Thales extends live TV range with 360Stream

When it comes to live television in flight sporting events are absolute tops in terms of value to passengers. But the experience of watching them on a plane, even when streamed live, still trails the richness of associated content passengers could access were they still on the ground. Thales wants to change that experience with its new 360Stream offering, expanding the range of content available and adding more options for consumption while on board.

The offering is built on a trio of content pillars. Each can operate independently, and portions of the solution can run on third party IFE platforms. But Thales is, unsurprisingly, keen to see the full suite deployed on its hardware to deliver the most feature-rich experience on board.

Live content, with a DVR

Live television may just be live television. But people today want and expect more control of that viewing experience. Pause and rewind functionality via DVR-type hardware has been around for a couple decades now on the ground (TiVo launched in 1999), but challenging to implement in an aircraft environment. Thales sorted that out, thanks in part to a software agent that lives in the on-board IFE ecosystem and caches the live stream as it is fed to the aircraft.

That cached content can be used to deliver the pause and rewind functionality. It also allows airlines to offer immediate replay of an event after it happens, as the content is already on the aircraft IFE.

JetBlue received this DVR-like functionality as part of its “Blueprint” IFE update that went live on its AVANT-equipped aircraft in April 2024. Thales is working to expand its availability to other airlines, including as part of the 360Stream suite.

Near live content

The second pillar in the 360Stream content collection is what Thales describes as “near live” video. These are typically vignettes or short video content associated with the main event.

The 360Stream UI creates another “shelf” of content, adjacent to the live event. Whether previews or highlights, the near-live bits are easily loaded to the aircraft over a satellite link, allowing them to be quickly added post-event, for example.

The company notes that the near live content delivery is “a fully automated workflow where there’s no CSP involved” in getting the bits into the aircraft and available to passengers. The workflow receives, processes, packages, and uploads the data to aircraft within an hour, delivering on the “near live” promise. This is also helpful for scenarios where an airline might not have content rights to the live event or the channel broadcasting it, but wants to make highlights available to its passengers.

The Showcase

For the airline that wants to go all-in on a particular event or type of content (think airline sponsorship of a team or series) the Thales 360Stream platform offers a “Showcase concept.” This combines the live content for the main event with the highlights and previews on a landing page. Thales can also add personalized advertising shorts and reels as part of the near live content. And it can also include traditional AVOD content that’s thematic for the truly devoted passenger.

That additional AVOD integration depends on proper metadata loaded into the IFE platform. It also depends on integration with the underlying IFE provider.

While Thales boasts that “360Stream works on any satellite network and with any inflight entertainment system provider,” it notes that some of the features are more fully developed on the “home” AVANT platform, at least for now. This includes the automated metadata integration for the AVOD content inclusion.

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In some ways the new 360Stream solution is a repackaging of existing offerings, adjusted to be more compelling to passengers and more attractive to airlines and sponsorships. But it also appears a compelling way to group the content, more aligned with the UI/UX experiences passengers are used to on the ground. That’s a big win for all the stakeholders.

The company says 360Stream will be flying from 3 January 2025. That date just happens to align with the formal entry into service of Emirates’ new A350, which also just happens to be the first Emirates planes with Thales providing the IFE system on board. Notably, back in 2022 when that deal was announced it mentioned an enhanced live television offering; 360Stream has been in the works for several years now.

And it is on the short list for a 2025 Crystal Cabin Award, so we’ll see just how excited the industry is by this development in a few months. Given Thales’ recent run of success with the CCAs, it certainly appears to know what the market is looking for and how to build its IFE framework to deliver that.