When we asked IMS (of RAVE fame) if they would be interested in supplying a story for our Speakers’ Corner, at first, we were not quite prepared for the Tales of Yore their team submitted. We think you will find it interesting and entertaining, especially if you are a fan of Ye Ancient Texts – Hail King RAVE.

So You Want To Be An IFE Company? By the ‘Team’ at IMS

Since the IMS announcement that Lufthansa had chosen to install RAVE on a major portion of their fleet, it seems that RAVE is, well, “all the RAVE”. So I asked Joe Renton if he wanted to share some thoughts with our readers about their journey. What I got back was not what I expected; it appears that Joe’s team had a little fun with the assignment, which Joe admits is one of things that sets IMS apart. Enjoy!

Once upon a time in a land far, far, away… there lived a king named Joe… he had a small but prosperous kingdom where people lived and worked and generally life was good… but the king wasn’t satisfied, and as these things go, he started to expand his kingdom, first in small portable ways, but as time went on he decided he wanted a larger, more embedded kingdom. And that’s when things got really interesting, and that’s where our story really begins…

It all started nearly four years ago with a phone call from an airline executive. He was lamenting the fact that embedded IFE systems were unreliable, heavy, hard to maintain, difficult to use, and on top of that, they were incredibly expensive. Why couldn’t a new type of IFE system be designed that would provide the reliability of a portable player with the convenience of an embedded system? Why indeed… the question hung there, in a rather confrontational sort of way… daring us to take a bite.

King Joe tried to dismiss it, he tried to go around it, he tried to forget it, but no matter what he did the question kept coming back; how to make an embedded IFE system that was reliable, affordable and very easy. So King Joe decided to gather all of his wisest advisers together to get their advice.

Honestly, our first response was “we would be insane to attempt it”. Most of the team had suffered through the pain of developing IFE and had sworn never to do it again. Thankfully, because of the investment required, embedded AVOD was simply out of our reach. It would take $100+ million which, of course, wasn’t a reality for a small, self-funded, private company like IMS. In spite of that, we believed that things had changed over the years; technology had evolved and what was impossible just a few years ago was possible today. We also knew that it would take more than a good idea – many companies before us had had plenty of good ideas and still failed. It would also take the right company, one that had the courage to take on an industry dominated by two multi-billion dollar international corporations. IMS had not succeeded these last 16 years by playing it safe. We were opportunistic, innovative and yes, probably a little bit arrogant (OK, maybe a lot arrogant) in 2008 when we decided to jump in with both feet and take on the monster that was embedded IFE. Seriously, how hard could it be?

So King Joe gathered together his most trusted advisors and his most courageous knights to plan the battle. Day after day and night after night they met; sacrifices were offered (did we mention sacrifices were offered), battle plans were reviewed, strategies vetted and alliances were formed, until they were ready to move out.

We knew that the system had to be different enough that our potential customers would at least be curious enough to listen to what we had to say. We understood that our small company would not generate enough interest on its name: thus, the system would have to take a completely fresh approach, be exceptionally reliable, light weight, low-power and come with a price tag that forced airlines to take notice. The result was RAVE.

RAVE, the strategy and the vision, were the essence of its name; Reliable, Affordable and Very Easy (We’re still waiting for the “very easy” part). RAVE’s architecture was different; seat centric instead of a traditional server centric model. RAVE’s seat centric architecture had only a few LRU’s which, at its core, made it reliable, light weight and low-power. Additionally, in RAVE’s unique architecture, each seat display was a fully autonomous entertainment system providing all the features of much more complex, traditional server based systems. This allowed us to offer a system that met most of our must haves; it was scalable, simple, and affordable to buy and maintain. Those things gave us permission to play, but we knew that we needed more innovation, that we had to push our vision even further if we were going to be successful. So we leveraged our past experience with portable IFE and introduced the first dockable seat display unit that could be replaced by a flight attendant – in flight – in seconds – with a simple key. We also addressed the problem of content loading and distribution by choosing SD cards as the content medium.

We had the right vision and we had the right technology, but could we sell it, certify it and deploy it…

Those questions still plagued King Joe and his closest advisors. So the King sent out emissaries all across the land looking for allies that shared our vision. Several came and joined us; they believed in the vision, but they also were ready to join a growing RAVEOLUTION against the tyranny of the same old choices. We offered the appropriate sacrifices to the guardians of the air and we worked with our new allies to launch the giant metal birds back into the sky.

Our partners and potential partners reassured us that we were on the right track and to continue what we had started; that reliability was the key, price was a close second and that a spirit of partnering and listening was near the top as well. Standard LRU’s, subsystems and even software with a configurable, user friendly GUI made it possible for IMS to offer the unique benefits of RAVE to all of our airlines partners. Our journey has been littered with moments of “what were we thinking”, and “this is really hard”, and the classic “qualification shouldn’t take that long”. But we did bite, and at times the taste was sourer than we thought possible, but at other times it was wonderfully sweet.

