NEWS: New Kaleidescape "M-Class" players announced, with Blu-ray support

[cinelife]

Upon receiving the Player the first thing I did was add it to my system and playback a BR movie (the first Lord of the Rings). I was interested in seeing the "out-of-box" performance. I was surprised by the image presented, in a good way. I often find the initial image on new player's disappointing. Not so with this player. Although I can't help but "tinker" with video images, I probably could have lived with this image, it was easily as good as the Sony S5000ES that has been tweaked. You really can "plug and play" this Player and be satisfied with the performance.

I then subjected the Player to the usual Setup and Evaluation Patterns found on the "Spears & Munsil" High Definition Benchmark disc (Blu-ray Edition).

I initially had a problem with the Player clipping peaks in the Luma channel and the RGB display channels (clipped all levels above reference). Dynamic Range Low and Dynamic Range High also presented some minor issues, and I had trouble setting Contrast and Brightness levels as well. As soon as I reported this to K their engineers were quick to respond and share with me a setting that I had missed in the "Advanced Video Settings" of the Player that allows the end user to either engage or disengage "Blacker-than Black" and "Whiter-than-White." Once engaged (default is disengaged), the Player passed the above tests, and I was able to better set the Contrast and Brightness to my preferences.

The Player also performed very well in the Racecar Clip when looking at Source Adaptive Deinterlacing clips. (Passed test).

Using the Edge Adaptive Deinterlacing Clips I evaluated "jaggies" "Bridge" "Hockey" "ropes" "ship" and the "Mixed Film & Video", and the Player passed all of these tests without any issues. The deinterlacing of video was excellent. The was no "combing" of the text in the Mixed Film & Video clips, indicating proper deinterlacing of a composite image containing two separate cadences.

Overall, I was more than satisfied and objectively, the Player performed very well. More Player info in the next post.

[cinelife]

PLAYER ATTRIBUTES:

Of course it imports BR/DVD/and CD's.
Instant movie start from the Server (not quite "instant" because of the couple second delay while checking that the disc is in the tray, but instant vis-a-vis other BR players that can take 15-45 seconds to load. LOVE this feature!!

As Josh mentioned, the Player currently cannot accommodate scripts, but this is obviously a limitation based on the requirement for content to be present in the tray before playback. Once the "disc loader" becomes available, the ability to create scripts should be available as well. We'll see. Also, at this time you cannot relocate subtitles, not sure why, or if it will ever be offered again. (That's troublesome for those of us with CIH setups and Anamorphic lenses that watch a lot of subtitled films.)

Takes about an hour to import a BR movie (I averaged about 1 hour 5 minutes per movie).

VIDEO:
The Player supports 1080p24 for BR content containing this as native rez.
The video output resolutions are determined by your selection of the Primary Output. When HDMI is selected as primary, it outputs 1080p60 (or 1080p24 as mentioned) and Component/SVideo/Composite will output at 480i/576i.
When Component is selected as primary, both Component and HDMI will output at 1080i. SVideo/Composite at 480i/576i.

AUDIO: There are Two Modes:

1. Player decodes: You get:

• HDMI--48khz (up to 5.1 channels)
• S/PDIF--DTS or PCM Stereo
• Analog Stereo--PCM Stereo

(Secondary Audio is available)

2. Pass-Through (Bitstream): You get:

• Up to 192 Khz
• Up to 7.1 Channels

(No secondary audio)

As mentioned above, those that have Receivers/PrePro's/etc. that are capable of internal decoding of the HD Codecs will want to select the Bitstream option.

In listening to the audio in 5.1 (M500 decoded) and HD decoded 5.1 and 7.1 (Denon decoded), it is not difficult to hear the improvement the HD encodes bring to the total viewing experience. That said, the M500's 5.1 decoding is also excellent and will likely be acceptable to many owners. You'll have to judge for yourself.

Part of my evaluation involved direct comparisons to the BR players I mentioned above. These were "subjective" viewing only. I used A/B comparisons using the same scenes, and same inputs on the Projector, and the Plasma. Because these were not simultaneous "side-by-side" comparisons, I acknowledge my impressions are in no way scientific. After comparing each player separately against the M500, I came away believing the M500 was at least as good as the Sony and Denon players in video performance, including upscaling standard DVD.

My comparison of the upscaling capability of the M500 versus the KPLAYER-6000 (1080p Player) resulted in a similar conclusion. Using HDMI outputs from the Players to different inputs on the projector, I staggered the start times (30 seconds apart) playing back a standard DVD movie on both players. I viewed each scene several times back to back on each player, then changed the HDMI cables and projector inputs and repeated the process. Initially, I wasn't certain as to which was better at upscaling. I first thought the 1080p Player did a better job, then I thought the M500 was better. I gave up on the DVD content (thinking the M500 might be producing a slightly better image). I decided to use the tray playback on each with an AVIA test disk, and this is where I decided that although both were excellent, I favored the M500. (I know the 6000 uses the latest version of Gennum's VXP chip, not sure about the M500, but it isn't the VXP). Overall, very close in performance, but I've decided to upgrade all of my players to the M-Class Players.

I'll likely discuss all of this in more detail in the coming days, and frankly, ran out of time this evening, but it will be fun to hear comments from other beta testers and owners in the coming weeks.

In closing this post, I'd like to thank Josh for the excellent, and time consuming work putting this thread together. So, thank you my friend!


Jim

[cinelife]

Regarding Player upgrades. Please ignore all historical posts/discussions on this subject. Current information is that K will be offering a generous upgrade incentive to dealers. ALL KPLAYERS are eligible for the upgrade incentive. Please contact your dealer for additional information on how to upgrade, and the costs involved.


