APEX EXPO 2025: Invitial to Launch IFEDB Platform to Streamline Tracking IFE Avails
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Technical business solutions provider Invitial is launching its new online platform for showcasing and discovering the latest in-flight entertainment (IFE) content at APEX Global EXPO 2025, and is inviting the industry to both discuss their experiences and provide feedback on the product at the event.
The Inflight Entertainment Database, known as IFEDB, has been designed to allow everyone from airlines to content service providers, distributors and tech vendors to know what’s available, when, and where. Invitial Solutions Architect Dan McInerney said it was created in response to long-held industry frustrations with tracking IFE title availability across numerous spreadsheets, disconnected databases, and even by word of mouth.
IFEDB is powered by IFE Data, Invitial’s bespoke application built with over 25 years of industry experience. It provides details on versions, languages, territory rights, and metadata, all of which are filterable and searchable.
“Our roadmap is to get people starting their content discovery journey with IFEDB and then make it easier to source metadata.”
McInerney explained, “IFEDB is an application developed over the last three months, but in reality it is a new, simpler window into our IFE Data application and database. IFE Data is our original complete workflow solution that we are also exhibiting at APEX. The IFEDB platform is focused specifically on the start of the workflow, which is aggregating and viewing the upcoming latest avails for IFE licensing and exhibition. So, we’ve designed a separate, simpler, standalone platform and approach for this – a new front-end to our existing engine.”
The company doesn’t charge distributors and content partners to list and manage their titles to IFEDB, but there is a monthly subscription fee to access the platform. McInerney commented, “We are keen to get as much avails data as reasonably possible, so we’re hoping that as people subscribe, it will encourage more distributors and content partners to submit their data to us.
“At launch we’re focusing purely on upcoming movies as the avails windows and titles here are more clearly defined, but we plan to include episodic, audio, and other content. We have nearly 10,000 titles with IFE rights that we’re thinking of opening up as a separate subscription tier,” he continued.
One of the biggest benefits Invitial foresees for those using the platform is a reduction in the duplication of resourcing on metadata. “It’s crazy for every airline/CSP to be copying the same synopses, then paying to translate them, etc. when we could do that once in IFEDB and have everyone access it. We see this as an efficiency tool for the industry.
“Our roadmap is to get people starting their content discovery journey with IFEDB and then make it easier to source metadata: either downloading from it IFEDB in OEM shapes (for the hardware vendor systems), copying and pasting it out manually, or using our API.”
Further features coming down the pipe for IFEDB include a new ratings system that uses custom algorithms to gain insight on performance and opinions before providing a specific IFEDB rating to help users identify the most suitable content for their audience. There will also be the ability to create shortlists and collections, and the option to access multiple synopses for each title based on different use cases. “These capabilities are already part of our IFE Data engine, so it’s a case of bringing them into the simpler UI of IFEDB and making them more easily accessible,” noted McInerney.
“We’re hoping that as people subscribe, it will encourage more distributors and content partners to submit their data to us.”
He confirmed, “Alongside any features and changes requested at the EXPO, we’ll be releasing them all throughout Q4 2025.”
In terms of feedback, McInerney said Invitial are looking at two areas in particular: “One is fields/features/changes that will help with discovery. The other is on different types of content, or specific regions and distributors that are not currently present. This is a great opportunity for smaller independents and regional companies to get their content alongside the big ones, and to be discoverable by the masses.”
Invitial will be showcasing both its IFE Data solution and the new IFEDB platform on Booth 1435 at the APEX Global EXPO taking place in Long Beach, California from September 9-11, 2025.