Today RAVE has been flying for almost 12 months. We have had our share of issues, have taken our lumps, but we remain true to our guiding principles; Reliable, Affordable and Very Easy. By the end of the year, we will have over 35 RAVE equipped aircraft in the sky. We continue to work to make our product as reliable as possible. Over the past 24 months we have secured the commitment of over 160 aircraft with additional options. We have added three more airline partners which we will announce soon, bringing our aircraft count to nearly 200. We are keenly aware of our need to continue our relentless pursuit to make RAVE the most reliable and sustainable IFE system ever fielded, and we will do everything we need to in order to meet our current set of delivery commitments.

All kidding aside, we want to say that we are humbled by the responsibility and feel very grateful to our customers and partners for believing in IMS and the RAVE vision.

As the sun sets in the west, King Joe stands atop his castle and surveys the kingdom known as RAVE. He smiles to himself knowing that, in truth, their work has just begun; they have made a great start, but there are still many challenges to overcome and battles to be won… and beside, what’s a king to do except to start on RAVE 2.0. ☺.

Editor’s Note: Next week’s edition of IFExpress will feature a preview of some of the “must see” companies APEX EXPO 2012. As a result, we will be releasing IFExpress earlier than usual. You may anticipate it in your email ‘In-Box’ on Monday morning PST.

Recent news from Europe confirmed last week’s ‘Rumor’ and if you had not seen the IMS and Lufthansa news releases we have linked them for you here. From a round-up perspective, the Brea California company has secured 10 customers for its’ RAVE System, securing some 165+ planes with sales and options. The only popular plane missing is the A320 and we bet that is not far behind. This certainly validates the IMS design goal to put all the electronics and content at the seat (seat-centricity).  Moreover, RAVE continues to validate the concept of embedded IFE. No doubt most of the next generation of IFE will be influenced by this type of installation. Yes, there is still room for portables and Wi-Fi features, but for some time, pundits have been dissing the installed hardware and attendant cost, weight and installation challenges. After viewing the RAVE system at AIX, we could clearly see why airlines are excited about the product. The light-weight, removable seatback unit is the system! Since content is stored locally the probability of a single failure catastrophe is practically eliminated. If you want to dig deeper, here is a link to a recent RAVE presentation that should answer a lot of your questions regarding the system and installation.

The latest news pegs the Lufthansa deal at 80+ planes. With the acquisition of 10 new customers in the last 18 months, IMS is in the enviable position of only looking up to the two biggest IFE vendors, at least in terms of sales. This proves that good ideas result in sales popularity… the rumored 50% reduction in per seat unit price doesn’t hurt either. We can’t think of another IFE product company (past or present) that has accomplished what they have in the time they have had to do it –  concept development through production, as well as airline customer sign-ups – especially when you consider IMS is a relatively small company (size, revenue, personnel, etc.) as compared to the industry leaders. It goes without saying that airlines are attracted to this product and IMS for many reasons.  IMS Sales & Marketing Vice President, Harry Gray told IFExpress, “IMS has grown substantially over the past several months, with over 200 employees as well as over doubling the size of our facility – mostly to support RAVE.  We have a stable business, been around for 16 years, and are poised for future growth, yet we also remain nimble and customer friendly to meet the needs of the market.  Providing a premium product and shorter lead times – without the premium price – remains the mantra at IMS.”

Mr. Gray went on to say, “Our concept of ‘outbound support’ is really gaining popularity with airlines. Typically, airlines must have multiple outstations for spares and (3rd party contracted) line maintenance due to possible IFE system failures. Since the RAVE displays are dock-able, they can be replaced during flight with no need to have spares at outstations.” No doubt, airlines really latch on to this feature because there is now a way to keep passengers happy during a long flight where they would otherwise have to move to an empty seat (“if” it was available) or go without IFE at all because of a hardware failure. The RAVE feature-rich-environment doesn’t stop there, so be sure to check out the previously mentioned presentation. No doubt, tech-competent Lufthansa did their homework and the IMS team should take a bow. 

RAVE is flying on a Lufthansa B747-400 and expect to see it on their A330-300’s, A340-300’s, A340-600’s fleet. Installations will begin next year with full incorporation to be completed over some three years. We now wonder when Boeing and Airbus line fit installations of the RAVE product will be approved? You can bet the airlines will be talking RAVE in Seattle and Toulouse during their next visits. 

Finally, from an engineer’s point of view and what we have learned, RAVE is an installers dream. A full aircraft installation can be accomplished in 5 days (retrofit), there are no special test tools – they are built-in, the VCC hardware requires no cooling, all the SDU’s (of the same screen size) are interchangeable, and 6 gigabit seat loops are used for greater seat coverage and reliability. Hat’s off to Joe Renton (CEO) and his team, this is IFE history. When it is all said and done, RAVE will probably be better known as an airline and passenger centric product that just happens to be installed in a seat!

