September 23, 2005; Hamburg – HANDHELD IFE continues to hit the headlines, with two new entrants unveiling their offerings at the show, the biggest name in IFE announcing a launch customer, and one formerly promising player deciding to throw in the towel.

Into the decision mix have come Californian company Global AirWorks, with its Airplay, and Dublin-based start-up Airvod Entertainment Systems, offering Mach5. Mighty Panasonic is showing off the first examples of its eXpress and yesterday announced Mexicana as the launch customer. But Astronics, which acquired the rights to General Dynamics’ YES! earlier this year, has decided not to pursue development to this tablet PC-based system, preferring to focus on its core aircraft-power strengths.

Panasonic expects to see production eXpress units flying with Mexicana in the first quarter of next year. The company says it will announce another customer shortly, and that it too could be operational with eXpress before the end of March.

“The level of interest here has been fantastic,” Panasonic Avionics business development director David Bruner told Inflight Online yesterday. “Airlines are coming to us with two requirements in mind: they want to put IFE into smaller aircraft, or they see eXpress as a means of restoring service in the event of failure of part of the primary in-seat system.”

Though the units on show here are very close to production configuration, some development work continues, according to Bruner. “Ruggedness and reliability are a continuing focus for us,” he said. “Even now we’re putting in tooling changes to make the product tougher still.”

Panasonic is confident that its arrangements for the supply of content are equally robust. “Our digital rights management approach is endorsed by all the major studios,” Bruner said. “Some studios have already said they will give us content. But we plan to ship units to all the majors immediately after the show so that they can try to crack our security and satisfy themselves that it really works.”

eXpress logistics will be handled by a ground-based charging loading station. Located in secure premises at an airline main base, it will be operated either by Panasonic or by the airline itself. Functions include content refreshment on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, as required by the airline, battery recharge, and collection and distribution of usage statistics via Panasonic to the airline and studios.

Taking on the might of Panasonic, not to mention established players APS/Wencor (digEplayer and the semi-embedded digEsystem) and IMS Inflight (PEA, P-Series), are new boys Global AirWorks and Airvod. The former “soft-launched” its AirPlay through its Website in the run-up to the show. But Dublin-based Airvod sprang fully formed onto the scene at WAEA 2005.

AirWorks, part of the Global ePoint consumer electronics group since May 2004, started developing Airplay 12 months ago, according to IFE programme manager Donovan Nguyen. “The AirPlay on display here is a first-generation unit,” the 20-year IFE industry veteran told Inflight Online yesterday. “We brought it to the show to gauge the response of potential customers. Any resulting changes will be fed in over the next three months, and we aim to have first production examples ready before the end of the year.”

A neat unit weighing around 900gm with battery and measuring about 6in by 4in, Airplay was designed in the USA by AirWorks, incorporates electronic components sourced in Korea, Japan and Taiwan, and will be manufactured in Taiwan by a Global ePoint subsidiary.

An 80Gb hard disc supplied by Global ePoint provides capacity for up to 50 films, 20 games and music. Other features include a 7in high-resolution TFT screen, a lithium-polymer battery supporting up to eight hours of playback, and a USB 2.0 port for content loading. Airworthiness measures include a polycarbonate flame-retardant casing with an anti-electromagnetic interference coating on the interior.

“Several airlines have spoken to us here,” reported Nguyen. “They include a leading European airline: they didn’t know about us before, and now they are reopening their current handheld selection process to allow us to tender.”

With a lengthy background in the design and installation of IFE and commmunications provision for the airline industry, AirWorks is already putting thought into its arrangements for supporting AirPlay in the field. It is planning to offer a support package that would include the provision of AirWorks personnel at the airport to distribute and collect the units and manage content reloading battery recharge. “Service is central to the whole AirPlay concept,” said Nguyen.

If anything is likely to slow AirPlay’s arrival on the market, it could be content provision. AirWorks is only now addressing the need for encryption and has yet to open negotiations with the studios.