Jim

[josh]

Overall Thoughts:

I'll be very eager to hear what the community thinks of the announcement. The new player and the new version of KEAOS are very impressive technical achievements.

Having lived with an M500 player for about 2 weeks now, my view is that, at least until the BR-disc loader is released, the addition of Blu-Ray is amazing, and I'll certainly use tray-based playback. I also love some of the new UI features that are only available on the new class of players. However, I do not believe I will have any meaningful number of B-R titles stored on my server. The convenience factor isn't there for me given the current restrictions, and I'm sensitive to filling up so much server space for a title that sill needs to be inserted into a drive. This has not created the situation where I'm going to buy everything only on Blu-Ray and load everything on my server, nor will I be in a rush to upgrade my DVD titles to Blu-Ray except for some of the big blockbuster movies. (Real smart move, Studios... your restrictions mean I'll NOT be buying your new more expensive products nor will I continue to replace my DVD collection!). I'll stick to DVD for most of my purchases, but buy Blu-Ray (or maybe combo-packs) in the case of a big blockbuster with great special-effects, audio, or a more cinematic experience. And when I do buy those Blu-Rays, I probably will NOT load them onto my server, despite the cool ability to do so that's now here. The few features it enabled aren't enough to trade off that huge amount of server storage space.

Others will feel differently, and I have to admit that when the disc-loader is available, then I finally may begin storing meaningful numbers of Blu-ray discs on my server.


A final thought: for me, it's also very nice to see the company come back from what seems like a rather extended "hibernation" period. While we now know they've been hard at work on the new products and software, it seems like it's been forever since they've been out in the press talking about their products.

I hope that this means the company is no longer afraid to show the industry that it is still innovating and is determined to continue to deliver the absolute best movie and music playback experience that you can buy. It needs to continue to emphasize that it's determined to protect IP rights and support the business of the studios selling and renting their content to willing consumers who will pay for it.

Please share your own thoughts, I'm eager to hear...

--josh

[brodricj]

I'm smiling, big time, particularly when I read the word "import"

Thanks K!

With only the most minor gripes:

1. why the RCA connector, what was wrong with BNC?

2. can it internally decode an DTS-MA soundtrack and output it as LPCM? No mention in the spec sheet about that.

3. Bummer. Can't change region code for BR discs. You need to buy two M-500's if you wish to play back Region A & Region B.

[Joe]

So many questions... For one, the loader they plan to release first half of 2011 sounds like a functional replacement of the SpeedReader. I just bought one of those this past December. I wonder if they will feature upgrade pricing for customers who purchased the SpeedReader and want to upgrade to the loader.

That said, the loader seems somewhat different, functionally. It almost sounds like a hybrid loader and maybe carousel-like system that will hold the disks, like one of those Sony disk carousel systems? If that's the case, I definitely wonder what impact that will have on the k-scape experience. Carousel disk locate and access times are very slow compared to data access on RAID-configured hard drives. If the system has to negotiate the locate-and-find just to get the "OK" to access the hard drives that would slow things down noticeably. There will also be size considerations. I had one of those Sony carousels. It was big - like 4U or so in height - and could only hold 400 disks. How will this loader concept play out for large Blu-Ray libraries - say over 1000. That's a lot of rack space, along with the additional 3U server(s) that may be needed to store the increased content.

[Panamar]

I have to say Im not completely impressed. Extremely disappointed that the disc is required in the tray (for the next year and a bit atleast)! Pointless! If this is the case I see no reason to upgrade untill the loader/stacker is available.

Maybe the USB port may bring some welcome help to this.

Q. Does the cover art show for all imported content of BD's at all times (inc. information... director, actor, etc..) but once a movie is selected a pop-up message appears to instruct you to put the original BD-dvd into the M500 tray (which is mounted in a rack in another room)? Don't fancy walking between rooms several/tens of times in an evening. Not very conducive to my K experience!!

Q. Can BD home made movies be placed on the server?

Q. Will my BD home made discs be required in the M500 tray?

Rgds

Panamar

[brodricj]

Originally Posted by Joe

...If the system has to negotiate the locate-and-find just to get the "OK" to access the hard drives that would slow things down noticeably.

It would have to be a carousel system like the Sony mega-changers. But it needn't change the Kaleidescape experience at all, hopefully. The mega changers can detect which slots have discs in them...presumably once a disc is loaded in a slot and read/verified, that it wouldn't need to be read again prior to server playback if that slot was sensed as still occupied.

As for the physical space issue, that is a good point. I don't have space in my 45RU rack for a mega changer. But the mega-changer could be out of the way, say on the floor of my pantry cupboard, as long as I could get power and a network cable to it.

The big downer for me is this Region A & B thing. I'm just not going to buy separate players so I can play back content from both regions. I hope the mega-changer/loader can load both Region A & B to the server, and once the content is on the server (and the appropriate disc slot sensed as occupied), the M500-A can playback all BR media, both Region A and B.

Finally, if it turns out the M500 can't internally decode DTS-MA and output it as LPCM then I won't be buying any new K hardware. I'll be sticking with what I have, i.e. DVD content playback only.

[AnOutsider]

I must have missed in the post where the UI upgrades and limitations were listed (though they were referenced several times)

*edit* read it on k's site. Major fail all around, but by not getting my hopes up, I was prepared.

[Croptop]

Originally Posted by brodricj

2. can it internally decode an DTS-MA soundtrack and output it as LPCM? No mention in the spec sheet about that.

Yes it can. But it will only be output in 5.1 channels not 7.1.