When I flew to E3, it was on an Airbus plane (Can't remember the model), and every seat had the LCD screen as described here. Was a bit less complex, since they kept this plane in the US, and used a DirectTV system to drive it all. They had about 30 channels, and gave a free preview during takeoff. To get service for the entire flight, you simply swiped a credit card through the reader on the screen and became $3.00 poorer.

I didn't use it myself, since I brought my laptop with some video content on it ahead of time. But definitly things are getting better for coach flyers.