AVS Discussions
Video Source Devices => Media players => Topic started by: David Vaughn on August 06, 2022, 06:43:55 PM
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I will have a Kaleidescape system in the coming weeks....looking forward to putting it through the paces :)
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David, what does such a system consist of? How will it make your system better? And we will probably be seeing Belfast tonight
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Hope you enjoy your time with it. By all reports it's a fantastic piece of hardware, and some movies even have better picture quality than their disc counterparts.
Unfortunately, the hardware and movie prices are well out of average person's affordability range.
Looking forward to your impression and review.
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David, what does such a system consist of? How will it make your system better? And we will probably be seeing Belfast tonight
A Strato C and a Compact Terra for storage.
https://www.kaleidescape.com/systems/movie-players-servers/
This is not something I could afford, but when they reached out to me to give it a go, I couldn't refuse :)
I can now see how the 1% watch movies :D
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K-Scape is back? I thought the DVD Cabal had pretty much shut them down.
Very cool but pretty expensive; at least the earlier version was.
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K-Scape is back? I thought the DVD Cabal had pretty much shut them down.
Very cool but pretty expensive; at least the earlier version was.
It's still expensive!
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David, are you reviewing it for S&V? I recalled S&V having a review fairly recently - just checked the website, and Kris Deering reviewed the Strato S 4K in Sep 2020, and the Terra server in Dec 2021.
I had someone at my local hi end AV store try to sell me on buying a Strato a few years ago. It's amazing how casual and offhanded it was said - I knew enough about it that I wasn't going to consider the cost. Back then they didn't even have a rental option either, only buy, and re-purchase anything you already have. The interface is beautiful though.
For the curious here are the 2 referenced reviews:
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/kaleidescape-compact-terra-12tb-movie-server-review
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/kaleidescape-strato-s-4k-ultra-hd-movie-player-review
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David, are you reviewing it for S&V? I recalled S&V having a review fairly recently - just checked the website, and Kris Deering reviewed the Strato S 4K in Sep 2020, and the Terra server in Dec 2021.
I had someone at my local hi end AV store try to sell me on buying a Strato a few years ago. It's amazing how casual and offhanded it was said - I knew enough about it that I wasn't going to consider the cost. Back then they didn't even have a rental option either, only buy, and re-purchase anything you already have. The interface is beautiful though.
For the curious here are the 2 referenced reviews:
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/kaleidescape-compact-terra-12tb-movie-server-review
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/kaleidescape-strato-s-4k-ultra-hd-movie-player-review
Yes, Kris already reviewed it. Trinnov and Kaleidescape have a joint promotion where if you purchase the two together, you get a slate of movies (about a $1000 value--about 40 titles or so). My review will be more of a blog of my impressions and I'll be looking at the included titles from the promotion and do some comparisons to their disc counterparts (I literally own something like 35 of the 40 titles).
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It's still expensive!
Well, if our kid wasn't starting her first semester of Pharmacy school.........nah, not even then.
Maybe she will buy her old man one when she graduates. ;)
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Well, if our kid wasn't starting her first semester of Pharmacy school.........nah, not even then.
Maybe she will buy her old man one when she graduates. ;)
Tracy,
I will tell you this...after paying for college for 8 years for my kids, I felt rich that first year I didn't have to pay tuition and rent (the Trinnov was the present to myself :)). By comparison, it was downright cheap versus the cost of college!
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Do you have to give it back after reviews?
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Do you have to give it back after reviews?
At some point...yes. I'll probably have it for 6-12 months and will always have the option to buy it.
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At some point...yes. I'll probably have it for 6-12 months and will always have the option to buy it.
Still really cool. Glad my NAS is 99% as good
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Review is up: A Marriage Made in Movie Heaven | Sound & Vision (soundandvision.com) (https://www.soundandvision.com/content/marriage-made-movie-heaven)
Nice write up, and it does really look like a dream system, too bad it's priced beyond the budget for so many of us. At its cheapest configuration, the hardware cost is equal to roughly 450 4K BDs priced at $20 each.
It would be interesting to know if the audio of any of the movies will be improved over their disc counterparts. I remember reading at one point that they do improve the picture for some titles, but the audio track remains the same.
The other concern I'd have is ownership rights. Should the company go under, would you still have access to the content you purchased? Will everything on the server be accessible, or at some point would need to do some kind of authorization check to allow playback? And I's assume that you would also need to download all of those titles before the company shut down. And after that, what if their NAS storage fails, are the drives replaceable?
