25 grand for 88 TB? What are those drives made out of, solid gold? How hard is it to set up a Plex system, or Kodi and rip a few discs? Can you even rip your own discs on these anymore? I don't think so. So, you have to download it exclusively from them, at their set price. No more shopping for disc deals and being thrilled by quick short sales. Then, what if the company goes belly up? What if they run out of spoiled trust fund babies and decide to cash in and leave you hanging? Will all those pricey movies even play anymore? I will not lie, the interface is sweet, and if I had access to some fictional grandpas money, maybe I would too...but in the real world, there is cost effective similar ideas that us mere mortals can achieve with little effort. Besides, when my system is on the fritz, because I built it, I service it myself. Not this expensive trophy wife, she needs a pro to make her smile again. Guys, if I spend my hard earned cash on discs, I want to do with them as I please, If I rip them for personal use, who does that harm? Plus, lets not forget, many of us have shelves and shelves of discs, not just the latest stuff. I want a lot of that available for instant viewing too. I imagine the company here has a vast catalog of titles to download, prob much of what I own and would want on the system, but ya know, I already paid for it, I see no reason to pay for it again. Plus, all my discs are a good back up in case of drive failure. What happens here?
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A Marriage Made in Movie Heaven Page 2
I have a couple other concerns about the system. While my current projector doesn’t support HDR10+ or Dolby Vision, those features are common in TVs and starting to appear on ultra-short-throw (UST) projectors. However, the Kaleidescape system doesn’t support either of those HDR formats, just basic HDR10. My other concern is these units run hot — very hot in the case of the Strato C movie player. During operation, the Strato C was hot to the touch and registered in excess of 120 degrees (Fahrenheit) with an IR thermometer — making it by far the hottest component in my rack. While this temperature is within the specifications of the unit, I found it to be much too hot, so I added a silent cooling fan and put some risers under the unit to improve airflow. These tweaks dropped the operating temperature by more than 25 degrees.
The Terra server runs cooler to the touch due to its built-in fans, but I’m still contemplating moving it out of my equipment rack and into my office to provide more airflow. The operating temperature did not adversely impact the performance of either component so these observations are more about my aversion to hot electronics.
Serve It Up
Minor quibbles aside, my time with the system was nothing short of spectacular. The A/V quality was top-notch, and I detected zero differences between Kaleidescape downloads and their Ultra HD Blu-ray counterparts. As it turned out, I own all but three of the 42 movies that came preloaded on the server, so other than the 10 or so second HDMI handshake that occurs when I switch inputs on my Trinnov processor, making comparisons was quite easy.
The Greatest Showman was the first title I watched. Apart from being one of my favorite films of the recent past, it features a reference-quality video presentation and one of the most dynamic Dolby Atmos soundtracks you’ll ever hear. I’ve watched the UHD Blu-ray countless times and use the intro sequence as one of my subwoofer tests. After I selected Play Movie, the screen remained blank for about ten seconds while the HDMI handshake told my JVC RS2000 projector that a 4K HDR signal was on the way. Once the handshake was complete, the 20th Century Fox logo appeared on the screen. There were no forced trailers, no piracy warnings, and no studio disclaimers — you jump right into the movie. There was absolutely no difference in audio or video quality from the disc-based version of the film. The Atmos track featured copious amounts of low-frequency effects (LFE) and Jackman’s red jacket lost none of its luster — it was bit for bit identical in my judgment.
Next up was Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague, which is a 4K exclusive in the Kaleidescape store—the best you can do on disc is HD Blu-ray. Having owned the Blu-ray for a few years, I’m well accustomed to the Dolby Atmos soundtrack and its general look in 1080p, which I consider an above-average transfer. The 4K version looked better, with improved detail. Cellist Tina Gao is front in center for the Pirates of the Caribbean set and there are plenty of close-ups of the talented musician. I could see every pore of her skin and each strand of her long flowing hair, as I watched her fingers move with precision over the fingerboard. The audio track sounded identical to the disc version but having that extra layer of visual detail was a nice addition to the presentation. I will have no problem moving my Blu-ray disc into retirement.
