Mar 13, 2014, 12:52 pm

FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides

All mainline UA aircfraft should have PDE available (April 2018)
Supported devices

Courtesy of JOSECONLSCREW28

If anybody can update this wiki with roll out dates, that will be helpful!

Entertainment options in the future:

Continental Airlines aircraft:
B777-200ER AVOD/Satellite WiFi
B767-400ER AVOD/Satellite WiFi
B787-8 AVOD/Satellite WiFi/Streaming Content
B787-9 AVOD/Satellite WiFi/Streaming Content
B757-300 851 - 859 DirecTV/SatelliteWiFi
B757-300 860 - 871 Streaming Content/Satellite WiFi
B757-200 AVOD/Satellite WiFi
B737-900/900ER 401 - 464 DirecTV/Satellite WiFi
B737-900ER 465 - 478 Streaming Content/Satellite Wifi
B737-800 202 - 226, 228 - 231, 233 - 234, 237 - 239, 241 - 245, 247 - 248, 250 - 299, 501 - 531 DirecTV/Satellite WiFi
B737-800 201, 227, 232, 235 - 236, 240, 246, 249 Overhead IFE/Satellite WiFi
B737-700 701 - 719, 721 - 724, 726 - 733, 750 DirecTV/Satellite WiFi
B737-700 720, 734, 735, 736 Overhead IFE/Satellite WiFi

United Airlines aircraft:
B747-400 AVOD + Streaming Content/Satellite WiFi
B777-200 International AVOD/Satellite WiFi
B777-200 Hawaiian Streaming Content/Satellite WiFi
B767-300 2-cabin AVOD/Satellite WiFi
B767-300 3-cabin AVOD/Looping IFE/Streaming Content/Satellite WiFi
B757-200 PS AVOD/Streaming Content/GoGo WiFi
B737-900ER Streaming Content/Satellite WiFi
A319/A320 Streaming Content/Satellite WiFi

This other thread is also invaluable for general fleet updates:

United Airlines Fleet Updates [2014 Thread]

Watch inflight movies/TV on your personal device (PDE) - Experiences, discussion,...

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Jan 21, 2018, 12:31 am

#556

mathprof

Join Date: Mar 2005

Posts: 233

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michilander

Or whether it will work with Android.

Was on a A319 yesterday and it worked just fine with my Galaxy S5, Android 6.0.1. However, I continue to have little success getting it to work on the 737's or the RJ's.

FA on a 737 LAX-HNL told me that iOS devices "always work" but others like my Fire HD 8, worked only half of the time.

Jan 21, 2018, 3:46 am

#557

Silver Fox

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Apr 2009

Location: where lions are led by donkeys...

Programs: Lifetime Gold, Global Entry, Hertz PC, and my wallet

Posts: 20,344

Oddly at some point on my SFO-LHR flight yesterday (777) I wanted to use the map, started it up from the app, get the advertisement (zzzzzzz) then off to the map. Did exactly the same thing a few hours later and got a message with the little jigsaw icon saying "you need to install a plugin" and no advertisement. Quite what had happened in those few hours, or could have happened, is beyond my mobile phone comprehension. I got to the map though which was the ultimate goal. I didn't bother trying to do anything else or even attempt to fix it as sleep was the #1 item on my agenda.

Jan 21, 2018, 9:29 am

#558

SJNChi81

Join Date: Jan 2018

Posts: 1

Error code 3500 when using iPhone X

Flew a 767-300 3-cabin ORD-BRU last night. No on-demand in seatback, just the old school channels that each play a different movie, so I resorted to PDE. Your Firefox and Safari experiences are exactly what happened to me as well. After landing, I found some info on United's website, which confirms that my Mac OS is too old (10.9) and my Firefox is too new (53.x). BUT... I only got to the point of trying my laptop because I couldn't get the PDE to work on my iPhone X. Definitely had latest United app. Latest everything, I mean I only bought this phone a month ago! I could browse for movies, but then when selecting one to watch, I immediately get a message like "Your device is having trouble connecting. If you continue to get this message please relaunch your browser. Error code 3500" But no amount of relaunching ever fixed it. The only device that worked for me in flight was my iPhone 6S (work phone) with iOS 11.2.2. But I was trying to avoid using it because the plane had no in-seat power and I knew my battery wouldn't last, and without that phone I have no cellular service on the ground. Completely stymied by technology (or lack thereof)... Does anyone know what that error 3500 is caused by??

Quote:

Originally Posted by noblerare

I recently flew from Chicago to Honolulu on a United Airlines Boeing 777-200. I connected to the United Wifi in an effort to watch their complimentary movies on my personal device. However, I was stymied on all of my browsers from accessing their page. I have another flight back from Honolulu to Chicago in a few days and would prefer not to make the 9 hour flight again without entertainment since it was quite miserable.

I have these browsers:

Google Chrome v63 - I believe the United Wifi system specs tell me that Google Chrome is not supported. Why is this? It's one of the most popular browsers in the world...
Mozilla Firefox v57 - I followed the steps to install the DRM plugin but even after doing so, the website keeps informing me that I have to install the DRM plugin!
Apple Safari v11 - It seems to recognize the DRM okay but then it says that I need to install Flash. I'm given a link to install Flash 25 but when I actually go to install it, the installer pops up saying that I already have Flash 28 and there's no need to install Flash 25. What is this? Then, why won't the website recognize that?

Keep in mind that I'm doing this all up at 30,000 feet so no other Wi-Fi connection so this is all I had to go off of. You can see how I progressively got closer and closer with each browser I tried but at the end of the day, I hit a brick wall. What is my issue and how can I make sure my browsers are compatible with United's Entertainment features before going on my next flight?