All in all, if one can afford it, this would be the system to own, but that risk/reward gambit is a bit on the high side. Maybe someday they can scale the product to be more affordable for the masses. Until then there's always disc ripping, NAS storage, and a Sheild or other playback device for the rest of us.
Scott
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I was very tempted to get into K-scape recently, but for me, the main thing that held me back (after overcoming the cost, that is) was that I can only play Kaleidescape-purchased movies with a K-scape player. If K-scape had a Movies Anywhere type of relationship, I would have bought into K-scape. Often times, I'd get a movie to watch in my Home Theater, but other family members might not want to watch it until later, and want the flexibility to watch the movie outside the home theater (such as in a TV in another room in the house or even in an iPad). I like to keep TV's outside the Home Theater simple. TVs outside the Home Theater only have one source - an Apple TV, and I'm not interested, nor would I benefit from, getting a Kaleidescape player for TVs outside the Home Theater. K-scape has a FAQ that says a Movies Anywhere deal is being looked into, but nothing has changed in a while.
I use Plex for playing movies, and I've ripped all my physical media to a NAS. Works great. Plex works great (for folks who like a DIY approach). I usually know far ahead of time what movies I want, so I have time to purchase the disc and rip it. However, one main advantage of Kaleidescape for me would be those times when you don't decide what to watch until you're sitting in your Home Theater browsing what movie to watch. No need to go out and buy the movie and rip it to the NAS. Just wait 10 to 15 minutes to download the movie! Also, these days, movies are coming out for streaming and Kaleidescape a few weeks before the physical media becomes available. This usually isn't an issue for me since I have a backlog of movies to watch, but occasionally, it's hard to wait for the physical media to come out when a movie is already available online for streaming (or K-scape). For example, although I saw Top Gun Maverick in a theater, other family members missed it and wanted to watch it once it became available for streaming. Then, it would have been good to have K-scape (although I gotta say, iTunes streaming looks pretty good).
I'm somewhat of a movie collector, although it's hard to amass such a large K-scape collection given the (seemingly exponential) price increases as their server's capacities increase. One thing I saw online before (and I'm not sure if it's still true today), is: if you purchased a movie, but it's not in your local Kaleidescape server, the movie won't show up in the K-scape movie wall. I can see having a lot more K-scape movies that I've purchased but not downloaded (or downloaded in the past, but have since been removed due to capacity constraints). If so, I want to see all movies that I've purchased from K-scape, whether or not they're all available locally in the K-scape player (but maybe have some small icon to indicate that a movie needs to be downloaded). Most movies I only want to see once, which would argue for not having more capacity than is necessary. But it's good to be able to see all movies that have been purchased, whether or not a movie has been downloaded. It's especially useful for guests.
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I was very tempted to get into K-scape recently, but for me, the main thing that held me back (after overcoming the cost, that is) was that I can only play Kaleidescape-purchased movies with a K-scape player. If K-scape had a Movies Anywhere type of relationship, I would have bought into K-scape. Often times, I'd get a movie to watch in my Home Theater, but other family members might not want to watch it until later, and want the flexibility to watch the movie outside the home theater (such as in a TV in another room in the house or even in an iPad). I like to keep TV's outside the Home Theater simple. TVs outside the Home Theater only have one source - an Apple TV, and I'm not interested, nor would I benefit from, getting a Kaleidescape player for TVs outside the Home Theater. K-scape has a FAQ that says a Movies Anywhere deal is being looked into, but nothing has changed in a while.
I use Plex for playing movies, and I've ripped all my physical media to a NAS. Works great. Plex works great (for folks who like a DIY approach). I usually know far ahead of time what movies I want, so I have time to purchase the disc and rip it. However, one main advantage of Kaleidescape for me would be those times when you don't decide what to watch until you're sitting in your Home Theater browsing what movie to watch. No need to go out and buy the movie and rip it to the NAS. Just wait 10 to 15 minutes to download the movie! Also, these days, movies are coming out for streaming and Kaleidescape a few weeks before the physical media becomes available. This usually isn't an issue for me since I have a backlog of movies to watch, but occasionally, it's hard to wait for the physical media to come out when a movie is already available online for streaming (or K-scape). For example, although I saw Top Gun Maverick in a theater, other family members missed it and wanted to watch it once it became available for streaming. Then, it would have been good to have K-scape (although I gotta say, iTunes streaming looks pretty good).
