Tablets…I need lots of tablets

Don't have a personal network of IT-knowledgable people so I thought I'd turn to this forum.

I work for a charter airline. We have a VVIP trip soon and want to offer our passengers a tablet with movies. We're talking like 40-60 tablets.

I don't necessarily have time to buy 60 tablets, activate them and then download movies onto each one. Apple doesn't offer such a pre-loaded service, and I have to admit maybe the iPad would be too expensive.

Does anyone have some suggestions/alternatives?

We had originally planned to go with portable DVD players and a whole range of movies. The problem is that I have to find some with Duracell-like batteries because we can't charge the player in-flight.

I don't know if this will help. But can you give us an idea of the total budget to purchase these 40-60 devices (tablets, DVD players, etc.)? Or at least the max. budget for a single device.

And what do you mean by "pre-loaded"? Even a portable DVD player isn't going to be pre-loaded.

- Nick

I have a pretty high budget. Depends on what I can get.

By pre-loaded I mean that when I can call a retailer, order a bunch of tablets and they install some movies, that I of course pay for.

I read that Apple can pre-load iPods with iBooks, music or your company's presentations, but nothing like that is available for an iPad.

I was hoping I could point at 10-20 movies, get someone to install them on the tablets, and go from there.

Alternatively, I am going to buy 100 DVDs, stock them onboard and buy 60 portable DVD players, if I can find the right one. The battery issue is what is holding me back from that option.

Trolle said:

I have a pretty high budget. Depends on what I can get.

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I'm not trying to sell you anything...so telling me/us your budget is not going to let out any secrets. If I know your budget...I may be able to steer you in a direction where multiple tablets can be purchased at once. Not so sure about the preloading though.

Trolle said:

Alternatively, I am going to buy 100 DVDs, stock them onboard and buy 60 portable DVD players, if I can find the right one. The battery issue is what is holding me back from that option.

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This is why I asked the "pre-loaded" question. Since a DVD player can't be pre-loaded.

- Nick

Heck, if price is no object, order the iPads, send them to my house, and I'll stay up all night if need be setting them up. For the right price, of course.

I have about $5000 to $6000 to spend. As I said, it's not fixed.

That's what I'd have to spend on a decent portable DVD player with sufficient battery life and DVDs. I figured about 40 players and 50 movies, although I might need more players.

Maybe I am missing something but ....if you have 6000 dollars to burn and you need 60 devices that is not going to get you very far. That is even without the DVD movies.
You might need to adjust the type of present you are going to give these guys & girls.

Cheers ... McBie

Trolle said:

I have about $5000 to $6000 to spend. As I said, it's not fixed.

That's what I'd have to spend on a decent portable DVD player with sufficient battery life and DVDs. I figured about 40 players and 50 movies, although I might need more players.

Click to expand...

Boy, I'd have to agree w/ McBie, i.e. a new iPad w/ decent storage (if you plan to load a bunch of movies, especially in HD/BD?) will be about $500 each, so you've only enough money for a dozen devices and that's not counting purchasing the films and loading each legally onto the devices.

Now, portable DVD players are cheap and DVDs can be easily shared w/o worrying about copyright issues - I suspect that a set of batteries should provide enough runtime for 2-3 films of typical length - how long a flight are you considering? Take a look at some Top Rated DVD Players - just buy a LOT of batteries - can batteries be 'recharged' on your planes and/or are AC adapters an option?

Finally, I'm curious why dozens of executives who are usually out going and talkative would ALL want to sit on a plane watching movies (or listening to music) w/ headphones vs. talking to each other - just curious? Dave

Trolle said:

I have about $5000 to $6000 to spend. As I said, it's not fixed.

That's what I'd have to spend on a decent portable DVD player with sufficient battery life and DVDs. I figured about 40 players and 50 movies, although I might need more players.

Click to expand...

You MUST be missing a 0 in there if you expected that to cover 40-60 iPads + movies. Let's look at the costs here. The very cheapest iPad is the 16 GB mini @ $299 each. If we go with just the minimum number of iPads you need, that's $11,960 alone, + taxes. Now let's get to the movies. Let's say you rent them. You'd have to pre-download them because streaming while flying probably isn't going to work out. You have 30 days to view them from the time you rent them, and 24 hours to finish watching from the time you start watching them. Now, to rent Kingsman, for example, is $4.99 in standard definition resolution. You'd have to rent it 40 times on 40 different iTunes accounts. That's $1,996 to rent 10 movies for 40 iPads. And don't forget the logistics of activating the iPads; pre-downloading 10 movie rentals on each of 40 iPads (that's 400 downloads in this scenario); and managing the inventory of all these iPads on top of this. Oh... and we're assuming the 16 GB model of the iPad will actually hold at least 10 full length movies. It won't. The SD version of Kingsman is 2.31 GB, which means you can expect to need about of 23-30 GB of free storage space. So you'd need the next cheapest iPad, which is the $349 iPad mini with 32 GB storage, which will be a tight fit considering iOS does take up some of that space. So revise that iPad cost to $13,960 (assuming the smaller screen of the iPad mini is even acceptable, vs the iPad Air), + the movie rentals @ $1,996, + labor to manage all this, which I would guess would take a minimum of 16 hours of work for a single person to activate; configure; and download the movies to these iPads. This is assuming that this person has access to an internet connection capable of downloading 400 movie rentals in 16 hours!