Aptly named, RAVE from IMS is our star this week… and that is what it is getting from airlines! RAVE capitalizes on airlines’ desire for increased reliability and decreased weight and complexity – circumstances exacerbated by the economic downturn.  Rising fuel costs and the need to eliminate excess weight continues to characterize IFE requirements today. For a company like IMS, reversing decades with a completely different system architecture – at a time when airlines were reducing the amount of money spent on IFE – was a calculated risk. IFExpress snagged a one-on-one with Joe Renton, IMS Founder and CEO, and asked about the most successful IFE system introduction we know about. We also note, 2011 was the best year in the company’s history and with that introduction – read on:

Q: What exactly is the IMS RAVE offering for single aisle commercial airplanes?
A: RAVE (Reliable Affordable and Very Easy) is a next-generation DO-160 qualified IFE system providing high-definition audio/video on demand to each seat for the price of a typical overhead video system. The entire Ethernet-based system is essentially comprised of two LRUs – a single headend System Control Unit (SCU) and the Seat Display Unit (SDU) at each seat. Since all of the content resides at the seat, there is no need for a large Video Control Center (VCC) or to monopolize a bag bin. It is important to note, that while we are talking about a single aisle solution – the same RAVE system has already been installed in twin-aisle aircraft as well; just add seats.

Q: IMS seems to be taking on bigger vendors with the RAVE Solution. Having said that, why do you think the RAVE product is so successful and what features make RAVE stand out?
A: RAVE provides the airlines an AVOD system that is highly reliable, lower power, and lighter weight for much less. In today’s world of higher fuel costs and increasing passenger expectations, RAVE delivers entertainment and information with superior quality and a simple user interface via a capacitive touch screen. While our feature set is comparable to existing IFE systems, we continue to develop new applications to keep the passenger experience rich and exciting. With these attributes, more airlines are finding AVOD more affordable and easier to install where this was not possible before.

Each RAVE SDU contains all the hardware and software to provide
entertainment at each seat – resulting in a fast and reliable experience for every passenger regardless of the number of seats. There are no servers or distribution boxes that could cause a group of seats (or the entire aircraft) to be without entertainment. Should a passenger SDU fail – no other seat or passenger is affected – therefore no more seat/zone/cabin IFE system resets. Additionally, our patented design allows the cabin crew to replace the SDU inflight (within seconds) – allowing the passenger to enjoy the entertainment system for the rest of the flight.

Seat suppliers also find that RAVE is very easy to install and certify – resulting in lower seat integration costs and shorter time to install. Since the SDUs are very low power (about 10 Watts) and thin, they are more easily integrated into smaller and narrower seatbacks, which are common in single-aisle aircraft, and also a growing trend for all aircraft.

Reliability is also a key element for RAVE and our customers. Since the system architecture is comprised of effectively only two LRUs, the system is easy to maintain. No longer is a dedicated and highly skilled maintenance team required to possess hardware, software and IT backgrounds to maintain the aircraft. Additionally, the RAVE architecture doesn’t require outbound support for maintenance or spares, thus reducing logistics and hardware costs significantly.

Q: Will the RAVE system be offerable for the B737MAX and A320NEO (or any new airplane, for that matter) or will IMS prefer to install the RAVE System as a retrofit-only program?
A: We have focused on a retrofit solution for RAVE for the past two years; however we have had several discussions with various OEMs for installation as line fit. Our system architecture is compatible with line fit installations for single as well as twin aisle aircraft.

Q: What screen size offerings are available for the single aisle aircraft…seat back, in-arm, bulkhead, overhead?
A: RAVE currently supports a variety of screen sizes from 9 inch to 17 inch. We are also developing larger displays to support other premium class seating configurations, albeit mostly for twin aisle aircraft. It is also interesting to note that our seatback displays are identical to our bulkhead and in-aisle/overhead displays, thus reducing part numbers and spares costs.

Q: Since RAVE is flying today, can you provide a bit more of information like: how many seats/planes are on order, are flying, which airlines are so equipped, what aircraft are involved?
A: RAVE has been selected by 9 airlines. By the time this is printed we will be flying on four airlines, with the initial entry into service beginning December 2011, and we are FAA/EASA certified on A330, A340 and B747-400 aircraft. Installations of B767 and B777s occur later this year and we will have about thirty (30) aircraft installed by mid-2012. We have programs integrating with ten (10) different seat suppliers, and growing.

Q: What is the weight per seat of your offering?
A: RAVE per seat weights and power will vary by system and aircraft configurations. However, we currently have aircraft installations that average about 3 pounds per seat that include an entire RAVE system, including cables, and average power per seat of just over 10 Watts. These results are achieved by the low weight / power of our seat components, as well as a single headend component (SCU).

Q: What seat vendors are potential suitors for seat back installation – or – which seat vendors are presently involved with your RAVE system. Are they new or retrofit installations?
A: Our RAVE programs are being integrated into various seat models provided by ACRO, AVIO, BE, Contour, Geven, Recaro, Sicma, Sogerma, Thompson and ZIM.

Q: Would you like to address any price or installation advantages that your system has over the competition?
A: As mentioned earlier, the system architecture lends itself to be easily installed and maintained. With the ten seat suppliers and eight aircraft integrators, installation costs and lead times are significantly reduced. We completed our first aircraft installation and were flying in less than 12 months from the start of a program. That may be an industry first; to introduce a new system with new seats and be fully certified and flying in 10 months. Our system price will vary based on the system and aircraft configuration, however we are typically at least half the price of the traditional IFE systems available today.

