The (sensible) way to bring the future of in-flight viewing into your cabin.

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Those screens at either end of your cabin might be great for watching your jet’s oh-so-suspenseful approach into New York’s Westchester airport (“Oh, look! The plane icon just moved another two pixels!”), but they lack a certain audio/visual-oomph when playing movies or TV shows — especially when compared to your 42-inch Dolby plasma stunner back on the ground. If you’re a stickler for ultra-quality viewing who experiences a certain letdown every time you go airborne, it might be time to check out a high-definition screen for your plane.

Something such as Rosen Aviation’s 1,920 x 1,200 widescreen ($16,000, not including installation), for example. Twenty-four inches a beam, it’s about as wide as will fit in a bulkhead, but at just 2.34-inches deep, it’s still remarkably space-efficient. The 89-degree viewing angle also makes the screen visible to just about everyone in the cabin.

Your next question is which source equipment to buy? The answer may surprise you: none. At least not yet. Unless you’re such a risk-taker that you can’t resist gambling even on your plane’s entertainment system, you’re better off just hooking your screen into your existing system and waiting for the ongoing battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD to come to an end. Like VHS versus Betamax and other such technological forks in the road before it, this, too, will run its course — probably as early as the first half of next year, once Christmas-season sales have been tallied to help determine a winner. (And, no, unfortunately you can’t hedge your bets with a dual system, as you may do at home. The current multi-format players all have front-loading disc trays that are too susceptible to aircraft vibrations.)

So, treat yourself to a new in-flight screen now, before the NFL playoffs start. It will still be about a hundredfold upgrade from your current viewing device. Then schedule Phase 2 for right around the Masters.

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