articos

Red was developed mostly in Southern California, sort of by committee. Red was put together for VX by Wunderman Group, based in Orange County, CA, with CoKinetic Systems out of Connecticut, Innovative Media Solutions in Anaheim, CA, and Panasonic Avionics in Lake Forest, CA. Wunderman is a spin off of Young & Rubicam, the ad agency. I believe it's the same Pani hardware as what's used on UA and SQ, with CoKinetic software running a custom GUI. CoKinetic does do software development in India, but I wouldn't point all the blame there...there are a ton of areas where things can go wrong, hence the freezing up issues still plaguing the system, even though it's built on a stable Linux platform. They'll get it worked out...eventually. Majority of my VX flights, Red's been fine, except a few times where they've had to reset the system to get it working again. Never had it go down the entire flight - may be a buggy upgrade or patch, as you mentioned, if it's happening a lot recently.

SFO 1K

Correct - same hardware as UA and SQ and you can read plenty of complaints about freezes and other issues in their respective forums too. Not limited to Red.

articos

And not just limited to this hardware - last flight I took on jetBlue the IFE went down for over half the flight, on a transcon. The amount of lost signal on jetBlue is annoying to me more than it is on Red, too.

nermaljcat

To be honest I can only remember one freeze that required a plane-wide reboot in my personal experience. There have been glitches, but only one reboot.

Just commenting on the increase of reports in this forum about it being offline. Hardware issues is one of the more likely causes.

articos

Think it's a mix of hardware and software, really. As you already know, Panasonic Avionics provides the hardware, which is actually pretty robust, although not perfect. CoKinetic provides the base layer embedded software. Then IMS does the streaming A/V, I believe. And Wunderman commissioned a custom GUI that rides atop the CoKinetic software. That's a lot of independent software layers trying to talk with each other, for 100+ seats, in real time, not even taking into account any of the possible hardware issues beyond that.

aviators99

This isn't rocket science (although maybe if RED is on Virgin Galactic I will take that back). Real-time systems of this nature are put into production all the time without these problems.

Mimi Imferst

Rode VX for the second time just the other day. Red worked this time. ^

overall, I enjoyed the system, especially the playlist feature. The live TV was a disappointment. Blotchy picture quality and only a few channels working. The program guide was working as if to inform me of the shows that I couldn't watch.

articos

Heh...agreed. However, the system is only as good as the budget put into it and the people behind it, and so far, there doesn't seem to be an exceptional company picking up the torch to put out a flawless IFE. Wish they would. If they put Red on VG I'll *laugh*. A lot.

colmc

I wonder if they're wishing they had of gone with a full AVOD system instead of tryng to include the satellite TV functions.

Mimi Imferst

I wondered that, too. It seems like a bit of "keeping up with the jones's" in trying to offer a product that B6 has made a core of their experience but instead of creating an addition to their IFE they have come through with a letdown. Given the history(one year now) and no sign of improvement, maybe it should just be dropped all together.

Maybe it's an issue with Dish Network, too. B6's DirectTV service is nearly flawless.

nermaljcat

LOL! that's funny. The TV doesn't work quite right yet and VX are competing with B6, so why don't they give up on it?

Maybe VX should just give up on their expansion too? They are competing with B6 who already have established routes.

Thanks for the post! It made me laugh this morning

articos

Errrm....Every single B6 flight I've ever taken since they started flying I've had the DirecTV go out intermittently in flight...I've yet to have one channel that I've been watching stay on the entire flight. It's not an issue with Dish per se, it's the antenna/receiving equipment, which is the much the same hardware jetBlue and everyone else uses.

I much prefer having satellite tv to *only* having AVOD options, but that's my opinion.

Mimi Imferst

It has not a thing to do with competing with B6. It was only offered as speculation to their reasoning for trying to add the product into their IFE system.

Since that product(Sat. TV), in my experiences flying on VX and through posts here on Ft and a.net, is a letdown they shouldn't be cheapening the experience by letting a system that should operate 30(?) channels only operate 4.

Why not drop the channels that never seem to work and only offer the 4 that do work? By the way, after a year it becomes overdue to ask the question, if it hasn't already been asked; will this ever be resolved?

In my experience, the system will cut out intermittently when the plane banks 15-20 degrees in either direction, usually on takeoff and/or approach and the signal is picked up again no more than 2 minutes later. Other than that, the system can occasionally give you a black screen and an endless "searching" message for one channel(out of 36) every few flights.

I think we're on the same page with preferring TV and AVOD, I just wish it came through as promised on VX.

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So is it a stretch to admit that constantly receiving only 4 out of 30(?) channels is failing?

If you're fine with that, well, enjoy.

nermaljcat

OK then, dropping only the channels that do not work doesn't sound as silly. I think I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you said they should drop satellite TV altogether because it doesn't work as well as B6.

I think they should keep what they have and invest some resources into improving it... they may already be doing that for all we know. VX have come a long way in a year, especially with the current environment. Who knows what improvements they'll make in the next 12 months?

Mimi Imferst

I'll drink to that. But if I have to wait any longer I don't think my liver will make it.