Thales talks event-based 360Stream and near-live highlights

HAMBURG — Thales used the occasion of this year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo to formally announce the newest additions to its inflight entertainment product portfolio: a live event-based programming solution known as 360Stream and its new ‘near-live service’, which delivers highlights of major events, like sports games and news, to the aircraft within an hour. 

It is perhaps notable that these innovations are being introduced at a time when the exclusivity around a longtime international inflight rights agreement for IMG’s live sports content is no longer in play.

A key part of the Thales 360Stream offering is that it doesn’t require passengers to avail of a constant satellite connection to stream live sports. In line with Thales’ edge caching work elsewhere, 360Stream can ferry a game over the inflight connectivity pipe, and serve it up to passengers to be watched in real time, or at any other time thereafter during the flight using a cached copy on the aircraft.

The system also features digital video recorder (DVR) capability, allowing passengers to play, pause, rewind, and playback content. “This replicates the on ground experience,” Thales vice president digital IFE + IFC Kurt Weidemeyer told RGN at AIX, with passengers able to watch events in a way that suits them. 

Moreover, passengers can schedule reminders for themselves to watch events on board when they start. For example, if someone wants to catch a World Cup match, they won’t have to worry about remembering the time difference, as 360Stream will notify them when it’s time to watch the game.

When asked if 360Steam could stream in 4K resolution, Weidemeyer said, “it could be technically possible to do 4K, but we are doing 1080p. You can see the ball [in the game], but also economise bandwidth.” 

In Thales’ view, the bandwidth savings provided by 360Stream are meaningful, as it removes the need to stream a channel 24/7 for what is often repetitive content.

“Without streaming reruns on cable, airlines can either give bandwidth back to passengers to improve connectivity or save money,” noted Thales product director David Varney, who demoed the solution for us at the show.

360Stream can work on any IFE system or personal electronic device (PED), and with any inflight connectivity provider, but passengers will need to use the 360Stream interface itself to access streaming, rather than accessing their OTT subscription directly.

Near-live highlights is an additional product that Thales views as complementary to 360Stream. Using an automated programme to load short vignettes from content providers every hour, near-live highlights does as its name suggests, providing highlights of recent programming. This content can be uploaded to an aircraft either on the ground or in the air, with the system selecting which route is the most efficient.

For example, a news channel could provide a roundup or summary of the most important news and events. And these packages could be curated to tie in sponsorships or brand collaborations, Varney explained.

Offering 360Stream and near-live highlights together enables airlines to create pages of content that are interlinked so, for instance, passengers could watch summaries of previous races ahead of a live streamed race on board, as well as updated vignettes about race preparations the moment the stream begins. 

Thales can also recommend cached vignettes based on a passenger’s viewing preferences and history, said Varney.

Thales already has content agreements in place with CNN, BBC News, and EuroNews, and revealed it has also worked with IMG to provide live sports.

As with any content for the aviation market, the correct rights and permissions must be in place. Thales said it works with the content providers to ensure these are secured, and to ensure content is suitable for different markets.

360Stream has been flying aboard Airbus A350s since January 2025.

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• Thales takes IFE innovation to the edge with edge-caching and cloud
• Press Release: DIRECTV expands programming to international flights

All images credited to Fintan Horan-Stear

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