If you go the portable DVD route, you are looking at $50-$120 per device. At the low end, that's 2 grand off the bat. Then you have to buy the DVDs. Let's just say you want to have a selection diverse enough to satisfy everyone, and have enough copies of each movie. It wouldn't do well to have, say, a single copy of a recent release if 5 of your clients want to watch it. So let's just say you need 5 copies apiece of 20 new releases. That's 100 movies x $15 or so, so you are looking at $1500. So overall cost here is about $3500, and minimal effort to manage this. You have more leeway with your budget, so you can spend more for nicer DVD players, or have a larger selection of movies available. Or both.

Trolle said:

I have about $5000 to $6000 to spend. As I said, it's not fixed.

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Thanks for the budget info.

If you wanted to use an Apple product & needed 40-60 devices…about the only device that would fit this budget would be 16-32gig WiFi only iPad 1's. Used iPad 1's are going for about $100 each. So easy math:

- $100 x 40 = $4000
- $100 x 50 = $5000
- $100 x 60 = $6000

Then you need the movies.

iPad 1's would play the movies fine. Main problem with iPad 1's is they are limited to iOS 5. But if the main goal is watching movies on a plane…iPad 1's could get the job done.

If you needed 40. Then that would be about $4000…with some money to spare for movies.

FYI. Used ipad 2's are in the $175-$200 range. This would certainly put more stress on the budget since this would only get you about 30 iPad 2's ($6000)…and no movies.

HTH,

- Nick

You can buy a lot of Belgian chocolates for 6000 dollars.
They can all be eaten on the plane and no hassle with customs on arrival

Cheers ... McBie

McBie said:

You can buy a lot of Belgian chocolates for 6000 dollars.
They can all be eaten on the plane and no hassle with customs on arrival

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Ha ha…this gave me an idea. Skip the iPads & movies…and just buy a lot of alcohol & get the passengers REALLY drunk. Or…buy some sleeping pills!

- Nick

Alcohol ... Beer ... that also means Belgium
Hey, I am boosting the economy over here. Where can I cash in ?

Sorry, I got a little carried away.

But seriously, do the presents have to be an electronic device ? There are some nice presents out there that you could relate to culture for instance.

Cheers ... McBie

Are we talking "presents"…or simply in-flight entertainment? If in flight entertainment…then this equipment would be used over & over again with future passengers.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Are we talking "presents"…or simply in-flight entertainment? If in flight entertainment…then this equipment would be used over & over again with future passengers.

- Nick

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Since the guests are VVIP, I assume they will use the type of plane that already has In-Flight Entertainment. Then again, we don't know what type of charter company is involved.
In-Flight Entertainment can mean a lot of things.

Cheers ... McBie

I don't really know what a "VVIP trip" is, but does the charter plane not have built-in passenger monitor displays that could be used to show any movies??? Or what about those video gagets that I see installed in some cars for the kids to watch???

And personally, I don't think I'd want to have to hold an iPad for the movie duration, even if it is lighter than my old iPad 2. My arms would give out I think.

McBie said:

Since the guests are VVIP, I assume they will use the type of plane that already has In-Flight Entertainment.

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Could be a small airline with smaller less sophisticated planes (40-60 passengers)…flying to more exotic locations. Who knows. Maybe OP can clarify for us.

Also depends if the term VVIP is being used appropriately. I'm not sure I would use the term VVIP…unless I was talking about world leaders or CEO's of major corporations. It's all relative.

- Nick

That is worth a thought ..... how do these VVIP's relate to the company. Why are they VVIP ? Maybe part of the answer ( as to what to buy them ) is in there .

Cheers ... McBie

McBie said:

That is worth a thought ..... how do these VVIP's relate to the company. Why are they VVIP ? Maybe part of the answer ( as to what to buy them ) is in there .

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Who knows…could be almost anything. Just a wild guess…maybe these VVIP's are SERIOUS investors in this airline…trying to make it larger.

Or maybe just a bunch of wealthy retirees flying somewhere exotic to play Bingo!

- Nick

I think it is time for the OP to step in again and help us help him/her. ( And the VVIP's )

Cheers ... McBie