Rockwell Collins is here at MEBA 2014 highlighting improvements in its Venue cabin management and entertainment system, Airshow moving-map and audio-video on-demand (AVOD) streaming solution.

Venue is available in new aircraft, such as Dassault Falcons (where it is branded as the Falcon Cabin Management System HD+) as well as aftermarket installations. Because it incorporates a fiber-optic backbone for system control and data communications, the system can be easily upgraded as new features become available.

“Our core competency is integration,” said Jay McGrath, Rockwell Collins marketing manager for VIP and VVIP business jet cabins. “We have an amazing backbone designed around open systems.” That not only means that products from third-party vendors such as Rosen (monitors), Emteq (lighting), PPG (window shades) or Securaplane (cameras) can easily be added, but Venue product improvements can also be incorporated via a simple software upgrade, without having to dismantle the interior furnishings.

“Our philosophy was that no single vendor will be the best in anything,” he explained. “We focus on integration and strategic partners to integrate on our backbone.” Once a vendor’s product is integrated into Venue, it becomes part of the Venue “superset” and can easily be added in any Venue installation. “We develop it once and re-use it in a much more economical fashion for customers in the future,” he said.

Venue has been installed on about 20 Gulfstream and 20 Bombardier Global jets, according to McGrath, and a total of about 450 business aircraft. The largest jet with a Venue system is an Airbus A340, and one was retrofitted last year and recently entered service, while Rockwell Collins just announced that another A340 customer has selected the Venue system, to be installed next year. “That’s where Venue seems to be doing really well, in the larger aircraft segments,” he said. The smallest aircraft with a Venue system is a King Air 350 twin turboprop.

Here at MEBA, Rockwell Collins (Stand 625) also announced that it has selected Falcon Aviation Services of Abu Dhabi to as its preferred cabin supplier, for installation of Venue systems in VIP and VVIP aircraft.

While Venue system control via Apple iOS devices has been available for three years, Rockwell Collins now offers control using Android devices. This feature is available starting in January. Another new feature is the ability to assign control of cabin lighting, sound and entertainment features to a single seat instead of just a cabin remote control to be used by a crewmember. Switch panels at seats and on monitors are still available in case the wireless mobile device fails.

“Everyone wants to go wireless,” McGrath said, “so we strongly recommend a hybrid solution with some installed switch panels and monitors, so if there is a problem with wireless, you don’t lose control of the cabin.”

Rockwell Collins recognizes that inflight entertainment systems are mission-critical for Middle East operators, which tend to fly long distances. The Venue system’s distributed architecture prevents loss of the entire cabin management/entertainment system, because a failure will be limited to one seat or seating area. “System availability should be the biggest area of focus when you’re going to invest in a cabin system,” he said.

The Airshow system can also be displayed on mobile apps. This feature was first released on iOS devices but will be available on Android in January as well.

Aircraft operators that want to stream movies and other content or play music in the cabin have two choices from Rockwell Collins. The Skybox system basically replicates the iOS and iTunes environment, delivering digital rights management (DRM)-protected content for passenger enjoyment. This includes early window content such as newly released movies that are still showing at theaters and not available on DVD. Skybox can store up to one terabyte of content and deliver up to 10 streams of content simultaneously.

The other choice is the Rockwell Collins AVOD system, where passengers can bring their own content on USB devices to play in the cabin. The AVOD system uses the Boxee home theater software, which is now owned by Samsung. Because this content can be shown on any DNLA-compliant device, passengers can view movies on Apple, Android, Kindle and Surface devices. The AVOD system can deliver 12 to 16 streams simultaneously, depending on whether the content is standard or high definition. For a larger aircraft, two AVOD loops can be installed to serve twice as many passengers.

In 2016, Rockwell Collins will release a new content model, which will make DRM content available on all types of devices, whether iOS, Android, etc. This new system will support streaming of early window movies, according to McGrath, as well as Internet television delivered by satellite. “We realize that wireless is here to stay and we’re developing next-generation features,” he said.