Deterioration in IFE selection?
 

Royalties paid on movies cost a lot to airlines.
This is especially true for blockbusters.

In the past year or so I have the distinct impression that CX is spending less on movies. Despite the wide selection, I do not find the recent movies I would like to watch. And when you fly a lot in the same months that is ennoying.

Am I the only one to have this feeling?

Nope!

CX long haul has been my 'catch-up on movies' venue, distinctly lesser so of late.

Couldn't agree more. Back from London last night and all I wanted to watch was 3 episodes of a 12 parter I started the week before. Had seen everything else that I wanted to watch (which is unusual). Definitely spending less on TV series (although there's more variety from around the world, perhaps that's cheaper) and fewer and fewer new movies that I've heard of (and I like movies so it's not because I'm a hermit!). An Ipad 2 and downloadable Netflix is the answer I've discovered.

Funny you should mention that. It seems that they are keeping the same selection longer as well. There has been an episode of "grand designs revisited" that I have noticed has been on for three months now. I keep selecting it hoping it's a new episode and it's not...

There is now a new "studio cx" intro reel.

Could not agree more.

In terms of the IFE selection, that is disappointing to hear. I don't usually browse through the content much, usually just enjoy the airshow and get work done on my laptop when not sleeping but I guess thats a sign of the times CX feel people bring enough of their own content not to care.

I broke this off into a separate topic as it seems to be something that's actually happening and a negative to the inflight experience.

On my long haul flights to YYZ, I used to watch at least 3 movies. Now I barely watch 1. Selection definitely has an impact.

Definitely agree. 4 years ago I was able to watch at least 4 movies from NYC-HKG, but last week I could barely find more than 2. A lot of dated movies and I am not sure why they included a lot of Harry Potter there.

Agree, but at the same time the number of movies out there that I want to watch has also reduced...... So CX does have some problem, but not all...

Movies still look strong to me, when over this year the # of pages in 'Cantopop albums' have fallen from 6 to 2...

I was really pi$$ed when they took away 創世紀 as for that period all I did was to bingewatch it and that made 16 hour flights fly by fast :p

I haven't flown 35G yet but is there a wider variety on the new IFE system?

Look you guys who fly CX all the time are lucky. Just you wait and try HighLife entertainment on BA. The movie selection is okay but the music selection is plainly pathetic.

Just did a 35G and 77W on the same day - content, at least for movies, is exactly the same, just nicer UI on 35G. BTW I am not a huge fan of the remote control on 35G. Also on 35G you could no longer sort movies by "Western Classics" etc etc (or maybe I did not find the way).

CX music selection is nowhere better...AA on the other hand, has an awful UI on its IFE but way better range of movie selections.

Deleted.

deteriorated +1. I think the TV section offers more interesting selections recently.

In fact I realised that I'm looking at AA or JL to New York in business in a few weeks rather than Cathay - and IFE is part of it although so is a change of food options to see what else is out there. Prices are pretty similar and because I always do ex-TPE for long haul, making a change in Tokyo or DFW isn't much of a problem. I'll just be interested to see what the movie and TV selection is like on another airline where the hard product is very similar (or the same), the soft product is the same or perhaps slightly inferior and I still collect points anfd miles on Oneworld. Everything's a tradeoff but if the only change in IFE month-to-month from my perspective is an extra 3 episodes of "Billions" then I'm going to check out the competition

I think selection is the same on the 35G except for the live TV stream, CNN, BBC and a sports channel...

I think it's longer than the last year or so. For the last 2 or 3 years I seem to have always seen every film on there. The selection of films is still good for casual flyers but the TV shows have taken a downward turn with only a handful of episodes from a season on there now.

Maybe they blew the budget when they got all the Oscar winners.

Or MH lol..
Case in point: Their travel documentary on HKG was from the early 2000s.. think they were waiting for it to be "in the public domain" :o

Hehe- so I'm not alone in feeling like a dinosaur trying to deal with the new interface vs the old one.

It took a few 350flights to figure this one out. In a particular section, towards the top right- not the corner but kind of like the last but one field, in sort of the second row of links (phew!), there's a drop down menu to filter to one of the original categories.