Finally, IFExpress asked Joe Renton founder and CEO of The IMS Company about “David vs Goliath” attitude of the whole IMS team and he told us: “Airlines often ask what sets IMS apart from the other ‘up and coming’ IFE suppliers. Longevity for one; IMS has been a profitable business for over 16 years. Innovation is another trademark of our company. IMS has made a career out of innovating IFE solutions that others simply forgot about or didn’t understand. RAVE is the latest result of bringing our unique combination of experience and innovation to the airline industry,” said Joe. “The fact that eight airlines; including Lufthansa chose RAVE before it ever flew is a testimony to the strength of the RAVE vision and the trust that airlines have been willing to invest in IMS.” We say – hardware vendors who focus on cost, weight, power, and reliability will call the shots in time of expensive fuel. Airline-centric, you bet!

Editor’s Note: With AIX looming, we wanted to assure our readers that the IFExpress Pre-Show Edition will be sent out Sunday March 25 while the our regular March 27 edition will be sent out while we are at the show. Here is a Hot Topic Hint for next week – Astronics New Home!

Brea, CA | December 20, 2011 — The inaugural flight of Southern California-based solutions provider The IMS Company’s seat-centric inflight entertainment system RAVE™ took place on December 9 onboard a SriLankan Airlines A330 aircraft flying from Colombo to Male, according to IMS’ chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joe Renton. The event climaxes nearly four years of planning, development and production which began during the market downturn in 2008.

The airline will equip two A340 and five A330 aircraft, with options for more, and joins a long list of airlines opting for the IFE system.

RAVE capitalizes on airlines’ desire for increased reliability and decreased weight and complexity—circumstances exacerbated by that downturn, according to Renton. “Rising fuel costs and the need to eliminate excess weight continues to characterize IFE requirements today,” says Renton. “For a company like ours, reversing decades of a completely different system architecture at a time when airlines were reducing the amount of money spent on IFE was a calculated risk.”

“SriLankan is proud to be the Launch Customer of RAVE, giving priority to today’s industry needs by initiating the installation of a high quality audio video on demand system, which is also low-weight, on board its medium- long haul flights” said the airline’s Head of Engineering, Priyantha Rose.

SriLankan Airlines was the first of several airlines to choose the revolutionary systems architecture that stores content and playback functionality independently in each seatback display unit (SDU), thus eliminating the single-point-of-failure scenario that potentially compromises headend-centric systems, as well as eliminating distribution boxes and seat electronics boxes.

In this architecture, the headend contains the System Control Unit (SCU) which loads future content to the SDUs in the background while passengers watch current content that is played back from an SD card in each seat.

The result is an architecture that is inherently more reliable while significantly lighter. “RAVE accomplishes reliability through redundancy,” says Renton. “Every seat has its own store of content and playback functionality.

SriLankan’s award announcement was followed by airberlin, Brussels Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa German Airlines, Air Transat and Air Tahiti Nui. “We feel very encouraged by the tremendous market response and will have other award announcements to make very soon”, said Renton.

In the IFE industry, delivering first editions are a big deal. Literally years can pass and millions of dollars are spent rolling the first unit out the door. But what if an IFE company delivered two first editions within 10 days of each other – one, an installed system (RAVE) and the other, a portable with a new operating system (EDGE)?! Hats off to IMS for setting the bar high. An exuberant Joseph Renton, IMS Founder and CEO told IFExpress, “Most IFE companies consider it a success to deliver one new system model in a year – the IMS team delivered two firsts in 2011, RAVE on Sri Lanka (first flight Dec. 9) and EDGE on the Galaxy Tab portables to American Airlines. As far as I know, this has never been done before and I couldn’t be prouder of our IMS team!”

The RAVE & EDGE are the newest IFE products that deliver entertainment from installed and portable perspectives and demonstrate that time-to-market for IFE development programs is shrinking. “Most importantly,” noted Renton, “our customer airlines are able to keep abreast of passenger expectations with new technology and a broader range of programming.” From a delivery perspective, RAVE will be installed on 6 aircraft by year’s end, and to date, some 6,000 EDGE-equipped Galaxy Tab portables are in the hands of American’s passengers. IMS reports that passenger and airline feedback is very positive for both. This might be a good time to thank American for the inflight image of a focused passenger using the Galaxy Tab. It also might be a good place to share a couple observation that Mr. Renton made, “Both RAVE and EDGE represent paradigm shifts in the IFE market. First, EDGE demonstrates that the consumer influence on the IFE space is only growing. The key is having a strong and experienced integrator, who can further extend the consumer technology to the aircraft in a timely fashion resulting in a successful offering. Second, having the ability to uniquely architect an embedded IFE solution like RAVE, where the entire legacy IFE solution set is turned on its head, demonstrates a sincere understanding of what our airline customers are wanting and an ability to deliver it without large corporate overhead and bureaucracy.”

