TC Minutes

WAEA Technical Committee Meeting
May 19, 1999
Universal City Hilton & Towers
Universal City, CA

I. Welcome and Introductions

Rich Salter, WAEA-TC Co-Chair, welcomed the committee and thanked the meeting sponsors and attendees of the just-completed DVD-WG and Satellite-WG meetings. Mary Rogozinski, UAL and TC Co-Chair, reviewed the mission of the WAEA-TC and read the WAEA antitrust guidelines. The attendees then introduced themselves.

Adoption of minutes from previous meetings - Rich Salter and Mary Rogozinski announced they were still in the process of editing the February 1999 meeting minutes. Adoption was tabled to the next meeting. They will be posted to the WAEA web site as soon as possible.

Agenda review & revisions

Rich Salter reviewed the agenda and noted the following revisions:

• Special presentation from Kent Craver of Continental Airlines will be moved up
• Discussion of upcoming meetings and the date for the next TC meeting will be moved up

Upcoming Meetings

June 22-24 AEEC/WAEA CEI Brussels, Belgium
July 27-29 DVD-WG Universal Hilton, California
July 26-27 Satellite WG Universal Hilton, California
July 26 Media Storage WG and Internet WG may also meet at the Hilton
July 30 (?) left open for now WAEA-TC? Universal Hilton, California
Sept. 28 – Oct. 1 WAEA Conference Salt Lake City
Mid-October (?) MPAA Conference TBD
November (?) AEEC/WAEA CEI Los Angeles area, California

The next meeting of the AEEC/WAEA CEI will be June 22-24, 1999 in Brussels, Belgium. Al McGowan, Rodger Soucy, and Dave Crossett (or their delegates) will present the status of the DVD, Satellite, and Storage WGs at that meeting.

Rich raised the issue of whether another TC meeting was warranted immediately after the DVD-WG meeting on July 30. He noted that all the work was effectively being conducted in the WGs themselves and perhaps less frequent TC meetings for status updates would make sense. He also noted that there would be a need to allow time for consideration of the DVD specification after the next DVD meeting and prior to the next TC meeting when it could be adopted.

Wade Hanniball indicated that he hoped there will not be a need for another meeting of the DVD-WG after July, but noted that was a possibility in order to complete the specification before the September 28 WAEA Conference. He acknowledge that there will be a need for peer review by the TC and WAEA membership at large, and suggested that the WAEA-TC have a meeting to adopt the DVD-WG specification prior to the September WAEA Conference. R. Salter suggested we leave the meeting date open at this point, pending determination of the DVD timeline.

Rich indicated that the WAEA Agenda Committee chairs have been requested to allocate one of the breakout sessions at the WAEA Conference in September for a WAEA DVD-TC presentation of the new specification. He noted that this Annual Conference would make for an excellent opportunity to unveil the new specification and urge adherence to it by the member companies.

Presentation

"In-Flight Entertainment on Continental Airlines" - Kent Craver, Continental Airlines
Mary Rogozinski introduced Kent Craver, Manager - Product Marketing, Continental Airlines, who shared what Continental is doing to get the highest ratings in passenger satisfaction: IFE is an important aspect of over-all product, but it’s not a driver of what we do to get a customer. IFE is more important on intercontinental than shorter flights. On wide body aircraft the industry is beginning to make a shift to more personalized entertainment. Continental management saw that in October ’98 for 777 aircraft. They worked with their seat suppliers to get ahead of the game with their in-seat video product. There is a need to make provisions to plan for future upgrade of parts. Continental has made a decision to put video on all new aircraft.

Relationships with suppliers are much better today than several years ago. Suppliers are much more interested in what the airlines want. Airlines would like to give input when suppliers are designing a new system: "Products that suppliers have may do a lot, but the product needs to solve my in-cabin problems or solve things I need to solve."

There is a need to pull flight attendants out of the entertainment programming business. We like systems that can be updated remotely. One aircraft is easy to update, but if we have 100 aircraft, we do not want to pay a maintenance person $50-60/hour to plug-in a new PC card on each aircraft.

Integrate with other customer information systems: We would like to tell customers at what gate they are going to connect with real-time information in flight. We would also like to tell customers who lost a bag the status of that search, and if passengers have missed a connecting flight we’d like to provide hotel info to them before they land.