I'm somewhat of a movie collector, although it's hard to amass such a large K-scape collection given the (seemingly exponential) price increases as their server's capacities increase. One thing I saw online before (and I'm not sure if it's still true today), is: if you purchased a movie, but it's not in your local Kaleidescape server, the movie won't show up in the K-scape movie wall. I can see having a lot more K-scape movies that I've purchased but not downloaded (or downloaded in the past, but have since been removed due to capacity constraints). If so, I want to see all movies that I've purchased from K-scape, whether or not they're all available locally in the K-scape player (but maybe have some small icon to indicate that a movie needs to be downloaded). Most movies I only want to see once, which would argue for not having more capacity than is necessary. But it's good to be able to see all movies that have been purchased, whether or not a movie has been downloaded. It's especially useful for guests.
Good point about not having any portability on the movies.
David does mention his annoyance at only being able to see movies on the server, rather than all of the movies owned as well. That seems like something that they could easily fixed.
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I'm obviously not the target demographic for this and it's made for people with more money than sense IMO. I get PO'd at the upcharge Apple applies for storage... but holy CRAP - to go from a 6 TB server (the base model per the review) to the reviewed 48 TB server is an extra $13K?! You could build your own NAS with enterprise grade drives (Seagate Exos) with at least that much storage plus easy expansion room for well under $2500. (Synology DS-1821+ 8 bay NAS + 5 x 12TB HDs in Raid 5 or Synology's SHR = about $2200 currently.)
Yeah, the interface is nice and there's some convenience. But even at the price you're giving up some things, for example the mentioned portability of having both the disk and the ripped copy on the NAS.
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Well, buying into K-scape is buying into its ecosystem, so it's not really fair to compare its cost to off-the-shelf NAS hardware cost. It's the content and convenience that matters. But, of course the contrast in its price compared to off the shelf hardware price is interesting, especially when the differentiator amongst their Terra servers is capacity.
Also, when figuring out NAS hardware costs, one needs to double the price to account for backup (RAID is isn't a backup). I have a Synology DS1812+ and a DS1813+ and expansion units and they've been going strong for 10+ years. A backup is important since it's too painful to have to re-rip content from physical media (unlike K-scape, where you can just re-download the content). Of course it's still relatively cheap even with backup hardware.
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thats why you dont use synology as a NAS. unRaid has a parity system built in. so all you have to do is replace the failed drive and the parity disc will rebuild the failed drive for you. it works extremely well. And Emby or Plex is just as sleek as K-scape.
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thats why you dont use synology as a NAS. unRaid has a parity system built in. so all you have to do is replace the failed drive and the parity disc will rebuild the failed drive for you. it works extremely well. And Emby or Plex is just as sleek as K-scape.
I configured my Synology NAS with parity (RAID). So, if a drive goes bad, it just needs to be replaced. No data lost. But if there's a catastrophe (like human errors such as accidentally deleting a folder of movies), then a backup is good to have.
The lower capacity K-scape servers don't have redundancy, so the drive is just replaced when a disc goes bad (assuming it's under warranty). But at least it's easy enough to re-download the data. I would hope that the higher capacity K-scape servers have redundant drives. It's not clear to me what happens if the K-scape is no longer under warranty, since technically you can't just replace the drives yourself (although I haven't looked into this in detail in case there's ways to do so).
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David mentioned diminishing returns being a thing for high end A/V prices, and to an extent I get that. Small volumes, hand made parts, tweaking parts throughout a design with hours and hours of work, testing, listening etc. That costs some amount of time, effort, materials, thus money. But we're just talking about adding more of a commodity here - storage - which requires zero of that. Zero. This just looks like extreme price gouging to me, unless the base model is extremely underpriced for some reason just to get users into the system.
Fair point about backups, I assume with Kscape you don't need that since you've got the ability to re-download titles if something happens, with their store essentially being the backup. As others mentioned I've had my Synology NAS lose a single drive and just replaced it quickly with no data loss. Took a day or so to rebuild. The backup is a less expensive device, not a full NAS just a 4 bay drive unit with RAID support. Don't need a full NAS OS for that.
