As I prepare to land in Dubai, I'm happy to report that even though it was a long flight from New York, there is no way that you'll be bored on an Emirates flight. Each seat has a personal entertainment system capable of showing movies and tv shows, as well as giving flight status information, listening to music and podcasts, and even playing video games. What really impressed me, however, was the sheer amount of content available. The number of movies was in the hundreds - spanning recent hits like Iron Man through a wide selection of Bollywood, foreign films, and Hollywood classics.
The tv selection was even more impressive - tons of shows, each with multiple episodes to choose from. I watched at least 6 classic Simpsons episodes, and there were more available that I didn't watch. There is enough video content alone that you could fly emirates daily for months and not repeat yourself. Yet, the kid sitting in the row in front of me watched "Kung-Fu Panda" at least 4 times. Go figure.
Also pretty amazing was the navigation system. Not only did it show the location of the plane, speed, altitude, etc. but he system also allowed access to a real-time feed from two externally-mounted cameras - one facing front, the other facing straight down. It was extremely cool to watch takeoff an landing from the pilot's point of view.
Anyways, I mostly tried to sleep on the 12+ hour flight to Dubai (to mild success), but it as nice to watch "The Simpsons" during meal time.
Andy