Continental would like to incorporate interactive software into IFE throughout the cabins. Our 777 aircraft have in-seat video throughout the cabin: 16 channels for video programs, 13 audio channels, and PC games for interactive use. IFE is standard in wide-body international aircraft, and the challenge faced by airlines is that entertainment is expected on international and domestic flights. Customers don’t want to pay a dime more for it.

For the future, we see in-flight entertainment as part of overall product, but we do not see it as a driver. Other issues for customers they are trying to attract are as important or more important than IFE.

Continental has installed laptop power systems in BusinessFirst and select zones in Economy cabins on its 777s. However, we have taken a back-seat approach to retrofitting in-seat laptop power… taking a wait-and-see attitude. With the expense of that product we aren’t sold on the fact that it’s going to sell. Management looks at the cost-benefit analysis: it’s less expensive to install on new aircraft than to retrofit it.

Questions and answers ensued on the following topics:

Question: Are there one or two top needs we should focus on in regard to all the new technologies like DVD, Satellite TV, advanced phone systems for Internet and e-mail?
Answers/Comments:

• Higher bandwidth satellite, Internet e-mail, inter/intra-net capability, and telecommunications in general will be expected on aircraft in the long term. What is initially available on the ground is eventually wanted in the air.
• Suppliers need to provide systems that can be integrated relatively easily, or at least be able to talk to each other.
• Interaction between flight crews and on-board systems: Our international and domestic crews can switch back and forth, so in the best of all worlds the system interface would be so intuitive it wouldn’t require crew training.

Question: What are the hurdles to overcome from the development, engineering, or installation side?
Answers/Comments:

• Trying to design the seat ahead of time to accommodate its installation in the aircraft. For example, displays may be switching from analog to VGS interfaces, and the seat supplier must take this into account in his design. Another example is laptop power. It would have been a big benefit if we could have put it in the seat from the beginning (i.e. if the seats had been prepped for it). Our seat supplier (Koito) has been very good to work with.
• Matsushita provides contract maintenance. Maintenance folks have to be well-versed in IFE systems. Note: An Ad Hoc Group of ARINC 628 CEI is working on a formula for calculating availability at the seat and keeping track of availability.
• Airline financial people want 25" pitch and 500 seats on 777. Therefore, underseat area is limited, and your seat electronics box takes up some of that valuable space. The seat box profile affects customer’s space and legroom. Anything that minimizes problems of putting a briefcase under seat is worthwhile. The London workshop in managing seat environment showed that too.

Question: Rich asked if there would be interest in a focused 1-day seat workshop (i.e. a roll-up the sleeves session to share seat integration issues). Are there any volunteers to chair it? Answers/Comments: Kent Craver, Mary Rogozinski, and Tom Aliffi indicated interest.

Question: What about advertising, gaming, live TV, and others? Answers/Comments

• Generally Continental does not advertise in cabin. We do have some limited promotions with mileage partners for hotels, car rentals, and phone companies; however, Continental does not advertise for revenues. Our corporate directive is that we will not subject customers to unneeded advertising.
• Gaming : If the US government ever approved of in-flight gambling, Kent would be surprised if Continental would add it.
• Live TV: We have two major concerns. 1) News stories on airline disasters, crashes, and emergencies can introducing undue stress to our customers. 2) From a logistics standpoint, live TV is difficult to time correctly on shorter flights… may get the perception from customer on landing, "You didn’t let me finish my entertainment."

Question: Rather than make the passenger purchase his laptop power cable before the flight, would you consider to carry and sell the laptop power cables on board?
Answers/Comments

• No… to accommodate the five most popular laptop manufacturers, the airline would have to carry 33 different adapters for all the various models.
• There may be liability to the airline if damage occurred to laptop equipment or its software content.
• Continental attempts to communicate with their customer before the flights via their web site, and tell them how to obtain the cable. That alternative is better than providing it on board. Also, in the future many laptop manufacturers will have direct 15-volt input (eliminating the voltage conversion box) and will supply the standard cable to connect to inseat power with the laptop.

II. Old Business

Revision of white paper on Media Storage
Rich Salter referred to the white paper on hard disk ruggedization written by Miltope and posted on the website. At a previous TC meeting, it was determined that the White paper should be expanded to include all Mass Media Storage Devices.

David Crossett, Miltope, presented an outline for the expanded white paper, which he had prepared with Don Pritchard, MBM Technologies/Lago. If the outline is approved, Lago and Miltope would like to form a small working group to write the expanded paper (along with any other interested parties).

