AVOD IFE

[Scrooge]

I've been busy reading over on skytrax and while I know 90% of the posts over there are posted by people complaining about something the one trend im seeing there and here is that every airline seems to be having problems with the AVOD systems they have,the constant need to re-boot the systems and screens being out.

Now is it just me or am I right in thinking that in this day and age where even our desktop computers can do 5 things at the same time it's not beyond being reasonable to expect that with airlines spending big money to put AVOD systems in their aircraft that they actualy work?

Is it that the hardware/software is not developed enough or is it that they are trying to do to much with to little i.e. not enough server power to deal with the demand?

Fair point - however any network with high speed data streaming and several hundred active clients will crash occasionally - how often do you reboot your PC!

Do IFE's use regular protocols like TCPIP[?]

[Scrooge]

Well now that I use XP I dont reboot very often,maybe that is the thing,I noticed that when we flew Frontier they left their IFE on all the time,now it is direct tv not AVOD,but im wondering if VS left V:port on while the plane is on the ground would it suffer these problems?

[HighFlyer]

Originally posted by Jonathan
ow often do you reboot your PC!

Er ... never!

My PC at work never gets switched off, only gets rebooted if it has to be because im making changes or installing updates/software.

The thing keeps my feet warm under the desk its so darn hot!

Thanks,
Sarah

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by HighFlyer

The thing keeps my feet warm under the desk its so darn hot!

Thanks,
Sarah

I thought thats what LRoM was for [?]

Back on topic...now V:port is a linux based server right? I have a linux server that I havn't rebooted in 3 years,could this be part of the problem? I seem to remember a TR with an airline that didn't shut down the IFE on landing,the IFE was an AVod based..anyone else remember that?

[HighFlyer]

Originally posted by jetwet1
V:port is a linux based server right? I have a linux server that I havn't rebooted in 3 years,could this be part of the problem?

If it is Linux based then it shouldn't be - part of Linux's charm is the fact that you dont need to reboot ... what was the old marketing slogan? .. "A real O/S means never having to be told "please restart your computer". Im not bashing alternative O/S', but thats how a proper Linux system is (we use Apache and SuSe at work). There is a webpage somewhere about a Linux server that hadnt been switched off in like 18 years or something and it was still running perfectly. How it differs as an IFE streaming system though, i dont have a clue im afriad - apart from the cache maybe needing a flood.

Thanks,
Sarah

Originally posted by HighFlyer


If it is Linux based then it shouldn't be - part of Linux's charm is the fact that you dont need to reboot ... what was the old marketing slogan? .. "A real O/S means never having to be told "please restart your computer". Im not bashing alternative O/S'

Theres an alternative to XP[:0]

Youll be telling me next I'll never need more than 640k memory![:p]

sorry that would be LRoM;)

I keep seeing this topic and think it says AVOID IFE, and I keep thinking to myself, why would anyone want to do that [:I]

Originally posted by A380
I keep seeing this topic and think it says AVOID IFE, and I keep thinking to myself, why would anyone want to do that [:I]

Imagine the only film on offer is "Cheaper By The Dozen" and the TV is looping endless episodes of "Joey"....

Not that it's ever happened to me...but it is the stuff of nightmares and why I always make sure I have a book as primary backup..

[mcmbenjamin]

Hey 'Joey' is a great show .

May I suggest they run OS X w/ iTunes? Well maybe a slight much but possible iTunes would offer a delivery method to have up to date media. Simply hook (cabled, WiFi or Satelite internet) the aircraft to the internet and it updates the programs.

Originally posted by jetwet1

Originally posted by HighFlyer

The thing keeps my feet warm under the desk its so darn hot!

Thanks,
Sarah

I thought thats what LRoM was for [?]

Back on topic...now V:port is a linux based server right? I have a linux server that I havn't rebooted in 3 years,could this be part of the problem? I seem to remember a TR with an airline that didn't shut down the IFE on landing,the IFE was an AVod based..anyone else remember that?

It certainly is a Linux system - I've seen it rebooting, and it gave me the warm'n'fuzzies to see Tux smiling at me. It was also interesting to see the boot sequence scrolling up the screen, ending with something along the lines of:

Code: Select allcd /seatapps
./vport.sh

I think it may have been that flight - LHR-HKG in early January IIRC - when the whole system went down and didn't come back up. They told us they'd had to cut the power plane-wide to defrost the wings at Heathrow before leaving, and the system just hadn't come up right. I offered to help, but they didn't seem interested...
We - in UC, at least - were given 10k miles to make up for it, and I read an entire book on the flight. A book about 'open source Judaism', as it happens...
If anyone has any information on the actual architecture of the system, I'd be very interested in knowing how it all fits together. Obviously, nowadays, it's not much more than a massively multiuser MP3/xvid streaming system, but apart from the regular problems with it being slow at boot-up (and why on earth does it take so long to boot?) it seems a pretty scalable system.

Would swapping over the power to/from the airport system or the APU be the reasons for the reboots? The swap over often seems to cause a sort of 'brown out' on the Aircon and lights, so may afect the AVOD power too.