The inflight entertainment industry has evolved massively since the days of overhead screens and pneumatic headsets. On-demand content and live television on individual high definition screens are a far cry from a projector mounted to the cabin ceiling. But suppliers and airlines alike are not sitting still.
The next generation of IFE is coming, and it will feature at-home entertainment concepts, including pairing and casting from personal devices, as well as streaming content from online providers. And, quite likely, a new generation of suppliers will also participate in the developments.
Bluetooth Pairing goes mainstream
For several years in the middle of the last decade the idea of Bluetooth pairing for headphones on in-seat IFE systems was considered impossible. Too much complexity and interference in the radio spectrum would mean poor quality and lost signals. Turns out those challenges could be solved.
Today, new IFE installations include Bluetooth more and more. United Airlines is doing it on its single-aisle fleet refresh. Delta Air Lines has it on the A321neo fleet, and it will fly on the A330neo and 767-400 as well. Saudia, Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways and many other airlines are also rolling it out. Bluetooth pairing is, at this point, table stakes for a modern embedded IFE solution.
Streaming on the big screen
Going back to 2015 and JetBlue‘s partnership with Amazon to support streaming content speeds on board, Viasat‘s Don Buchman leaned in hard to the idea of “Bring Your Own Rights.” Rather than airlines paying content fees to load movies on board, they would invest in better inflight connectivity, delivering the internet pipe as an inflight entertainment solution on board. That content, however, is typically viewed on a personal device, not the screens installed on board.
Air Canada believes that model can change. Speaking at the World Aviation Festival in Amsterdam last month Director of IFEC Product and Analytics Norman Haughton explained a vision of streaming content fully integrated into the carrier’s fleet-wide IFE deployment.
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Haughton is clear that the airline very much plays a role in this new inflight entertainment paradigm, but it is a passive position. He wants to be the middle-man, coordinating the blend of content rights and connectivity. He describes it as “providing the fuel” for the experience (including JET-A). And partnerships with streaming content providers will play an outsized role:
Air Canada invested heavily in seat-back entertainment, even on our single-aisle fleet. And now we’ve gone down the road of high speed Wi-Fi. Imagine what happens when those two roads intersect. People want to consume content the way they do on the ground. We can bring in partners that add extra value. Imagine where internet and seat-back merge, and then bringing partners on board to be the gateway of that intersection, to be traffic managers and to ensure that the experience we are delivering at that intersection meets or exceeds what our customers would expect on the ground.
The Android operating system also plays a major role in the process. It powers most modern inflight entertainment screens today, offering a known framework for application development and Digital Rights Management (DRM) services to satisfy the studios’ licensing concerns.
Streaming services already have an Android app available; extending that to be a module on an IFE system is more of an interface tweak than a ground-up build. That makes deployments far easier for airlines and IFE vendors alike.
Haughton declined to give a timeline for this new IFE concept to take flight. But he implied the shift will be on a timeline measured in weeks and months, not years.
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Also worth noting that this approach is different from what Delta did with Hulu back in 2019. That effort included a subset of content, cached on the planes. The new version of on-board streaming will take advantage of the aircraft’s connection to the internet, and enable the full product catalog.
Casting content to the screen
Air Canada is not alone in pursuing this concept, though it may be the furthest along from an airline perspective. Or at least the most willing to talk openly about it. Other vendors, however, are also looking at options, including casting content from a personal device to the IFE screens on board.
Upstart Apios is not just talking about developing a casting solution. The company now has a proof of concept developed, able to cast content at scale.
It is super simple. It is easy. It works. It delivers what the passenger wants. It delivers what the airline wants.
– David Thomas, Apios Chief Product Officer
Similar to a ChromeCast or AppleTV, passengers will be able to connect to the screen on the seatback to display their own content. The connection is driven via a QR code on the screen and a unique Wi-Fi SSID for that seat, making it easy for the passenger at that seat while simultaneously reducing the opportunities to abuse the system.
It is casting, not mirroring, so it depends on integration with the mobile application. It also allows for offline casting (e.g. a plane with no inflight connectivity link), assuming the app supports it. At the APEX EXPO 2022 in Long Beach last month the company demonstrated a stream from cached Amazon Prime content on an iPad to the system.
Apios also can support online streaming, assuming the plane has an internet pipe and sufficient bandwidth. The flexibility built in to the platform allows for airlines and passengers alike to have options in terms of the content.
One notable holdout when it comes to casting is Netflix. But Apios addresses that as well. The company built a Netflix web client into the screen. Passengers will have to log in to their account while on board and navigate using the touch screen rather than their mobile device. But all their content rights can now fly with them.
As part of the launch of its Astrova platform earlier this summer, Panasonic Avionics executives also suggested that a casting solution was part of the architecture, though details were limited.
Getting from concept to deployed inflight solution is no easy task. It took years for Bluetooth pairing to evolve into a viable product. Haughton argues that Air Canada is only able to deliver on its streaming plan now because of decisions made more than five years ago, along with a commitment to continue those investments even when funds were tight. Apios and others also face challenges in making streaming and casting of IFE ubiquitous on board. Not to mention that the idea of pushing content from a PED to the screen goes back to at least 2009 and Panasonic’s eXport connector.
But it’ll be mighty cool when they pull it off with the updated technology stack.
More news from World Aviation Festival 2022
- Looking Beyond NPS as a customer satisfaction metric
- easyJet snags AirFi for digital inflight transformation
- Airlines see a renewed digital transformation push from IATA
- Can inflight Wi-Fi ever be profitable?
- BAGTAG targets North American expansion, adds homing solution
- AirFi LEO aims to alter the inflight retail landscape
- Pairing, casting and streaming: The next generation of inflight entertainment emerges
More news from APEX EXPO 2022
- Panasonic Avionics, OneWeb team for inflight internet service
- Anuvu boosts Ka-band connectivity with dual panel antenna
- Virgin Australia picks 2Ku for Wi-Fi boost
- Panasonic Avionics highlights Stellar Blu antenna for OneWeb LEO service
- Dimmable windows coming to the A350 with Starlux
- A first look at Spirit’s new seats
- Bringing the moving map online: Panasonic’s Arc gets a data feed
- Pairing, casting and streaming: The next generation of inflight entertainment emerges
- Starlink/JSX STC slips
- SLAs suck: Seeking a service specification shift
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