One feature I absolutely love is the “demo” function. As a reviewer, I have a stable of discs and scenes that I use to test equipment in for review. The Kaleidescape system lets you create scripts that play back scenes from movies of your choice, seamlessly and in any order you dictate. This is a huge timesaver because programming a script takes less than 10 minutes and once it’s done, you can add and subtract from the playlist with ease. Without the Kaleidescape system, I have to get out of my chair, insert the new disc, get to the main menu, pick the required scene, sometimes fast-forward to the exact point I want the movie to play from, and then do this with the next 10 discs in the queue.
As cool and convenient as the Kaleidescape system is, it is very expensive — there’s no getting around that. The company is catering to a very select clientele that values the convenience the system provides along with top-notch quality and a seamless movie watching experience. For those who are thinking streaming is the future (or the now), you are probably right, but until the Internet can stream full lossless audio along with high-bandwidth video, you’re kidding yourself into thinking that you aren’t sacrificing quality for convenience. Though video compression technologies have come a long way in the past 10 years, they are typically still not a match for Kaleidescape or UHD Blu-ray. And streaming audio is not even close to what you get from a physical disc or a Kaleidescape system.
To further explore what this Kaleidescape system has to offer, Sound & Vision is launching a bi-monthly blog where I will review titles available from the Kaleidescape store. My plan is to add new titles to the system as they become available with a focus on 4K-exclusive titles that aren’t available on Ultra HD Blu-ray and, where possible, compare the Kaleidescape version with the standard Blu-ray and/or streaming versions.
Speaking of movie collections, through the end of 2022, Kaleidescape and Trinnov are running a promotion offering a curated collection of movies valued at $1,000 to anyone who purchases a Trinnov Altitude 16 or 32 processor and a Kaleidescape Terra + Strato C system. The collection includes 42 titles that can be preloaded onto the Kaleidescape Terra server before delivery to your home. The collection was chosen by Jon Herron and Chuck Back, industry veterans and managing directors at Trinnov Audio, and includes a wide variety of titles — from action and adventure to family-friendly animated movies. One thing they all have in common is outstanding audio — many feature Dolby Atmos or DTS:X soundtracks. Click here to see the full list.
If you had told me two years ago that I’d own a Trinnov processor and have access to a Kaleidescape movie system, I would have thought I was in a dream. The pair is truly a marriage made in heaven and now I get to share that experience with the readers of Sound & Vision. If this is a dream, please don’t wake me up!
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COMMENTS
First off, If you can't load your movies on to this rig, what good is it? If you can, it's still rather dubious from a RoI standpoint.
Billy brought up a number of great points.
A few thoughts:
• If you own the discs, why would you ever need this rig?
• If you are downloading content, what is the back-up strategy used by this system? If it has none, that sucks.
• How many times are you going to watch a movie? Once or twice? 90% of the movies currently released are absolutely terrible. Being a Netflix & Amazon subscriber for several years, 90% of the movies being total dogs might be an understatement.
• Owning a nVidea Shield Pro ($200) and a 2 TB NAS drive ($600), why would I want to pay well over $30K for this system? It makes no sense. Again, I buy discs (mostly concert videos). Then, on top of that, I get almost all of my movies for free by illegally downloading them. I don't feel bad about that, because again, most movies ever made totally suck. The case is worse now.
• What is being offered here is equivalent to buying a Bugatti Charon for doing daily commuting. It's absurd.
I hope you enjoyed wasting $30K+ on this drastically overpriced POS.
If you own your own discs you just continue to play them on your disc player. No one is saying you have to rebuy your library if you don't want to, it isn't like those discs and your existing player are now somehow obsolete. You could look at K as a starting point for new movies you don't own or updated releases (new 4K versions, etc). K offers A LOT of movies in 4K resolution that are not available on disc. They also have a lot of content in SD and HD that are based on newer masters than what you can find on disc. So there is a lot of content you are not going to get outside of K or some streaming service. So unless you are downloading illegal rips or want to settle for streaming quality, K offers a lot that disc doesn't offer. Plus, if you haven't noticed, disc sales are going down the toilet, as is selection and availability outside of online retailers. Yes it is expensive and I agree with a lot of points when it comes to how expensive the drives and such are. But this is also a niche product that doesn't deal in the same volumes as disc and streaming players, so the company has to find ways to make money. Also, all content that is downloaded is playable regardless of whether the player is connected to the internet. So even if K went bye bye tomorrow, all the content you have in the player/drives is still just as playable as before.
