November 25, 2006 – FOLLOWING yesterday’s news of a commercial breakthrough by Mezzo Movies with its turnkey handheld IFE service, it’s a good time to take a look at the rest of the players in this increasingly crowded marketplace.

Besides e.Digital, supplier of Mezzo’s eVU hardware, there are another eight current or aspiring suppliers – AirVOD, digEcor, Global Airworks, IMS, Panasonic, Phantom Media, Transtar and Watermark.

Dublin-based AirVOD is developing its mach5 player. Displayed in both handheld and semi-embedded forms at September’s WAEA show in Miami Beach, mach5 could be the next offering to enter service. “We plan to make first deliveries to airlines next month, with more to follow in January,” says chief executive Terence Bonar. “We’re working closely with a small number of airlines to streamline the service introduction process before ramping up.”

Bonar believes that 2007 could be the first year of true competition in the handheld market. “This year none of the vendors had units to ship for several months,” he says. “That made development of the market all the more difficult. Next year airlines will have a genuine choice.”

Bonar believes that handhelds can bring unique new capabilities to the airlines. “They allow an ‘overnight upgrade’ for carriers looking to put IFE in their business classes for the first time,” he says. “There is a growing awareness among the airlines of the revenues to be had from passengers who are willing to pay for the right content. And handhelds can provide quick back-up if a fixed system fails.”

Weighing 1.5lb, mach5 has a 100Gb hard drive, a 10-hour battery and an 8.4in/4:3-aspect-ratio screen. It also includes three features that Bonar believes will make it stand out: 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,” he says. “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 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,” says Bonar.

The company says 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.

Next: digEcor