Thanks!

Feb 1, 2018, 10:10 am

#559

wcalvert

Join Date: Nov 2009

Location: Houston, TX

Posts: 1,782

Had issues with a 737 flight and Android 8.1

Was just reading through the thread and looked at the UA website and it said that 737 support for Android 6.0+ was planned in early 2017. Guessing that hasn't happened yet!

Will give it another try on an Embraer 175 tomorrow.

Feb 1, 2018, 5:54 pm

#560

alchemista

Join Date: Jul 2004

Posts: 611

No PDE on a hub-hub flight DEN-ORD? geez

Feb 26, 2018, 8:21 am

#561

Artpen100

Join Date: Jul 2011

Programs: AA Plat, UA 1K>Plat>moving to Silver

Posts: 2,090

I recently had to switch from my mac to a company-issued HP spectre with Windows 10. I can't get it to play movies on the UA IFE. I download and run the plug in, then it tells me it is already installed. But it still won't work. (I can see trailers, but not the movies.) I wonder if that is because I don't have administrative privileges or another security reason. Is there any workaround? (Besides watching them on my phone, where it still seems to work.) Same result with both Edge and Firefox.

Feb 26, 2018, 8:28 am

#562

laxmillenial

Join Date: Jan 2016

Programs: UA 1K; *G, AA Plat

Posts: 1,700

Quote:

Originally Posted by Artpen100

Can you check your security settings? Is Flash allowed to be running in browsers? I know my company tries to disable this by default (but it can be modified if you have admin priv). This would be my guess.

Mar 10, 2018, 8:18 am

#563

ualisthebst

Join Date: Jan 2003

Location: Chicago, IL

Posts: 512

Flew A/C 3223 (sCO 738 w/ DirecTV) last week and can confirm it had streaming PDE.

rmadisonwi likes this.

Mar 19, 2018, 4:20 pm

#564

mc0810

Join Date: Mar 2018

Posts: 15

United InFlight Entertainment Question

Traveling florida to seattle, with a layover in Texas and traveling with kids. If I buy the inflight entertainment on the first leg of the flight, will it still be active on the second leg? What are the current prices? I'm not seeing an answer on uniteds site,

Mar 19, 2018, 5:01 pm

#565

mmayer

Join Date: Apr 2005

Location: ORD

Programs: AA, UA Plat, HH Gold, Marriott Amb

Posts: 418

Quote:

Originally Posted by mc0810

No, prices are per segment for DirectTV birds. Price depends on the length of the segment, $5.99 on flights two hours or less and $7.99 on flights over two hours. If you order ahead of time, you can purchase for $4.99/segment.

Info here: https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/tra...s/DIRECTV.aspx

That said, depending on the equipment, you can also get an aircraft with "Personal Device Entertainment". For this, you would need an iOS or Android device with the United App to watch videos over WiFi. PDE is free and has a fairly good selection of kid-friendly shows and movies. The catch here is that on most 737 aircraft with PDE, it isn't compatible with the Android operating system after Version 5 - which is most of the Android devices out there right now. I keep one tablet on Android 5.0 specifically to avoid this problem.

As you get closer to your flight, you can check your flight status and look in the "Amenities" Tab, it will tell you what form of entertainment your aircraft will have. Also, check if your aircraft will have power outlets available in your rows, running the entertainment eats battery.

tstauck and mc0810 like this.

Mar 19, 2018, 6:52 pm

#566

mc0810

Join Date: Mar 2018

Posts: 15

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmayer

That said, depending on the equipment, you can also get an aircraft with "Personal Device Entertainment". For this, you would need an iOS or Android device with the United App to watch videos over WiFi. PDE is free and has a fairly good selection of kid-friendly shows and movies. The catch here is that on most 737 aircraft with PDE, it isn't compatible with the Android operating system after Version 5 - which is most of the Android devices out there right now. I keep one tablet on Android 5.0 specifically to avoid this problem.

As you get closer to your flight, you can check your flight status and look in the "Amenities" Tab, it will tell you what form of entertainment your aircraft will have. Also, check if your aircraft will have power outlets available in your rows, running the entertainment eats battery.

Thank you!! Since the inseat tv monitor is pay per flight should I assume the Personal Device entertainment/wifi will ALSO be pay per flight and not per day? (so it wouldnt work on the 2nd leg of my trip)?

Mar 19, 2018, 6:54 pm

#567

Kacee

A FlyerTalk Posting Legend

Join Date: Apr 2013

Location: PHX

Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)

Posts: 56,461

Quote:

Originally Posted by mc0810

The streaming entertainment is free.

mc0810 likes this.

Mar 19, 2018, 7:17 pm

#568

mmayer

Join Date: Apr 2005

Location: ORD

Programs: AA, UA Plat, HH Gold, Marriott Amb

Posts: 418

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kacee

The streaming entertainment is free.

Ooops, important point missing from my post! Yes, PDE is free.

mc0810 likes this.

Mar 19, 2018, 9:04 pm

#569

mc0810

Join Date: Mar 2018

Posts: 15

great, thank you both!

Apr 3, 2018, 5:36 pm

#570

randomlogik

Join Date: Dec 2017

Programs: ANA Mileage Club, Virgin Australia, Garuda Frequent Flyer, Qantas Frequent Flyer

Posts: 4

I flew on a 777-200 the other day (EWR-SFO) and the seatbacks has no IFE but had those tablet holder thingies.

Does anyone know what the maximum size tablet those things fit? I'm guessing these are the way of the future, so I wanna get a new tablet just for flights - but I have a feeling they wont fit a really big tablet.

Maybe a 10" max? Anyone know?