We should note that the Galaxy/EDGE portables were delivered with 128 GB of memory and, yes, there were Early Window movies. One of the first movie houses to approve the new devices was Paramount with others falling in line. As we noted earlier, American is the first EDGE customer with more to come, while Sri Lanka is the first of seven new customers for the installed RAVE product. We also note that EDGE is Android-based and acts like a smart GUI that is very intuitive. The design has proven itself with users intuitively navigating the screens.

On the RAVE side, the installed IFE system features a very affordable and highly functional entry into full-up IFE with two main LRU’s that weigh less than 3 pounds and uses less than 10 watts per seat! Easily maintained with the removable seatback entertainment assembly, RAVE is taking airlines by storm!

For more information about the complete IMS line contact Harry Gray, VP Sales & Marketing

Joins Lufthansa, airberlin, and others as momentum for seat-centric IFE builds at APEX

Seattle, WA | September 13, 2011 —At the opening of the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) Conference today in Seattle, the adoption of “seat-centric” IFE continues to increase as Southern California-based The IMS Company announced this morning that Air Tahiti Nui has chosen its RAVE™ inflight entertainment system for its fleet of four A340 aircraft.

The order increases The IMS Company’s RAVE™ backlog to more than 65 aircraft, a number that more than doubles should all of the airline options for the system be exercised. Six other airlines opting for RAVE™ include airberlin, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa German Airlines and SriLankan Airlines, with additional announcements expected during the Conference.
Every seat in the two-class configuration of Air Tahiti Nui’s A340s will have a RAVE™ screen, according to Harry Gray, vice president sales and marketing at The IMS Company said. The airline will use 12-inch high definition touch screen displays in Business Class and 9-inch high definition touch screen displays in Economy.

“As a leisure airline, Air Tahiti Nui is happy to finally step into the AVOD world and to share with its customers the best of what today’s inflight entertainment systems have to offer,” said Nick Panza, vice president sales and marketing, USA, for Air Tahiti Nui. “After a thorough study, the IMS RAVE system proved to be the best solution for us to provide a wider range of inflight entertainment options to travelers while significantly reducing our maintenance costs and the weight carried on board. The renovation of our fleet is an important step to ensure the competitiveness of our product. Air Tahiti Nui will be proud to present soon its new bi-class cabins offering 32 business lie-flat seats and 264 ergonomic coach seats. The typical Polynesian look and feel of our airline combined with the possibilities offered by RAVE will enhance the exclusive Tahitian hospitality that only Air Tahiti Nui can offer to make long-haul flights to Tahiti become a truly enjoyable part of the trip.”
RAVE™ is a new concept in inflight entertainment that improves upon traditional inflight entertainment systems by leveraging the best attributes of traditional AVOD systems with the characteristics of portable-player IFE. The concept is gaining considerable traction in the inflight entertainment industry.

The seat-centric inflight entertainment system differs from traditional “server-centric” systems in that each seatback display unit (SDU) contains all of the content, applications and playback functionality to provide the passenger with audio and video on demand—just like portable solutions. Unlike the server-centric model, which stores content in large disk arrays, RAVE stores content locally at each SDU. In this innovative system architecture, the unit in the seat does not depend on large, complex networks and media servers to stream content. Any anomaly on a server-centric network can cause the entire inflight entertainment system to fail, or at least some number of seats in a zone served by a variety of distribution boxes. But RAVE’s autonomous SDUs avoid the “single point of failure” scenario.

In RAVE’s architecture the system control unit (SCU) provides the interface to the aircraft Passenger Service System. It performs bulk content loads in the background while the current content is played back to the passenger. The SCU also distributes video in real-time such as safety videos and boarding music via the fault tolerant gigabit Ethernet cabin network. But the locally-stored content at each seat is never subject to network failure.

The simplified network eliminates seat-boxes and provides slim, light-weight, low-power seat displays. The system is lighter and more reliable than traditional inflight entertainment systems and costs far less.

The high-definition display SDUs with touch screens are fully interchangeable and easily replaced by a flight attendant in the event of service failure with no impact on any other seat. The SDU storage is solid state and the capacity is defined by each airline to fit its content strategy. The SDUs are easily upgradeable—up to 4 Terabytes—to meet the needs of each airline as its content requirements expand. The SCU has up to 12 Terabytes of storage capacity.

RAVE™ gives The IMS Company an opportunity to apply more than 15 years’ experience providing IFE expertise to others by way of engineering services support to its own fully certified AVOD product with a system architecture that reflects its positive experience as the industry leader in portable media solutions.

Joins Lufthansa, airberlin, and others as momentum for seat-centric IFE builds at APEX

Seattle, WA | September 13 2011 — At the opening of the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) Conference today in Seattle, the momentum behind “seat-centric” IFE grows unabated as Southern California-based The IMS Company announced this morning that Canadian carrier Air Transat has chosen its RAVE™ inflight entertainment system for its fleet of 12 A330 aircraft.

The order increases The IMS Company’s RAVE™ backlog to more than 60 aircraft, a number that more than doubles should all of the airline options for the system be exercised. Six other airlines opting for RAVE™ include airberlin, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa German Airlines and SriLankan Airlines, with additional announcements expected during the Conference.

