By Michael Mecham/Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

What the future holds for in-flight entertainment comes down to that old dilemma - desire vs. reality.

At least that's the conclusion to be drawn from a panel of four industry and airline IFE specialists who took out their crystal balls at Aviation Week's MRO 2008 Wednesday in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

A couple of not-surprising themes emerged as they looked into the future: it's expensive to install the latest IFE equipment and to keep it running. It's also expensive to haul it around.

Thick wire bundles connecting every seat, 23-in displays in premium cabins, and a combination of visual, audio, game and interactive systems that few passengers can duplicate at home or the office (at least not from a single hand control) all add weight. Oil was $114 a barrel as these experts discussed the dividing line between what airlines need to stay competitive and what they can afford to operate.

But none of that will matter much to passengers, says Eric Miller. "What they do at home, what they do at the office, they want to do on the airplane."

Much as he would like to accommodate them, Miller has more practical imperatives as manager of IFE engineering services for American Airlines. "What's got to be next in IFE has got to be reliable IFE," he says.

Bob Curry, director of supply chain management at Delta TechOps, agrees. In IFE, he sees a combination of software and hardware issues that continuously lead to disappointment for passengers when their seat's system goes on the blink. Curry quotes his boss, Delta CEO Richard Ayers', for his down-home explanation about why things go wrong: "Take your TV, throw it in the back of your pickup truck, drive it around for two years and see if it works."

Curry says being a "fast follower" is a better strategy for introducing new IFE offerings than being first. That way, airlines can learn from the travails of others. Delta prefers a "fast follower" strategy.

Equipment makers say Miller's view of passenger expectations is correct. Besides wanting to plug their own personal electronic devices into the aircraft's system, they can't wait for good Internet connections, and not just for e-mail and text messaging. They want access to YouTube and other Internet services that demand a lot of bandwidth.