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I didn’t know synology could be backed up. Cool
Yeah kscape I see zero value in it tbh. I guess if I had FU money
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Review is up: A Marriage Made in Movie Heaven | Sound & Vision (soundandvision.com) (https://www.soundandvision.com/content/marriage-made-movie-heaven)
Nice write up, and it does really look like a dream system, too bad it's priced beyond the budget for so many of us. At its cheapest configuration, the hardware cost is equal to roughly 450 4K BDs priced at $20 each.
It would be interesting to know if the audio of any of the movies will be improved over their disc counterparts. I remember reading at one point that they do improve the picture for some titles, but the audio track remains the same.
The other concern I'd have is ownership rights. Should the company go under, would you still have access to the content you purchased? Will everything on the server be accessible, or at some point would need to do some kind of authorization check to allow playback? And I's assume that you would also need to download all of those titles before the company shut down. And after that, what if their NAS storage fails, are the drives replaceable?
All in all, if one can afford it, this would be the system to own, but that risk/reward gambit is a bit on the high side. Maybe someday they can scale the product to be more affordable for the masses. Until then there's always disc ripping, NAS storage, and a Sheild or other playback device for the rest of us.
Scott
Scott,
My understanding is once you buy the movie, it's yours and if K-Scape goes under, it will stay on your hard drive and you can still play it. The one problem is if you delete a title, it's gone if they are not in business. Furthermore, the hardware won't last forever and at some point, it will fail. Then again, how many movies were bought on VHS, then DVD, then HD DVD/Blu-ray, and now 4K Blu-ray? I guess my point is, it isn't like we haven't bought movies more than once before because something "new and better" always comes along at some point.
The cost of the system is very expensive--there's no getting around that, but it's catering to a high-end customer and compared to a lot of things out there (wine, luxury cars, luxury appliances, etc.), you could make the case it isn't that expensive by comparison. I was in Phoenix this week and went into a high-end lighting/appliance store...they had bath tubs that were $10K and up---seriously--saw one for over $25K. The shop was in North Scottsdale and across the street was a Tesla dealer and across the other street was a McClaren dealership--I suspect that many of their customers own K-scape systems...just sayin'!
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The K-scape system isn't for everyone. I've tried the rip to MKV route and it wasn't for me personally. Took too much time to do and maybe I would have gotten better at it the more I did it (like anything), but it just wasn't for me. I have a Synology server that is mainly used to house pictures and music, although now with Amazon streaming at under $100 per year for their high quality stream, I took my Squeezebox out of my rack--had no use for it anymore. I just cast the music to my Shield Pro and away I go.
I get that this is out of many people's price range, but so are a lot of projectors/screens/amps etc. When people see my system they marvel at it, but when they hear what the "retail" value of the system is they think I'm batshit crazy to pay that much "just to watch movies." Then again, they always want to watch them at my house :D
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Well, if our kid wasn't starting her first semester of Pharmacy school.........nah, not even then.
Maybe she will buy her old man one when she graduates. ;)
I can relate. Daughter graduated from Pharmacy school. Pharmacy school is the same cost as medical school. Son currently getting Masters in Aerospace. One more semester and I am done paying for college. :)
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I can relate. Daughter graduated from Pharmacy school. Pharmacy school is the same cost as medical school. Son currently getting Masters in Aerospace. One more semester and I am done paying for college. :)
Making the last tuition payment ranks up there with paying off my mortgage as far as great feelings go. I love the saying....Money not going out is the same as money coming in! Enjoy the much earned raise Mike!
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For anyone interested in Kaleidescape, Youthman will be hosting a live stream tonight with André Floyd about their updated disc to digital program and other software updates.
His streams are a good way for viewer to connect directly with manufacturers, so if you have any questions, there's a good chance that they'll get answered.
Here's a link to the upcoming show: Sunday Night Live with Kaleidescape (https://youtu.be/iTpg5YtBVDY)
I already have a couple of questions in mind, so I'm looking forward to it even if the hardware is out of my price range at this point. There's no doubt it is the best playback system available to consumers, though.
Scott
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I have an article forthcoming on the Disc-to-Digital program. I've downloaded about 20 titles thus far (haven't counted) and it's worked extremely well. Only downside is Disney-owned conversions are a rip-off versus the other studios. Also, music concerts are a lot more expensive than they should be.
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I just connected my drive today. Works great! Yeah, Disney's Black Panther Wakanda Forever discount was minimal ($3 and change). But other studios seem like they have better discounts from what I've heard.
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I just connected my drive today. Works great! Yeah, Disney's Black Panther Wakanda Forever discount was minimal ($3 and change). But other studios seem like they have better discounts from what I've heard.
