April 9, 2008 – HANG on to your hats, gentle readers, there’s another handheld IFE provider in town.

Backed by French media giant TF1, Paris-based Cineinfly is planning to launch a turnkey handheld IFE service to rival that of the UK’s Mezzo. The French company intends to base its offering on hardware from Archos, which also supplies Californian-headquartered market leader IMS, while Mezzo currently provides its airline customers with e.Digital eVU players.  

“We look forward to aggressive but sustainable growth in 2008-9,” says Philippe Gomez, the new venture’s general manager. “We have a robust offering that can be used as part of a premium retail proposition, to act as an AVOD upgrade, or to provide service recovery. We expect to make significant partnership announcements in the coming months.”

At last week’s Aircraft Interiors show in Hamburg Cineinfly demoed some of the proprietary capabilities that it hopes will give it an edge in the ever more frenetic scramble for the handheld dollar - instant docking, automated content refresh, and a protective casing for the Archos 705 player.

Cinefly’s instant-docking mechanism is designed to expedite the content-refresh process by allowing data to flow as soon as the handheld has been loaded into its ground servicing tray. The automated secure content-refresh capability is intended to reduce the need for specialist labour, and the protective casing was designed to reduce theft, make the handheld more proof against damage, facilitate fast connection with the instant-docking mechanism, and protect the couplings between the handhand and the mechanism.
   
“Backed by the resources of TF1, we developed these capabilities over the last 18 months to help airlines automate their IFE resource management and obtain cost and operational efficiencies,” says Gomez.
 
Cineinfly has retained London IFE consultancy MAZAG Services to lead its sales, marketing and public relations efforts. “Cineinfly has all the key ingredients to be one of the two top portable IFE suppliers by the end of next year,” says MAZAG’s Daniel Nagler. “It has made an unparalleled investment in technology, can draw on the resources of our parent companies TF1 and Bouygues Group, has a robust handheld from Archos, and is working to a structured growth plan to ensure that it cannot over-promise and under-deliver.”