LI V E T V
LIVE CONTENT STREAMING
DIRECTLY FROM THE GROUND
aircraftinteriorsinternational.com
SEPTEMBER 2019
092
KEEP WATCHING UP NORTH
On Emirates flights to the US,
which often travel over the polar
region, passengers can find
themselves without connectivity
for up to four hours. This is due to
the fact that most satellites that
connect aircraft are geostationary,
located over the equator, and
aircraft antennae cannot see the
satellite when in the far north,
due to the earth’s curvature.
Emirates partner, Inmarsat will
soon solve this problem with the
addition of two elliptical orbit
satellites to its Global Xpress (GX)
network, thus providing coverage
over the North Pole by 2022.
The new satellites will also
provide live TV broadcasts
on Emirates flights, enabling
customers to watch live news
or sports over the polar region.
Emirates’ Live TV is currently
available on 175 aircraft including
all B777s and select A380s.
Philip Balaam, president of
Inmarsat Aviation said, “In July
alone, we have announced even
more capacity being added
to the network with five
additional payloads, including
these latest two for flights over
the northern latitudes and Arctic.
Once again they have played
an important role in
our decision for
these latest
expansions.”
Live TV can have
downsides in aviation
In 2005 JetBlue Flight 292 suffered landing gear issues
after departing Bob Hope Airport, en route to NYC. The
A320 circled for almost three-hours to burn off fuel before
being cleared to land at LAX, which culminated in a rather
dramatic landing, and happily no injuries. What made the
situation more stressful was that the 140 passengers
watched their drama unfolding on the DirectTV systems.
Trivia fans might be interested
that screenwriter Zach Dean
was on the plane, and while
contemplating his mortality
resolved to write a script about
mortality (which became the
film Deadfall.
For more
technology, see
our APEX Expo
preview on
Thales integrates LiveTV
into InFlyt Experience
Thales has integrated its LiveTV activities into its IFEC business
(LiveTV was acquired in March 2014 from JetBlue), to create
a portfolio under the ‘InFlyt Experience’ banner that combines
in-seat IFE with wireless streaming and connectivity services.
The integration of LiveTV also means that Thales can offer an
IPTV service for a near real-time feed of live TV programmes. By
using real-time satellite feeds, popular TV events such as sports
matches can be streamed to aircraft equipped with IPTV services
from a Thales lab that is tasked with controlling, transcoding and
disseminating the TV signal via the Thales connectivity system.
According to the company, its service is unique as it broadcasts
only the valuable events from
various content providers to
the aircraft and records the
programmes for on-demand
playback.
p106
PHOTO: ANDREW MARINO
IdeaNova Technologies’ INPLAY Live content streaming technology
provides live content streaming directly from the
ground, with no new
hardware infrastructure
required. The software-based system can
be integrated with existing IFEC systems on aircraft and leverages
available bandwidth to deliver 12 or more channels of programming.
The technology is bandwidth sensitive, with the content packaged on
the ground, sent to the aircraft and streamed to passengers in a way
that is sensitive to the cost of connectivity. By using the same content
across multiple passengers, that content is transmitted to the aircraft
only once, improving bandwidth management of the ATG network.
Using INPLAY Live, when a passenger connects to a locally hosted
wireless access network, their browser session is redirected to the
airline branded portal, which is integrated with the airline’s live
programme guide. Playback is usually directly in the user’s browser
session, without the need to install a plugin or an application.
When a passenger is
the first to select a specific
channel of programming,
the request goes to a
ground-based content
storage or integration
facility. The content is then
securely uplinked to the
aircraft and cached in the
onboard IFE server.
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