Nguyen sees the AirWorks relationship with parent company Global ePoint as a major strength of the AirPlay effort. “The system is largely designed and built in-house, with no major outsourcing,” he said. “And the large production volumes already generated by associated Global ePoint products mean it will be possible to offer AirPlay at a very competitive price. We’re confident that we can do better on price than the competition.”

Equally confident on the price front is Airvod chief executive Terence Bonar. “We are very confident that we will do better than the competition on price,” said Bonar, who as technical director of IFE services company Inflight Dublin oversaw the introduction of APS/Wencor’s digEplayer with a number of European airlines.

That seems to have been an education for Bonar: “The first companies into the market have fine products but have also made a few mistakes,” he observed. “We hope to avoid those errors.”

Airvod plans to start delivering in volume to two customers – one major, one smaller carrier – at the end of the first quarter of next year. In the meantime, development work continues on schedule, according to Bonar. The company is particularly keen to see that its MACH5 product meets all airworthiness requirements and is pursuing DO-160 environmental certification. “We will meet the airworthiness requirements,” said Bonar. “We think the consumer electronics approach being adopted by other vendors is flawed.”

At first sight, MACH5 looks much like the other handheld offerings, with its 60Gb hard drive, 1.5lb weight, 10-hour battery and 8.4in screen. But Bonar believes his company’s offering includes three features that make it stand out from the crowd: payment by pre-paid card, Ethernet-based content loading, and built-in usage-tracking software.

“Our prepaid cards will be sold as part of the normal cabin sales process in the aircraft and then swiped to activate the units,” Bonar explained. “This will eliminate the need for credit-card handling, with its onboard server and complex logistics. And because all card sales will be logged through the cabin staff’s handheld sales terminals, there will be a robust log of transactions that is lacking in other arrangements.”

Airvod believes that its Power-Over-Ethernet content loading provision will support much speedier loading and impose less pressure on the carrier’s turnround schedules. With a capacity of 2Gb/sec from the content server to an array of switches, and 100Mb/sec from the switches to the individual devices, the system will load content as fast as the built-in hard drives can receive it. “If needed, we will be able to load over a thousand devices simultaneously,” said Bonar.

The company says that its Device Intelligence System offers airlines and their content providers an unprecedented ability to track and record how passengers use the units, yielding intelligence that can be downloaded quickly over the Ethernet link to support new content choices and provide suppliers with verifiable information on how their content is being used.

Airvod has put a lot of work into content security, according to Bonar. “We are using the industry-standard algorithms plus proprietary measures of our own,” he said. “These include a private encryption key carried on every prepaid card.”

MACH5 units will be supplied to the studios within the next few weeks for the customary security test-to-destruction work. “We expect to start securing studio agreements within that time,” Bonar said. “But we already have enough agreements in principle to support the initial service for our principal customer.”

Another MACH5 strength is its screen, Bonar said. Not only is it larger than those of other custom-built handhelds, but its 4:3 aspect ratio means that it accommodates standard IFE content exactly, with no annoying black bars at top, bottom or sides.

“We’ve seen overwhelming interest in what we are doing,” Bonar concluded. “It’s going to be a difficult market. But there’s a potential for airlines to generate significant revenues, and we think we’re in good shape to help them do that. We’re offering a cost-effective solution that will yield return on investment in the shortest possible time.”

Airline executives contemplating the ferment in the handheld sector may well breathe a sigh of relief at the news that the number of contenders to be taken into account has been reduced by one following Astronics’ decision to withdraw from the market.

“We’re not going forward with YES!,” Astronics executive VP Mark Peabody said earlier this week. “But we are under contract to supply some of the related power and data distribution technologies to the major IFE vendors as well as Airbus and Boeing.”

The handheld market’s loss could turn out to be a gain for the providers of in-seat systems. One of the Astronics products featured here is the company’s Seat Power Box, an integrated unit capable of powering IFE, laptops and, potentially, seat actuators.

“That could yield a box-count reduction from three to one in a first-class seat,” commented Peabody. “What’s more, we have also incorporated a data capability in a proof-of-concept unit that is now flying on the Connexion One demonstration aircraft. We know it works – it’s now up to the IFE vendors to adopt it.”

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