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WAEA 25th Annual Conference & Exhibition
21-24 September 2004
Washington State Convention & Trade Center

DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGEMENT

With the advent of inflight pay-per-view—like the system offered on Delta's Song—digital content management (DCM) has emerged as "a new paradigm," explained Michael Childers (IMDC).

Joe Renton (IMS) illustrated this paradigm by showing how the IMS portable entertainment appliance (PEA) uses digital content management.

The digital rights management (DRM) infrastructure for IFE must be stronger than for the consumer market, Renton said. IMS is automating the DRM process because an automated environment is a "trusted system," whereas a manual system relies on individuals. An automated system also is more efficient and less expensive, he said.

"You capture the information at the front-end and can repurpose and reuse it without ever having to re-enter the information," Renton added.

Rowan Harper (MAS-Matsushita Avionics Systems) shared Song's experience offering pay-per-view (PPV) films in addition to 24 channels of free television (via the MAS IFE system).

Song currently offers two PPV films, and passengers must pay a flight attendant to view a film. The airline plans to expand the offering to 10 titles in the future and allow payment via credit-card swipe.

An average of 15 passengers per flight purchase the films, which cost US$5.00 each, generating approximately US$10,000 in revenue per day from the 32 aircraft offering the service. When the offering was introduced, Song expected a passenger buy-rate of 3%, but have experienced a 5% purchase rate. The airline projects a 15% buy-rate when more films are offered.

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