
Airlines Phasing Out Screens Because Passengers Are All on Your Devices - JumpCrisscross
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/business/streaming-flights-movies.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_dk_20170216&nl=dealbook&nl_art=5&nlid=65508833&ref=headline&te=1
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FreezerburnV
I feel like I'm going to be one of the few (if only) dissenting voices against
everyone else here: I actually LIKE the screens in the back of the chair in
front of me. My general experience with them for long flights, while buggy
with a bad screen, etc. has been very good. This is due to what is generally a
pretty good selection of movies, often with many I haven't seen but know about
and would like to see, or fun surprises that I would have never considered
otherwise. (example: I got to see "Shin Godzilla" on a flight to Japan
recently. I had never heard about it, but it turned out to be one of the most
interesting movies I saw of the multiple I selected, and just generally a very
interesting movie in general with strong commentary against the government's
handling of the power plant disaster) These turn out to be very beneficial for
me, as when I'm on a long plane ride I often "shut down" and don't want to do
anything except brainlessly watch movies or potentially read certain books
that suck me in very well. On the long flights to Australia and Japan I've
done recently this has allowed the flight to pass quickly and easily for me.

I'm sad to see them go. I don't want to watch movies on some silly app on my
phone which is much smaller than the screens now. I want to use my phone to
read books and save the battery charge for texting people or driving when I
land.

~~~
sologoub
+1

To add to this, the screens are definitely buggy still and ~15 min reboots are
not uncommon, but all of these are HARDWIRED. I'm scared of how bad it will be
when everyone tries to connect to the wifi to stream the same content.

Managing the local streaming server is not going to be any easier either.

~~~
dorfsmay
I've seen it on Air Canada (or Red or Jazz, or whatever it was called that
day), and it actually worked quite well. They offered to rent tablets for
people who didn't have devices.

I suspect managing the streaming server isn't going to be much more
complicated than managing the old wired content sever... On the other hand,
not needind kilometers of cables for entertainment, not needing to maintain
them, makes a huge difference for the airlines. This is not as simple as
pulling a cable in your house, planes have crashed because of fires from bad
maintenance/install of cables, including cables for entertainment.

~~~
tsomctl
I'd hope they'd have separate cable trays for critical and noncritical wires.
And we have flame-retardant plastic that isn't deadly poisonous.

~~~
atbentley
Anecdotal, I know, but I was on a flight a few months ago where the wire for
the hand held controller for the entertainment system had gotten so hot it
burnt my hand. I'm not sure how far away the autoignition temperature of
cotton is from the burn-my-hand-temperature, but I suppose it's possible that
if it was cotton on that wire as opposed to my skin it may have caught fire.
And while the wire delivering that content was non critical and probably on a
seperate power network to the main systems of the plane, a fire on a plane is
a fire on a plane regardless of which system caused it.

~~~
DanBC
You can cause a full thickness burn at really low temperatures. Water will
cause a 2nd or 3rd degree burn in 2 seconds at 65 C.

[http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_wa...](http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html)

I think regular cotton burns at something like 200 C. Cotton on a plane is
going to have fire retardant properties.

Burns are complicated, but if you'd touched something that hot you'd have had
an instant burn, probably with blistering.

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corysama
Good riddance. I've turned off the screen on every flight I've been on because
I don't like commercials and glare in my face for hours at a time. That makes
the planes which reboot their entertainment system (and implicitly turn the
screen back on) 3-4 times during takeoff and ascent particularly annoying to
me in particular.

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Larrikin
Which airline do you fly? I don't recall ever seeing any commercials on
United, ANA, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, or Malaysia Airlines. Most of the
systems have been fairly decent, although it was a massive disappointment last
time I rode on ANA and found out they had replaced all the SNES games with
generic mobile phone tier games.

~~~
microcolonel
I've seen ads on these screens while in taxi for departure on Air Canada Rouge
(domestic) flights. Really annoying, I couldn't find a way to turn off the
display.

~~~
tunap
You tune the brightness down until the screen turns off. Then they reboot and
default back on. Repeat for leaving the gate, taxiing, post take-off, etc...

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giarc
I'd like to see airlines install some universal holders for various
tablets/phones. I'm happy to see the terrible systems go, but holding a phone
or propping it up on the tray table wasn't a perfect alternative.

Now that Netflix allows me to download content to my devices, I have no need
for the inflight entertainment systems or the new wireless systems they are
talking about in this article.

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arnarbi
Newer seats have this sort of hard pocket at the top. With certain tablet
cases it's perfect for hanging the tablet.

[http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/wp-
content/uploads/201...](http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/ba-slimline-seat-tablet-holder.jpg)

~~~
giarc
You would still need a cover but definitely in the right direction.