I noticed the same thing...not worth it IMO (I'll get off my a$$ and put a disc in the player for $21 per movie). Anything under $5 is worth it though. I have to pause now since I'm at my bandwidth cap from Xfinity (got a nastygram email warning me I was near my limit :D).
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So, my question about 5.1 4K disc releases vs. Atmos Kaleidescape wasn't directly asked, but a one came up. It sounds like Kaleidescape will use whatever the studios offer, and it's not a case where they're asking for higher quality for their premium system.
In some cases, the studio may give them a better mix after the initial release. That's a plus for the system over a physical disc, since you can download the improved copy for free.
I got a "no comment" on my question about a more affordable player, though. Maybe we'll see something some day?
Scott
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So, my question about 5.1 4K disc releases vs. Atmos Kaleidescape wasn't directly asked, but a one came up. It sounds like Kaleidescape will use whatever the studios offer, and it's not a case where they're asking for higher quality for their premium system.
In some cases, the studio may give them a better mix after the initial release. That's a plus for the system over a physical disc, since you can download the improved copy for free.
I got a "no comment" on my question about a more affordable player, though. Maybe we'll see something some day?
Scott
They are really trying to hold onto the "premium" position, so I doubt they'll ever have anything for the masses.
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Yeah, I'm just trying to remain hopeful.
Back when they came out of bankruptcy, Cheena Srinivasan said that they were going to remain focused on the luxury market, but also that they could do that and also offer something under $1K.
That was almost seven years ago, and he's moved on, but subsequent articles have mentioned how they want/need to grow the market. One way to do that is make the price more attractive. And at $500-$1K, that's still a pretty hefty price to the average consumer that's happy with the streaming service from their $20 plug-in stick.
All of that might have changed in the post-Covid, supply-chain shortage era, though, so I'm not holding my breath.
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I noticed the same thing...not worth it IMO (I'll get off my a$$ and put a disc in the player for $21 per movie). Anything under $5 is worth it though. I have to pause now since I'm at my bandwidth cap from Xfinity (got a nastygram email warning me I was near my limit :D).
I wondered if that could be an issue. Interesting.
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So overpriced. Ugh
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So overpriced. Ugh
Not for its intended audience. The same could be said for luxury sports cars. To some, they are overpriced, bot others, they are a necessity.
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So overpriced. Ugh
That's why some of us have NAS's and media players.
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That's why some of us have NAS's and media players.
The Honda Accords of movie storage :)
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That's why some of us have NAS's and media players.
Greetings,
I am with Craig. I recently set up a Zidoo Z9X 4K media streamer and it does a fabulous job handling my ripped 4K/Blu-ray/DVD library. I am not certain what problems Dave had with Make MKV but, it works flawlessly in my case. It takes roughly 20 minutes to rip 1080p content and 4K titles range from 48 to 90 minutes depending.
To say that Kaleidescape is a niche product is an understatement. No thanks.
Regards,
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Greetings,
I am with Craig. I recently set up a Zidoo Z9X 4K media streamer and it does a fabulous job handling my ripped 4K/Blu-ray/DVD library. I am not certain what problems Dave had with Make MKV but, it works flawlessly in my case. It takes roughly 20 minutes to rip 1080p content and 4K titles range from 48 to 90 minutes depending.
To say that Kaleidescape is a niche product is an understatement. No thanks.
Regards,
I may jump down that rabbit hole in the future. I'm running out of space to store all my discs :)
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Greetings,
I am with Craig. I recently set up a Zidoo Z9X 4K media streamer and it does a fabulous job handling my ripped 4K/Blu-ray/DVD library. I am not certain what problems Dave had with Make MKV but, it works flawlessly in my case. It takes roughly 20 minutes to rip 1080p content and 4K titles range from 48 to 90 minutes depending.
To say that Kaleidescape is a niche product is an understatement. No thanks.
Regards,
I didn't want to re-buy my collection on Kscape, since after my wife and I went through the movie closet and culled all the movies neither of us thought we would watch again, we still had over 800 films ( and a few shows ). So far it's worked quite well.
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I didn't want to re-buy my collection on Kscape, since after my wife and I went through the movie closet and culled all the movies neither of us thought we would watch again, we still had over 800 films ( and a few shows ). So far it's worked quite well.
