Originally Posted by
SFO_LHR_NRT
I personally think broadcast TV (OTA, satellite, and cable) will be dead within the next decade or two. Eventually everything including live TV will be streamed multicast over some sort of TCP/IP transmission, the holdback is not if but when we can achieve sustained data throughout to flying aircraft in order for this to happen. The TVs you buy at the store are about to ditch their ATSC tuners and services like DirectTV to the home may no longer exist let alone on aircraft.
Getting into a bit of a tangent but I think the demise of traditional distribution methods for TV content (antenna, satellite, cable) is fairly premature. At least with satellite there is a decent amount of this country that is not served with high speed internet and streaming simply is not an option.
Originally Posted by
SFO 1K
While DIRECTV is not part of the new United Next IFE product, as Wi-Fi is upgraded to include streaming capability, you can then stream your preferred provider. As an example, I have DIRECTV Stream and have been able to view my local channels, ESPN, the cable news networks, etc without issue. It takes a few moments to adjust to the available bandwidth, but the picture on my iPad Pro or MacBook Air look just fine.
At this juncture I don't consider this to be a viable solution. Internet access is not free on UA and whether you can even get a strong enough connection to stream is a big
IF. The new large screens are nice, I have seen them on the MAX, I wouldn't think it would be that hard to incorporate into the system but I guess it is.
Originally Posted by
char777
As someone who works in live television, I'd really love to see live TV continue on UA aircraft as well. The DirecTV experience is dated and not great, but live news and sports are still important to a lot of people. Movies and other genres of TV are obviously a different story, but I still believe that audiences (whether on an aircraft or at home) will not settle for news or sports content that's not live. Even WN has figured out a way of offering live TV via streaming device entertainment.
While I am generally not the biggest fan of BYOD IFE, the WN system works pretty well.