An in-flight passenger entertainment system has a first digital network, using fibre optic cables, for communication among components of a headend system including a data server, media controller, and one or more media servers. The in-flight entertainment system is coupled to an aircraft's existing systems through a system interface unit and a system manager unit. The components of the headend system are all coupled to a network switch for routing data within the first network. The network switch is also coupled to one or more zone bridge units, each of which is coupled to multiple seat electronics units. The zone bridge units control all communications between the networks. The zone bridge units and the seat electronics units together form a second digital network. All communications across the networks are transmitted as digital data and when necessary are converted to analog signals at the seat electronics units. Through passenger control sets coupled to the seat electronics units, a passenger has access to audio and video on demand, video games, gambling, telephone service and information services. An overhead audio and video distribution system is used to provide audio and video content as a backup to the video on demand system or as an alternative subsystem in zones of the aircraft in which there are passenger control sets with less than full capability.