Many IFE systems in service these days offer some form of on-demand entertainment whether that be audio only or a full selection of audio and video. The issue being how much faith do you put into the choices the airline will offer to you on your flight? Would you be better off bringing your own entertainment? At least with BYOE you’ll know the entertainment you have will be to your liking. Several years ago we took our then toddler on an overseas flight and decided to go the BYOE route. Can’t remember if the video iPod was available at the time but we did not have one. Even if we did the screen size would have been too small for our toddler. We brought along a portable DVD player and a library of DVDs that she enjoyed so we were covered on the entertainment front. The down side was having to carry the DVD player, the DVDs, and an extra battery (power ports were not widely available at the time) onto the aircraft in our carryon bags. Not sure what we’ll do on our next family vacation that includes a long haul flight. Do we do the BYOE thing again or hope the AVOD offering for kids will be things the kids will enjoy? Well, there’s always the option to use the iPhone as a BYOE back-up.