Yeah the old one looked and felt 'old', but comfortable- It's way easier for me to navigate that/skip the ads at the beginning etc.

4 Aug HKG-SYD: no Dunkirk, Despicable Me 3. Only Cars 3 I think.

My Android phone is loaded with YouTube downloads of BEPS videos but I wasn't expecting to watch them on CX (rather UO)

wow...guess i wasn't the only one who noticed this. just flew lax-hkg and hkg-sin and watched a total of yes 2 movies!! new movie selection was horrible and the two movies i watched were considered classics

It has indeed deteriorated, I struggled to find something to watch during my last 13hr flt from YVR-HKG, gave up and worked on my laptop instead. The live CNN on the A350 is great though, after a long flt and being able to catch up on news for the next flt helps to start the day properly.

i wonder if it would be feasible to offer "premium" content for additional a la carte cost? Say US$5 for first run movie or US$1-2 for a current season TV episode

What is 35 G? Thank you

Cathay vernacular for the A350-900.

Ha thanks for letting me know. I only took one 359 segment at the moment but will have more chances later this year.

The touch screen is well improved (but very hard when used with remote control), but yes it was way easier to navigate in the old UI.

I don't think WB released Dunkirk to airlines yet, given none of the US big 3 featured it in August and it was still in cinema. It hurts box office to pre-maturely release hot movies to airlines/hotel rentals etc. It looks like the addition is Baywatch (May), so July release might be out around Nov/Dec.

Off topic, I strongly recommend watching Dunkirk on an IMAX screen. I don't think home theater will give me even close experience as IMAX for this particular movie, not to mention on an IFE.

How would airlines already have Dunkirk? It was just released to theaters a few weeks ago and still in rotation on the big screen.

Quite a number of the Canton-pop has been moved to the new Canton-pop classic section... Overall choice has increased just you like or not (like I never know why GEM is still there for such a long time...)

Just flew HKG-PVG. They changed the opening video of the IFE system...

Back to the topic, For movie usually I can find one new movie to watch every month... But just one... No interest on the others...

TV section yes it's much better nowadays... This month they've added American Ninja Warrior Season 8 ^ AXN is soooo slow... Still showing Season 7... They have ep 1 to 3 now, but don't know if they will have full season in-flight or not... Like TopGear, Season 24 (post Jeremy-Richard-May era Season 2) still only ep 1 and 2....

just an observation, but 'Two Broke Girls' seems to be everywhere in IFE systems...and i'm talking about CX KL AY AF AC SU(!) etc. Particularly on CX ~20 episodes are available.

Alright Dunkirk seems to be more an exception

I still don't see Despicable Me https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_....html?switch=Y ...

I am assuming you are referring to Despicable Me 3. In NA it was first released on June 30, and it is also still running on major cinemas in NA. I will give it another 2 months.

I think the schedule really depends on movie distributors though. They don't want to see airlines/hotels cannibalize box office.

The IFE seems to have a new interface with annoyances such as less clear volume slider, more on-screen messages to send away and most annoyingly, no ability to fast forward commercials. These all feel like retrograde steps despite the arguably stylish look of the new interface.

The screen clutter is a general thing also on the ground world nowadays, where everything should look fancy, so CX does the same. :(

FF worked nicely for me in J on the A359 (and 773). It requires some attention to stop, before the main cinema starts. Three taps to get 8FF on, count to 5 and turn back to normal speed, so to say. @:-)

I also noticed a difference on our recent CX J flights. On previous CX flights there was an abundance of choices, multiple seasons of popular TV shows. Now there were only 1 or 2 that I'd even heard of. Very disappointing from CX. Everything else about our trip was excellent (even the catering), but the lack of IFE options really stood out. Multiple pax in J were watching content on their laptops/tablets.

Move the slider along to ~2m30 and you'll skip all the commercials ^

That is a helpful tip, thanks.

Tried that, though the finger tracking is pretty clunky for me.

Tap forward rapidly 4 times (you'll see it indicating x2, x4, x8... on each tap), then tap play. Same result. Some long hauls have longer commercials so just wait a second before hitting play or do this twice. Will always stop right at the beginning of the feature.