There isn't one! Ripping (and the hardware associated with it) is much less expensive than a Kaleidescape system. BUT, and contrary to what you can do using the ripping method, the Kaleidescape offers a lot that is not available with any other approach. And if you want what they have to offer, then you get to pay the price. And the Honda/$200K car is a perfect example - as is a $35,000 Trinnov vs a $3500 alternative. Or a $250,000 home vs a $750,000 home. I could go on. But here is what I do know. I have NEVER regretted buying the best!!
Yeah, there are a handful of exclusive features with this system , but taking out a mortgage for them seems a bit beyond what mere mortals can appreciate.
Clearly, there are people who believe I’ve wasted money on my home theater, and in certain cases, I’d agree. This equipment pairing seems slicker than KY jelly, but man, the returns are certainly beyond diminishing, at least for me.
Apparently I touched a nerve, sorry boys and girls. Oh well, such is life. I agree with many of the statements presented here on both sides. My final thought here is this. Even if I hit the Powerball, I would not buy this. Oh, do not get me wrong, it is a wonderful thing, but home theater is my hobby. (Lord knows I do not jog) I get great fun and fulfillment out of rearranging my components and esp my home theater computer system. Plus, visitors are amazed at what my HT computer does, even more amazed when I tell them that, outside of the free (and legal) available software, I wrangled it all by myself. Okay, okay, I know that technically ripping discs is illegal. Such silliness, but I feel it falls under the fair use laws of the 80s and 90s. I do not put my rips online for file sharing, I do not give them to friends, they are just back ups and conveniences for my own personal use. How could Hollywood be upset with that? If someone has the means and desire to own this system, good for them. If they came about those means in a fair, ethical, and legal means, then why not?
So now that you've got the Trinnov Altitude 16 what's your strategy for getting the Trinnov Amplitude 16? I'm still trying to convince my "better half" that we need a Primare A35.8!
Chiming in on this because the cost of the storage device is just baffling. So you buy a $4,000 unit with *no* storage, just for streaming, and then you have to add storage:
6-terabyte ($4,995), 12TB ($7,995), 22TB ($10,995), 48TB ($17,995) or 88TB ($25,995).
What is this storage unit doing to justify the price premium over a NAS? Is there anything in this device aside from a RAID array, network connection, a bit of custom firmware, and some hard disks? Because you can get that in a NAS for literally less than 1/10th the cost.
I get that high-end has a price premium, but charging 10x retail just to put your brand on something isn't a premium, it's straight-up gouging and this company should be embarrassed.
The thing I have found to be lacking with the Shield Pro is its Android TV platform and using Kodi for playing MKV's. Both are buggy, but work great when they work... until you have to force quit or reboot. That happens once a week or more.
The other thing that irks me about the Shield is that you have to manually set the frame rate for streaming content. It kinda sucks. Kodi forces the unit to play at what ever is native to the MKV file.
That being said, yes, the Kaleidoscope unit is a much better unit in so much that the OS is better. I am, though, highly doubtful that its video quality is one iota better than the Shield. In the end, bits are bits.
As to SuicideSquid's point, spot on, brotha. The storage costs by this company are beyond absurd. You can buy SSD storage for a fraction of what they are charging. I'm thinking that they are actually using hard drives. If that is the case, you are getting massively boned.
A 18TB HD drive is about $300. If you are talking about SSD's, a 4TB drive is around $750.
To finish off your system are you going to buy $1K Ethernet/USB/HDMI cables and $5K power cords?
And, again, what is the provenance of the videos you buy from Kaleidoscope? Are they the full studio quality or something that's been squashed so that to cause less stress on their download servers?
This system is a rip off. Enjoy wasting your money.
Yup, I have about 40 TB storage now and it must had cost me about 1k$. Granted they are just external HDs not dedicated servers. Still using Emby and Plex they are just as functional run by my desktop PC.BTW using Emby and Plex with the Shield is the way to go as they have the ability to switch frame rates regardless where the shield is set to.
It sounds like the experience with the Kaleidescape system was very positive and intuitive. It's great that you were able to feel at home with the system so quickly, and it speaks to its user-friendly design. The familiarity you gained in just 10 minutes is a testament to its cookie clicker ease of use.
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