Emirates is to introduce some high-quality IFE systems on their upcoming Airbus A350, with the airline selecting Thales’ AVANT Up system with Optiq displays.
As we’ve discovered in this blog, the Thales’ AVANT Up system features Optiq 4k QLED HDR displays – the only aircraft displays using Samsung’s QLED technology to immerse viewers in more than a billion colours.
This will be paired with Emirates ice in-flight entertainment product which delivers over 5,000 channels of multi-language content
The new system from Thales will also provide an enhanced ‘live’ television solution that offers a broader choice of live television and news in the highest available definition at 40,000 feet.
The Optiq display supports two Bluetooth connections, and built-in Wi-Fi for passengers to pair multiple devices including phones, tablets, headphones or even game controllers while supporting up to 60 watts of USB-C to fast-charge personal devices.
To support power delivery to the seat, Emirates will be the first customer of Thales’ Pulse, – a power management technology which will ensure that charging performance will be unaffected no matter how many users are charging their devices at the same time.
The investment comes to over US$ 350 which will be installed on a 50-strong fleet of A350s.
Adel al Redha, Emirates’ Chief Operating Officer said:
“Emirates has always regarded inflight entertainment as an essential aspect of our onboard experience, and we were in fact the first airline to put personal screens onto every single seat onboard when that was far from the norm over 30 years ago. Today, Emirates ice remains unmatched in inflight entertainment content and experience, having won best-in-the-sky awards consecutively for the past 14 years. Our investment in next-generation Thales systems for our new A350 fleet will further our lead, enabling us to deliver even better experiences to our customers. Watch this space.”
Yannick Assouad, Executive Vice-President, Thales Avionics said:
“At Thales we are proud to partner with Emirates in their mission to Fly Better. Thales’ AVANT Up brings to Emirates the latest consumer technologies and capabilities to the aircraft. Combining our Optiq 4K QLED HDR displays, award-winning dynamic power, and next generation digital services, Emirates customers can expect the extraordinary.”
4K goodness is wonderful – driving content to match will be the challenge
I used Optiq seatback, trying out some of the features of the system (not just the display technology), and it is pretty impressive, to put it mildly.
The dual-Bluetooth pairing is great for sharing content or hogging the two connections to yourself with a headset and game controller (and this was a standard Xbox controller being used in this demo).
But the issue won’t be the technology – it will be with content.
We’ve all been on flights, where the content is blocky or stretched, with IFE systems delivering DVD quality content…on a good day (what could be called 480p content). On larger displays, there is some HD content – but it can be a struggle to have suppliers deliver content at the high resolutions needed to play this – as well as the storage servers on the aircraft to deliver this content.
It’ll be interesting to see how Emirates addresses this with their suppliers to deliver HDR and 4K content to the seat – and what its requirements will be.
As well as the size of the storage server.
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