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truebosko
I'm actually OK with this. The screens are generally of very poor quality. If
they replace them with USB ports, that's all we need!

Especially with Netflix Offline mode, there's basically no need for these
anymore.

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Indolat
Some of those screens look literally decades old. Horrible viewing angles,
huge pixels, etc.

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JonRB
I was under the impression that the viewing angles were intentionally poor for
the sake of privacy and not having glare in the faces of the people behind
you.

~~~
Indolat
I think this can be used as a pretext, but these screens look extremely old
anyway. My TN monitor 10 years ago had a much better picture.

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ronaldj
I like being able to watch movies or TV shows on the plane. I don't keep that
stuff on my phone and I don't own a tablet. I guess I can hope it'll lower the
cost of the ticket, but that's not going to happen. :)

~~~
potatolicious
Many flights now have free streaming content from on-board servers via the
WiFi. It's basically equivalent to what you'd get from the old screens but you
can use your own device to get at it. No need to keep large movies/shows
around on your device at all.

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GuardianCaveman
I recently flew internationally on United. They have this. You need a phone or
iPad with the app and then you can pull up movies and shows. I flew round trip
and it worked about 20% of one way and 0% the other way. I had counted on it
so didn't bring books or any other entertainment and had to stare at the back
of the seat in front of me for 14 hours with simmering hatred for United.

One point: whereas before if the screen didn't work it was their
responsibility, now they can blame your device and there's no real recourse.

I get that the other built in screens are not perfect but I've only had a
problem with it not working maybe 1 out of 30 flights.

I ended up getting a 100 dollar voucher which will never be used since United
is garbage.

~~~
ghaff
Honestly, I'd never have any confidence in the availability of inflight
entertainment. Carry your own even if it's just throwing in a paperback.

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nunez
Even though I like the Thanos GeoMaps app on the AA IFE aystem, I am okay with
this. IFEs are expensive and most people consume media on their phones or
laptops anyway. Ultimately this will save the airlines a lot of money;
hopefully, this savings will get passed on to us.

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relics443
I'm all for this, although I do enjoy the map of the flight. Maybe there'll be
an app that provides that info...

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CPLX
There is. Download the FlightAware app, it gives a lot more info and detail.
And if you're interested in listening as well, check out the LiveATC app.

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peckrob
If you're interested in more detailed info (like aeronautical charts and
such), I recommend ForeFlight [0]. It's what I use when I'm actually flying.
It also uses the GPS in your mobile device rather than the slightly delayed
position information from FlightAware.

[0] [https://www.foreflight.com/](https://www.foreflight.com/)

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macscam
Theyre only good for long flights when theyre packed with free movies. Other
than that it doesnt matter. If theyre gonna make you pay to watch anything
yeah, just get rid of it

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luhn
Have they not already? I haven't seen seat-back screens in years, and last
time I did the entertainment system wasn't functioning so you couldn't
actually use it.

~~~
rootusrootus
I flew on Emirates a few months ago and not only did they indeed have seat-
back screens, they also had a really nice selection of movies. Lots of
choices, including a number of 'sets' like the entire Star Wars series, the
entire LOTR collection, etc. Nothing can really make a 14 hour flight good,
but I was pretty satisfied with the quality of the hardware and content on the
Emirates plane.

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bitwize
Bummer.

Virgin America had the coolest flight-safety video ever:
[https://youtu.be/DtyfiPIHsIg](https://youtu.be/DtyfiPIHsIg)

~~~
gydfi
Flight safety videos will probably still be shown on overhead monitors. Some
kind of safety announcement is compulsory, and the video is a good branding
opportunity.

I find that VX one pretty grating though, and will probably be seen as
embarrassingly 2010s in a few years time. Some of the Air New Zealand ones are
good though.

~~~
bitwize
And roundabout 2030 or so, a Nostalgia Critic-equivalent will post a 64k
holovid to YouTube entitled "Hey, remember that Virgin America safety video?"

Oh wait, something like this has already happened:
[https://youtu.be/1QgWAxkHZWc](https://youtu.be/1QgWAxkHZWc)