One advantage of Kscape for those with large libraries, is that with their new upgrade program, you can add an external drive, use it to register that you have a Blu-ray disc and then upgrade to 4K Kscape copy for an upgrade fee. Studios run specials from time to time, so the cost can be less than purchasing a new 4K disc. And there are titles that have better audio/video quality than their disc counterparts.
Of course, that ignores the initial cost of the hardware.
One of the other questions I asked during the live stream last night was regarding the version of the movie you get. Once downloaded, that's your copy. But if you delete it and download it later, you get whatever version the studio is currently offering. We've seen a number of recent examples in the publishing world where books are being changed (often posthumously) to an author's work based on a panel of sensitivity experts.
Should that practice make it over to movies, physical media is the best way to insure you have access to what the filmmaker created.
Scott
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One advantage of Kscape for those with large libraries, is that with their new upgrade program, you can add an external drive, use it to register that you have a Blu-ray disc and then upgrade to 4K Kscape copy for an upgrade fee. Studios run specials from time to time, so the cost can be less than purchasing a new 4K disc. And there are titles that have better audio/video quality than their disc counterparts.
Of course, that ignores the initial cost of the hardware.
One of the other questions I asked during the live stream last night was regarding the version of the movie you get. Once downloaded, that's your copy. But if you delete it and download it later, you get whatever version the studio is currently offering. We've seen a number of recent examples in the publishing world where books are being changed (often posthumously) to an author's work based on a panel of sensitivity experts.
Should that practice make it over to movies, physical media is the best way to insure you have access to what the filmmaker created.
Scott
I should have my article on their disc-to-digital done sometime this week. Also, I have Avatar: Way of the Water downloaded already and it goes "live" at midnight tonight and I plan on comparing it to the "digital copy" on Movies Anywhere that Disney sent me. That should go live sometime next week.
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The Honda Accords of movie storage :)
not even close. same performance of the Kscape but at literally 1/10th the cost if that. this cant be compared to a luxury sport car either. you cant drive an accord 0-60 in 2 seconds and 195mph top speed
a NAS can do 100% of what the kscape can do. even more in fact, since you have to rely on kscape having the movie you want (think old movies)
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i cant state how much of a ripoff the kscape is. its for the lazy (and those who have FU money). I drive a Porsche but am not paying a porsche dealership $500 to change my oil. Ill do it myself for $70 in parts. I have the money to pay the dealership but Im not stupid nor lazy...even if i were lazy or didnt have the time/skill (even this is laughable) id take it ot an indy ship and pay maybe $200
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bmoney... preach... I replied in a previous thread about just looking at the charge for extra storage being completely outrageous to simply add capacity. I thought Apple was bad but Kscape is in an entirely different league there.
BTW for anyone doing a NAS, I highly suggest looking at the Seagate Exos commercial line, it's a higher standard than the "consumer" NAS drives but can frequently be bought for a lower price than the Iron Wolf line. (Right now I do see the consumer Iron Wolf Pro 16TB drive is $20 less, but in the past it was up to $100 more.)
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Kscape is catering to a very limited audience and they know it and don't apologize for it. They make very little profit from the movies they sell and they have to make ends meet on the hardware side. For the DIY crowd, they are willing to build their own servers, rip their own discs, etc. To the consumer who may bring in a $250k per year salary (and probably much higher than that!} that is looking for quality and convenience and doesn't have the time or technological know how to go the DIY route, then Kscape is the perfect match for them.
For the record, I don't own a Kscape system. It's on loan to me until the end of the year for use in reviews for not only the host system and it's updates, but to use for other reviews as well. My wife would literally kill me if I spent this much money on a movie delivery system. But if I win the Powerball, it will never leave my home. It's convenient and works extremely well. (Sorry for any typos, I'm replying on my phone).
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Nothing is overpriced if it does what you want it to and you can afford it. And don't mind spending the money. That's why I have an RS4100 and have had literally hundreds of bottles of +$100.00 wine in my cellar. Unfortunately I can't afford everything I'd like, but to those that can, this is a great system. We've sold quite a few and I haven't heard any complaints!
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Nothing is overpriced if it does what you want it to and you can afford it. And don't mind spending the money. That's why I have an RS4100 and have had literally hundreds of bottles of +$100.00 wine in my cellar. Unfortunately I can't afford everything I'd like, but to those that can, this is a great system. We've sold quite a few and I haven't heard any complaints!
couldn’t disagree with this more. And really don’t think you can go by those who buy it as a guide lol
I would want the kscape and can afford it. But would NEVER buy one. It’s waaaaaay overpriced. And that’s just the price of admission lol. Nevernind add in storage and the actual movies. No thanks.