RAVE™ is a new concept in inflight entertainment that improves upon traditional inflight entertainment systems by leveraging the best attributes of traditional AVOD systems with the characteristics of portable-player IFE. The concept is gaining considerable traction in the inflight entertainment industry.

The seat-centric inflight entertainment system differs from traditional “server-centric” systems in that each seatback display unit (SDU) contains all of the content, applications and playback functionality to provide the passenger with audio and video on demand—just like portable solutions. Unlike the server-centric model, which stores content in large disk arrays, RAVE stores content locally at each SDU. In this innovative system architecture, the unit in the seat does not depend on large, complex networks and media servers to stream content. Any anomaly on a server-centric network can cause the entire inflight entertainment system to fail, or at least some number of seats in a zone served by a variety of distribution boxes. But RAVE’s autonomous SDUs avoid the “single point of failure” scenario.

In RAVE’s architecture the system control unit (SCU) provides the interface to the aircraft Passenger Service System. It performs bulk content loads in the background while the current content is played back to the passenger. The SCU also distributes video in real-time such as safety videos and boarding music via the fault tolerant gigabit Ethernet cabin network. But the locally-stored content at each seat is never subject to network failure.

The simplified network eliminates seat-boxes and provides slim, light-weight, low-power seat displays. The system is lighter and more reliable than traditional inflight entertainment systems and costs far less.

The high-definition display SDUs with touch screens are fully interchangeable and easily replaced by a flight attendant in the event of service failure with no impact on any other seat. The SDU storage is solid state and the capacity is defined by each airline to fit its content strategy. The SDUs are easily upgradeable—up to 4 Terabytes—to meet the needs of each airline as its content requirements expand.The SCU has up to 12 Terabytes of storage capacity.

RAVE™ gives The IMS Company an opportunity to apply more than 15 years’ experience providing IFE expertise to others by way of engineering services support to its own fully certified AVOD product with a system architecture that reflects its positive experience as the industry leader in portable media solutions.

Joins Lufthansa, Air Transat and others as momentum for seat-centric IFE builds at APEX

Seattle, WA | 13 September 2011 | — As the opening of the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) Conference in Seattle approaches, the momentum behind “seat-centric” IFE grows unabated as Southern California-based The IMS Company announced that Austrian Airlines has chosen its RAVE™ inflight entertainment system for ten aircraft including four B777s and six B767s.

The order increases The IMS Company’s RAVE™ backlog to more than 60 aircraft, a number that more than doubles should all of the airline options for the system be exercised. Seven other airlines opting for RAVE™ include airberlin, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa German Airlines, Air Transat and SriLankan Airlines, with additional announcements expected during the Conference.
Every seat in the two-class configuration of Austrian’s B777s and B767s will have a RAVE™ screen, according to Harry Gray, vice president sales and marketing at The IMS Company said. [Insert Austrian Airlines statement “We believe in your product”, says Alexandra Strobl, director of Product Development for Austrian Airlines. “It is smart and simple, for Passengers as well as for airlines. And that approach suits the Austrian spirit.”

RAVE™ is a new concept in inflight entertainment that improves upon traditional systems by leveraging the best attributes of traditional AVOD systems with the characteristics of portable-player IFE. The concept is gaining considerable traction in the inflight entertainment industry.

RAVE™ gives The IMS Company an opportunity to apply more than 15 years’ experience providing IFE expertise to others by way of engineering services support to its own fully certified AVOD product with a system architecture that reflects its positive experience as one of the industry leaders in portable media solutions.

In a game-changing approach, Android OS-based tablets are the basis for the newest EDGE™ portables with a 10.1-inch touch screen, and solid-state storage

Brea, CA | 7 September 2011 — The IMS Company remains committed to the handheld IFE space, and will come to APEX in Seattle with a unique version of its EDGE™ product, based on an Android operating system (OS) and a tablet form factor, according to The IMS Company’s vice president sales and marketing Harry Gray.

“This is a completely new approach to portables deployment in IFE,” said Gray, “which we believe is a game-changer.”
The newest EDGE™ portable media player offers a 10.1-inch capacitive, multi-touch touch screen, with 1280×800 (WXGA) screen resolution, using the Android OS (Honeycomb). The lithium ion battery supports approximately 9 hours of video or 72 hours of music. Content is stored on SD (Smart Digital) cards allowing the airline to determine the size of storage needed to meet its content requirements. The use of SD cards for content storage is ideal for IFE and virtually eliminates content loading time and expensive terrestrial loading equipment.

EDGE™ is APEX 0403-compliant and supports content playback in MPEG4, H.264, WMV7 and WMV9 with AAC audio playback. The user interface is also compatible with RAVE™ embedded IFE, so the airline can now have a similar standard that is applied to both products, making the passenger experience virtually seamless.

IMS’ Android-based solution is not limited to a single device but is designed for use with a range of Android OS devices. So, as other Android-based devices become available, the IMS solution can be easily ported from this device to the next. The IMS Company entered the portables market by repurposing consumer-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, including Fujitsu and ARCHOS devices, and quickly took leadership in the IFE portables space as a result.