Lago and Miltope propose a comparative analysis that suppliers or airlines can look at to see which devices are available and learn their general characteristics, such as

• EMI/RFI limiting factors
• Technology development cycles and product life cycles
• New developing technologies
• Cost
• Aircraft environmental qualifications (extended parameters)
• Certification with local authorities
• Reliability
• Industry expectations.

He would like to have a draft completed by the next TC meeting. After completion of this paper, they would consider expansion of the Storage WG to incorporate the larger File Server units.

Questions and debate ensued on the following topics:

Question: How do you intend to address the cost issue?
Answer/Comments: Note the industry trends only. Otherwise this has anti-trust implications. That is, note the cost factors and issues, including what general trends you can expect to see.

Question: Is there a distinction between server and most storage devices?
Answer/Comments: The TC can consider broadening the mission to make it a file server group.

Question: Are we considering a Media Server or File Server (and note that ARINC already has a working group for file servers)?
Answer/Comments: If we broaden the mission to servers, it would be for Data File Servers.

• Some throughput issues for loading content within a certain turn time at gate are already included in 0395.
• Matsushita (Al Abalos) and TCC (Cam Stone) indicated that they would join the group, and possibly Airbus and Boeing would participate. Sony (Ken Lew) indicated they would probably join depending on resources.
• It was noted that airlines probably don’t want to be involved at this time. It’s incumbent on the suppliers to do the educating about these devises.

Rich noted that there seemed to be a consensus for the TC to form a mass media storage group, and embark on a mission to identify issues with mass storage, creating an enhanced white paper showing the matrix of issues for the various storage types.

III. New Business

Working Group Reports

Satellite Working Group: Rodger Soucy, Ball Aerospace

Rodger Soucy, Chair of the Satellite WG, presented the results of their WG meeting. The Satellite WG met parallel with the DVD-WG on May 18, 1999. The twenty attendees included representatives of 3 airlines, 7 suppliers and 2 OEMs.

Rodger reported that several satellite TV system providers had given presentations of their architectures, interfaces, performance, and specifications. The group’s objective is to produce strawman specification for installation requirements to be presented to the TC and eventually to CEI. Their timeline is to have the white paper complete in 4th quarter 1999. The baseline document will include:

• Existing systems’ installation requirements
• Block Diagram for installation
• Standard ARINC 485 protocol defined for DBS-like systems
• Fuselage and Tail Fin Systems (2 places where antennas are located)
• Physical interfaces (mechanical interfaces will be a challenge)
• Electrical interfaces and power requirements
• For both single-channel and multi-channel systems

Rodger announced that the meeting had been successful in reaching several agreements:

• Cabling between antenna and SIA (satellite integration area) is to be supplier provided
• There will be separate provisions for tail-mounted and fuselage-mounted installations (i.e. different envelope provisions and proximity requirements between antenna and equipment are to be defined).
• A single coax type is to be defined
• The control and power interface cable requirements have been reduced since last meeting

Issues remaining include:

• Maximum cabin lengths
• Mechanical interfaces (decide what we can define)
• Coax type
• Software protocol (ARINC 485 specification) - no standardization exists for satellite interface protocol… we want 2 suppliers (Rockwell and Airshow) to work together to provide a common spec.

Homework assignments:

• Suppliers and OEMs to begin document work
• Determine space envelope/physical requirements
• Identify Coax requirements
• 485 interface
• Software data loading (not media content)

The next Satellite-WG meeting is scheduled for July 26-27 at the Universal City Hilton.

Comments and questions were made on the following topics:

Question: Is there any relationship between what Satelite-WG is doing and the work by AEEC’s SATCOM Subcommittee? Is there anything you could take from the Arinc 741 and 761 specs?
Answer/Comment: This will be investigated.

Question: Have you defined cabin applications?
Answer/Comment: The initial expected use of this system is for direct broadcast satellite media content. Data/Internet-related applications (with their requirements to transmit data onto and off the aircraft) are expected to be in the future (not initially).

• Rich noted that there are eight announced suppliers of satellite systems for aircraft. Five are participating. It is these hardware system suppliers along with Boeing and Airbus that are participating in the Satellite WG (not content providers). Michael Childers has made the group aware of contract licensing issues. We fully recognize that this needs to be addressed, but by a different group of players (the hardware providers did not feel that they had the expertise in that area). Rolf Goedecke mentioned that there is one paragraph in their document addressing the licensing issue, but their intent is to cover the technical aspects rather than legal aspects.