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couldn’t disagree with this more. And really don’t think you can go by those who buy it as a guide lol
I would want the kscape and can afford it. But would NEVER buy one. It’s waaaaaay overpriced. And that’s just the price of admission lol. Nevernind add in storage and the actual movies. No thanks.
Sure - people say the same thing about the " adventure vans " built on MB 4 x 4 van platforms. And yet I see tons of them, and we are probably going to buy one. I guess that's where my Kscape money is going. ???
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I have no clue what your saying lol
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I have no clue what your saying lol
Last Chance! Get your 4x4 Sprinter before they're gone – Storyteller Overland LLC (https://storytelleroverland.com/pages/4x4-adventure-van?utm_term=mercedes sprinter van)
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I think it does offer a good service, for the right cliental.
Besides the time savings of not having to rip your movies, there are titles with better sound and video quality. While the differences in video may be negligible, there are movies with Atmos soundtracks on Kaleidescape that only show up as 5.1 or 7.1, even on 4K discs. (This is a real pet peeve for me - 4K discs should include an Atmos or DTS-X soundtrack automatically. It was bad enough that some studios skip them on standard Blu-rays, but absolutely inexcusable for the 4K version.)
Also, some films show up on Kaleidescape long before home video, so if there's something you're really looking forward to, you can get access to it sooner.
They also offer the option to upgrade your Blu-ray discs to 4K digital titles, often at a price that's less than the 4K disc.
Even with all those positives, there's no way I could ever get the numbers to work. Well, unless there's a winning lotter ticket in my future. But for the multi-millionaire, Kaleidescape would be a fun option.
Scott
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And what happens if they ever go out of business. So many negatives associated with it. But when you have FU money and spend it frivolously I guess ok. Pretty small market base tho
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And what happens if they ever go out of business. So many negatives associated with it. But when you have FU money and spend it frivolously I guess ok. Pretty small market base tho
On the livestream, that question was asked, and the answer was interesting. Since you're actually buying a license from the movie studios, he said that you still own that license, and it would be up to the movie companies to as to how they would want to fulfil it.
Take that for what it's worth, but I'm guessing that the market that they're catering to doesn't have to worry about it, plus they still have whatever is stored on their hard drives, so they're good until those eventually fail.
But that's a legitimate concern, and one of the reasons for collecting physical media.
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Valid.
It’s a niche of a niche product lol
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K-scape has a new trade in program.
NEW Strato Upgrade Program:
For customers who have one or more Strato players with storage or Alto players with storage, we are offering a new incentive to upgrade to the newer Strato C players and receive $650 in movie store credits* for each new Strato C player purchased. The old player must be returned in order to receive credits, and it must be the original owner.
The following components qualify:
Strato 4K Ultra HD Movie player – 6TB, 10TB
Strato S 4K Ultra HD Movie player – 6TB, 12TB
Alto Movie player – 4TB, 6TB
Strato Upgrade Program Terms:
Old Strato or Alto player must be returned to Kaleidescape
Strato C purchases by an original Strato or Alto player owner
*Credits equaling $650 to be applied to customer’s account after new equipment purchase and when old Strato or Alto player is received by Kaleidescape
Intent is to help Strato system owners optimize performance of their systems
All credits are movie store credit only
1-year movie store credit expiry
Updated Buy-Back Program:
In order to help customers consolidate multiple servers to fewer, larger servers, we have added older Terra movie servers to our Buy-Back Program.
Customers who have the following equipment that they are no longer using will receive the corresponding movie store credit* upon returning it to Kaleidescape.
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Kaleidescape has unveiled a brand-new budget player:
Strato V Movie Player - Kaleidescape (https://www.kaleidescape.com/strato-v-movie-player/)
For just under $4K you can enjoy movies in the best A/V quality available.
The new model features a smaller, solid-state hard drive that will hold about 10, 4K movies. At around 10 minutes to download new titles (depending on your internet service), it should be enough space to easily hold a weekend's worth of movies.
The player also offers Dolby Vision.
I'd like to see something like this under $1K, so it's still out of my range, but there may be some here tempted by the new cost.
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K-scape is also offering some promos, pairing the Strat V with Tera servers and movie credits. Call us for details.