The operating system approach restores the benefits of leveraging COTS technology, says Gray. Since the Android OS is an open standard, we can more easily adapt this technology to support IFE requirements (including Early Window content) as compared to other COTS products using a proprietary operating system.

EDGE™ gives The IMS Company an opportunity to apply more than 15 years’ experience providing IFE expertise to the airline market. We now have a family of products – both handheld and a fully certified AVOD system, that offers airlines the ability to provide an enhanced and consistent passenger experience and branding strategy using different products across their fleet.

It’s prediction time again and so we asked some of our readers to call upon their predictive powers and share their views (unanimously) with our IFExpress readers.

Boy, did our readers do a good job. Here goes:

1. Panasonic will hit a home run with their worldwide Ku Band connectivity solution because it is just that, a worldwide, inflight connectivity solution. – IFExpress
2. There will be two other areas of IFE growth as a result of the burgeoning  Wi-Fi market and installed base: a. First, there will be a resurgent market in in-seat power as carriers react to passengers vocal demand to be “connected” for trans-continental and trans-oceanic flight segments. b. Second, new content aggregators will be formed who specialize in Internet content delivery, advertising, usage tracking and onboard Internet sales geared to the airline passenger.  Of course, the airline will receive a generous cut in this revenue stream.  These content aggregators will introduce big name players like Google, Amazon, Facebook and, maybe, MSN to passengers inflight. – Anon
3. We also believe, that at least one or more airlines with inflight connectivity will tie up with a Facebook, Google, or another network solution to deliver cheap or free connection to ground-based Internet. Hey, what’s cooler than tweeting that you are a member of the Mile High Club!…in real time! – IFExpress
4. Inflight connectivity will ramp up dramatically in 2011. I see Row44 and Panasonic making tremendous gains in the number of aircraft installed. A large part of the growth will be in Western Europe as LCCs see Wi-Fi as a way to add ancillary revenue and compete with the traditional carriers. – Anon
5. As fuel prices drive the cost of a barrel of oil above $100 USD, airlines will re-double their efforts to optimize their Max Take-Off Weight (MTOW). This will translate in lighter and lighter seats and more weight efficient IFE.  Some carriers will opt to not install traditional IFE and push for IFE delivered over the Wi-Fi system.  This form of BYO-IFE (Bring Your Own IFE) not only reduces weight and maintenance costs but also permits the carrier to have much more flexibility in managing its content on a flight market basis. – Anon
6. The B787 Flight Testing will reveal yet another anomaly and the delivery of the aircraft will be extended by a min. of 6 months. – Anon (Ed. Note: We received this input before Boeing announced their latest B787 Delay)
 7. The Chinese, via COMAC, will announce the launch of their competing (mainland, vs. Hong Kong or Taiwan) IFE company (beyond the start-ups that we already have seen) and that IFE company, like COMAC, will have Government backing. What the Chinese don’t understand is content sourcing and the use of Hollywood and the Record Labels and they will look to local (Asian) content, probably through Hong Kong, to launch their programming efforts.  An unusual partnership will evolve with Australian content providers. – Anon
8. This year will be the year for the new IFE players to establish credibility or become history. Promising IFE systems like Lumexis’ FTTS, IMS’ Rave, and Sicma’s SiT are already, or will be, in service soon. Is there room in the market for all? Probably not. – Anon
9. Koito, the seat company, will file for bankruptcy this coming year because of all their past regulatory issues and on-going production / re-certification problems and be re-born as a new venture. (Ed. Note: Think M&A!) Existing airline deliveries will be affected and you will see further delays in current aircraft fleets (beyond the recent A380 announcements, which impact both Airbus and Boeing).
– Anon
10. Wider gaps will appear as IFE evolves away from centralized, distributed HW/network based networks toward Wi-Fi and wireless distribution systems.  More announcements for simpler, seat centralized IFE systems, which shift focus from expensive aircraft mods towards simpler, less expensive “highly integrated” seat mod programs.  IFE Vendors will try to minimize aircraft mods to merely supplying power and aircraft interfaces and leave IFE distribution to be wireless to seat installed ‘boxes’. The demise of a major IFE supplier will be the results of failing to realize this changing environment and remaining focused on ‘traditional’ head-end distributed IFE type systems. – Anon
11. More announcements for single aisle, wireless, IFE systems as a untapped major source of business for start-up IFE companies. – Anon
12. Emergence of a new IFE company based out of India? Where a lot of both HW and SW ‘outsourcing’ of current IFE systems has been placed.  Someone will realize that with rising technological competence of their native engineers; there will be an opportunity to create a cheaper, more efficient IFE company in India. Again, Content Sourcing will be an issue, but the Indian based IFE company will partner with a major ‘content’ provider to supplement that side of the business. – Anon
13. Uncertainty is certainly a prediction. – Anon
14. Connectivity is here, various systems are already flying and being deployed at a fast pace. Let’s not forget the onboard telephony systems back in the 90’s. Back then, they were also deemed as a must-have, with huge potential of generating ancillary revenues for the airlines. Three companies deployed systems on multiple carriers, but where were the profits? Is history repeating itself?  – Anon
15. High Definition video will become a differentiator in the IFE market-space, as airlines recognize its use on airlines like flydubai. WAEA/APEX will take note too and begin to write the spec for HD in IFE.
16. The Content Service Provider space will continue to fragment – with more new-comers morphing out of labs, legacy CSPs, and IFE equipment suppliers (especially portables). – Anon
17. Jetstar/Early Window Content/Ipad – NOT! – IFExpress
18. Portable devices offered by airlines will dramatically decrease, as they give way to passengers’ own portables carried onboard (i.e., everyone who wants one will already have their own). Airlines will opt instead for more lightweight, lower cost, embedded solutions, such as Lumexis’ FTTS™ and IMS’ Rave™. – Anon
 19. Seat-centric IFE will be the next big thing as many airlines will be heading in that direction. – IFExpress
 20. Connectivity: the Ka-band systems will continue to be talked up by all the key players, but their scheduled roll-out date will continue to be elusive, as suppliers continue to sell Ku-band and air-to-ground systems. – Anon
21. Watch IFE Post Production – IFExpress!

