captured by a lone cameraman on a mountaintop 40 miles north of Kabul.

Other television reporters at Afghan rebel camps and in neighboring Uzbekistan _ basically anywhere they can lug about 20 pounds of equipment _ are using videophones to do characteristically jittery standup reports.

While the images appear primitive, they are a big improvement over voice-only live reports from far-flung correspondents during previous conflicts, which were typically accompanied visually by simple maps.

Without the $7,950 videophone, manufactured by London's 7E Communications Ltd., live video from a remote place like Afghanistan requires a satellite uplink facility comprised of at least ton of recording and broadcast gear, operated by a crew of three to four, usually housed inside a van.

"Moving all that equipment is a big operation, especially in a war zone," said CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan.

The videophone has allowed individual television reporters to wriggle close to the action, chiming in via jerky, pixelated video from the some of the planet's furthest reaches.

The device first grabbed attention in April, when a CNN reporter connected one to a car battery and broadcast live images of a U.S. spy plane crew departing China's Hainan island.

The videophone allowed CNN to broadcast its footage almost a half-hour earlier than rival broadcasters, who drove to an uplink facility to transmit their video.

The pictures riled competing journalists and Chinese authorities, who detained the reporter and confiscated the videophone.

Although the device is considered of little use in the United States _ where most areas are within reach of satellite or microwave transmission facilities _ CNN reporters used videophones after the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack, transmitting from much closer to "ground zero" than broadcast trucks could reach.

Videophone broadcasts require three separate components, said Gerry Gutman, president of Richtec Inc. of Ocala, Fla., the North American distributor of the 7E videophone.

The 9-pound videophone itself is used mainly to compress the video for transmission. Few reporters rely on the rudimentary golf-ball shaped camera that accompanies it, Gutman said. Most reporters connect it to their own cameras _ a portable digital video camera will do.

To stream the video to headquarters, the videophone must be connected to a satellite phone, a device about the size of a laptop computer. The sat phone recommended by 7E, manufactured by England's Ottercom Ltd., costs $9,950.

The phone relays the signal via a communications satellite parked in geostationary orbit at 22,300 miles above the earth. Since the signal travels at the speed of light, a "live" satellite broadcast is actually delayed by a half-second, Gutman said.

The setup also requires installation of a $6,500 7E receiving device at news headquarters that decodes the signal for broadcast.

Besides CNN, Gutman said he has sold videophones to major television networks including the British Broadcasting Corp., Fox, ABC and NBC.

Associated Press Television News has also supplied staff in the Afghan theater with videophones, said Sandy MacIntyre, head of news at APTN.

The units' primitive broadcast quality stems from the limitations of portable satellite telephones, which can transmit no faster than 128 kilobits per second, just over twice the speed of the 56 kbps dial-up modems used by home computers, Gutman said.

Large satellite uplink facilities typically stream video at 15 megabits per second, requiring more than 100 times the bandwidth.

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On the Net:

http://www.7e.com

http://www.otter.co.uk