Questions: It was asked if the group was specifying analog only?
Answer/Comment: Rodger confirmed that it was analog NTSC interface from the antenna area to the IFE system input. In the future there will likely be a digital standard as well. Ben Sterchi asked if that would require retrofit of system, noting that airlines will not want to have to add boxes or wiring later because we only addressed analog/TV inputs now and delayed addressing digital until the future.

• Rich requested to have a draft spec circulated to the TC so that members can review it and make comments back to the WG. Rodger said he expects that initial draft of the document will be submitted to the TC for review and input at the next meeting (only an outline of the document is available now).

DVD Working Group: Al McGowan, TEAC America
Al McGowan, Co-chair of the DVD-WG, reported on the just-completed two and one-half days of meetings. He noted that this was the groups’ 4^th meeting, and it had the most airline participation yet: AA, Delta, Lufthansa, Northwest, Swissair, TWA, United and Virgin Atlantic.

Security Implementation: The security implementation ad hoc group is chaired by Julia Cutler, Paramount, and they made progress on:

• MPAA recommendation for protected content is two levels of security:
• "Home video release (Standard CSS and Region 8)
• "Early Release"(RSA/DES 56 bit encryption method, RSA keys not on disc, and renewable/revocable keys

• We hope to hear back soon from the DVD Forum Steering Committee. We are working to meet a deadline to present this at the WAEA Annual Conference in Salt Lake City so we need to have this done ASAP.

Authoring and Navigation:
This ad hoc group is chaired by Adrian Wang, Den-O-Tech, and he reported they had heated debate and lively discussions on:

• DVD Architecture Review
• Meta-data review
• Meta-data binary file format distributed for DVD-WG review

Meta-data is information about the information. Put initial data on disc at time of authoring (creation) to tell the system what is on the disc. This has ramifications on how discs are used on board aircraft.

Audio Encoding:
This ad hoc group is chaired by Frank McNeal, TEAC America, and he reported they had made progress in the following areas:

• Head-End Requirements:
  • Minimum of 4 audio outputs (compatible with legacy systems)
  • Maximum of 8 audio outputs
  • Simultaneous playback at head-end using Dolby Digital or LPCM.
• DVD Audio (video associated) with multiple AC-3 audio decoders poses some challenges for hardware manufacturers but it does work:
  • Extremely flexible
  • Low disc usage – only use what is needed
  • Allows use of meta-data
  • May allow repurposing of pre-existing studio audio content.

Meeting #4 Progress Summary: Al McGowan summarized the DVD-WG progress as follows:

• Drafted resolution to DVD Forum and CSS Interim Licensing Organization requesting creation of Region 8 region code.
• Arrived at audio encoding architecture
• Distributed and approved 2/10/99 meeting minutes
• Distributed and revised DVDWG document 98/12 rev.1 on IFE DVD requirements
• Reviewed Specification 0598 strawman version 0.1
• Completed review of Reference Model
• Next meeting July 27, 28 and 29 at Universal Hilton.

Al noted that Kevin Gage is on a flight with the drafted resolution to DVD Forum and CSS Interim Licensing Organization requesting creation of Region 8 region code. He further noted that the DVD-WG would like to present WAEA Spec. 0598 ("DVD Delivery for In-Flight Entertainment") in its final form at the WAEA Annual Conference in Salt Lake City in late September.

Rich thanked Al McGowan for his excellent presentation and noted that Al, Wade Hanniball and Mary Rogozinski had presented papers at the recent IFE conferences in London. He highly recommended that everyone take the time to obtain those presentations from the authors and review them.

Liaison Reports

CEI - Cabin Equipment Interfaces: Dale Freeman reported that the joint AEEC/WAEA Cabin Equipment Interfaces (CEI) subcommittee met on February 23-25, 1999, in Osaka, Japan, to review Drafts and Supplements of ARINC Specifications 628 and 485.

Arinc 628, Part 1 - head end equipment interfaces:

• Supplement 2 was recently adopted by the AEEC
• CEI will propose changes to RTCA/DO-160 to specify a combination of the "air discharge" and "contact discharge" ESD test methods.

Arinc 628, Part 2 – seat end equipment interfaces:

• Revised draft 4 of Supplement 1 to Part 2
• Updated the Noise Canceling Headset interface
• Reviewed Seat Video Display mechanical interface definitions.

Arinc 628, Part 4A – daisy chain distribution system

• Discussed inputs for Draft 1 of Supplement 1 to Part 4A
• Define a butt-joint fiber optic connector
• Define an in-seat power distribution network system.