Lastly, one reader eloquently described the IFE content space; “2011 will see significant changes in the IFE content delivery supply chain including increased automation and integration. Movement toward file-based workflow will gain traction. SMPTE will make significant progress toward standardizing the Interoperable Master Format (IMF). There will movement toward mezzanine files and transcoding. There will be a significant new entry on the Digital Asset Management front. There also will be consolidation in the CSP sector, contraction in the PMP sector, and the iPad will not find a serious place in IFE outside LCCs. Seat-centric IFE systems will get traction in 2011 with significant orders.”

Nuff Sed.

After looking through our show photos, we noticed that there were some other products, features, and companies we had not mentioned and we thought our readers might enjoy. We also found a few features we hadn’t noticed that last go-around. Here is the final roundup of the show coverage. Next week we will start ‘drilling down’ on the big ticket items and their features, and will do so for the foreseeable editorial future – so stay tuned.

AVID’s Tom Mockler had us try their Premium Line Noise Canceling Headset – A6420 and boy did they work. While we did not get the price he noted that “they are half the price of the high end product”. And no, that is not Dave wearing them! You can follow AVID on Facebook!

Larry Girard demo’ed the latest RAVE hardware – seatback screen/electronics assemble. Note the key used to access the display and it was the only HOT SWAPPABLE unit we saw at the show. The thickness of the unit has shrunk and we think airlines have already ordered. Visit the IMS website and check out the RAVE specs.

There were a lot of Hollywood stars at the show….

Here are two seats from Aviointeriors and note that they are positioned end of the spectrum. First, here is their elegant economy seat, and secondly the now-famous, “saddle seat”. Please observe that the latter demo unit is constructed of tubing (model-like), however, it is the cleverest seat marketing gimmick ever. It garnered most press visits of the show! We doubt that we will ever see the latter on a plane because of the limited egress, and frankly, the Aviointeriors folks did not think it would gain acceptance because of cert issues. They did, however, perform some preference testing with no public results reported.

Good guy, Ray Felk, is now a consultant after spending many years at ECS. If you need equipment rack and/or cabling expertise, this is the fellow you want to get. You can reach him at 414 6178901 or via email: rfelk@aol.com. Tell him IFExpress sent you!

This economy seatback/tray table from Astronics has our vote as probably the best way to fly IFE-less in the “back of the bus” and bring those smartphones and iPods we all seem to carry – please note the USB charging capability. It will not support iPad power requirements (2 A or so), however, some bright person said to use the 110 AC power outlet and your 110 AC charging module – DUH!

This is an ashamedly obvious plug for an energy drink, BodaB, concocted by Paul Burke, of Telefonix fame. The new formulation works even better than the old one (called EXE) which we equated with Lake Erie water (it wasn’t). The IFExpress crew sipped BodaB throughout the show. Also, be sure to check out their cord reel products on the telefonix website.

When you get rich (not in the newsletter business), this is what you will sit in when you fly!

Thales brought their latest version of integrated seat/IFE and you should note the card reader and interface option panes on the lower left (USB port, phone jack, game controller, etc. Thin and gorgeous, we loved it. Watch the Next Generation video for the details. Very Cool!

Not to be outdone, Panasonic showed their integrated IFE on 3 seat supplier products. Now designated EcoSeries Smart Monitors offer seatback IFE with monitors as large as 11.1 inches. They have managed to reduce the thickness and cut the weight and power in half from their previous generation devices. Interestingly, there are no mechanical switches and they have a new optional, screen filter (lens) that offers viewing privacy. – also, now the tilt mechanism is eliminated too. Check out the specs in the link. By the way, if you have not met the new Panasonic PR guy, Brian Bardwell, prepare to be impressed!

Lastly, we have a new feature planned that will probably get your attention, if for no other reason than it will be somewhat controversial. We will tell you a bit more next time as the development work is underway!