The Remote Software Up/Down (RSUD) Working Group: This WG briefed attendees on File Server distribution issues as follows:

This Ad Hoc Working Group is developing candidate applications, interfaces, and operations for remote software up/down loading, and their work will be part of Draft Supplement 2 to Part 3 of Arinc 628. Dale noted this does not include IFE content loading.

British Airways volunteered to write sections of Part 5 – "Cabin Management and Entertainment System – Part Selection and Wiring Design/Installation Guidelines." As usual, other airlines inputs are always welcomed.

The following strawmen were reviewed and discussed with solicitations for additional comments:

• Part 6 - Fiber Optic Cable
• Part 7 - Cabin Cooling
• Part 8 - IFE Equipment Standard Availability Measurement Guidelines"

The Connector Working Group: This group continues to develop Component Procurement and Fiber Optic Specifications. They are meeting in Seattle concurrent with this meeting.

The CEI committee reviewed Draft 3 of Project Paper 485, Part 1 – "Head End Equipment Protocol." This document should be submitted for adoption consideration pending an updated input from AIRSHOW. It was reported that the Arinc 485 standard is progressing slowly. Ken Lew of Sony noted that, with the recent changes in personnel, he needs to inquire within his organization to learn if they have assigned a responsible party yet.

AEEC/WAEA CEI Subcommittee: Fabrisys Corporation will host the next meeting in Brussels Belgium June 22-24, 1999.

Tom Aliffi asked what airlines were represented at CEI meetings. Dale Freeman answered that typically SAS, KLM, Lufthansa, Air France, United, and Northwest attend.

Rich stated that the AEEC cabin equipment interfaces (CEI) subcommittee has been staffed by Arinc, with the WAEA Technology Committee supporting it with $40,000 per year for the past several years. Arinc does not have the resources or priority on IFE (compared to flight deck avionics systems) to continue to support CEI. Therefore, a Cabin Systems Task Force (CSTF) has been formed with the objective to analyze the future of CEI activities and recommend an organization to develop standards beginning in January 2000. This CSTF has met by teleconference five times. They are putting together a report that will analyze the value of standards and recommend what is needed in the future. It will recommend how to prioritize interfaces to standardize, and recommend an organization to develop standards and address funding of the process. The CSTF plans to have its report and recommendation to WAEA and AEEC by mid-year. A recent e-mail survey asks for opinions on several of these issues.

Mary stated that the e-mail survey is due back tomorrow. It consists of a one page cover letter and one page survey form that was sent to all WAEA primary and technical contacts, and it will also be sent to TC and CEI attendees. It will take some time to put together a new organization or charter ARINC by January 2000 to keep the CEI going.

WAEA Board Meeting and other WAEA Highlights

London Educational Workshop and Conference -- The recent WAEA Conference in London was well attended. There was a weekend between the WAEA and IPEC Conference. Mary indicated the meeting was very successful and it had touched on many technical topics. Rich indicated that copies of the papers were available. Contact him if you would like a copy.

Cabin Systems Task Force – Rich and Mary indicated that this TF was progressing towards a report with a recommendation on the best way for proceeding with CEI-type standards next year. (See more comments above under CEI liaison report).

Quarterly TC Newsletter "Tech FX" – This quarterly newsletter will be published soon after each TC meeting. The first issue was already distributed by e-mail and fax, and many positive comments have been received. Rob Brookler is the writer. Send your e-mail address to Rich (Rsalter23@aol.com) if you are not receiving it already.

AVION Magazine - "TC Update" is a recurring article in each issue. The first quarter edition focused on Smart Cards WG’s mission accomplished, the second quarter edition will focus on the Satellite WG progress, and the third quarter edition will highlight the DVD WG.

WAEA Annual Conference and Exhibition – September 28, 1999 in Salt Lake City. Look for exhibitor kits coming out shortly. Contact Mimi Ruffing if you do not have exhibit space yet.

IV. TC Meeting Sponsorship - Wade and Rich again thanked this meeting’s sponsors: Dolby Laboratories, Oxford Media, Sony Trans Com, and TEAC America. They appealed for sponsors to step forward for the next meeting. Depending on the number of sponsors, it will cost approximately $1,000 each.

V. Next meeting date and location

R. Salter will communicate by e-mail regarding when and where the next WAEA TC meeting will be held. (See discussion under "Upcoming Meetings," above).

VI. Adjourn
The meeting adjourned at 5:10 p.m.