naylorman32
Well-known member
Thanks Mike!
-
Thanks for visiting the Kaleidescape Owners' Forum
This forum is for the community of Kaleidescape owners, and others interested in learning about the system, equipment, services, and the company itself.It is run by a group of enthusiastic Kaleidescape owners and dealers purely as a service to this community.
This board is not affiliated in any way with Kaleidescape, Inc.
For official technical support, product information, or customer service, please visit www.kaleidescape.com -
You are currently in "Guest" mode and not logged in with a registered account.
The forum is free to use and most of the forum can be used by guests who are not registered....
... but we strongly encourage you to register for a full account. There is no cost to register for a full account.
Benefits of registering for a full account:
- Participate in the discussions! You must have a registered account to make posts on the forums. You will be able to start your own thread on a topic or question, or you can reply to other threads/discussions.
- Use the "Conversation" feature (known as "private messaging" on other forums) to communicate directly with any of the other users here.
- Access the Files area. The "resources" area of the forum contains many "Favorite Scene" and Script files that can dramatically increase the enjoyment of your Kaleidescape system. Go directly to great scenes in your favorite movies, created by other owners, and add automation to playback of your system with Scripts.
- You won't see this annoying notice at the top of every screen!😊
Strato Player - First impressions
- Thread starter Mr.Poindexter
- Start date
Perfect - thanks for that insight! I do have a Control4 waiting to be programmed.
Sorry, reading quickly and I missed a couple of your questions. The noise when the Vault boots is normal. That's some of the internal motors calibrating themselves.
The vault will light up amber if it's not able to communicate with a Kaleidescape system. What you should be able to do is to go to your player's browser interface (do you know how to find this?), click the Settings tab, and you will see the Components sub-tab. At the bottom of that page is an "Add Component" button. Click that, and it should allow you to add the Disc Server to your system. Once you've done that, it may take some time for the Disc Server to update its software to match the Strato's software. At that point, the front panel lights should actually turn off (Disc Servers don't glow blue with Encore systems like they do with Premiere systems).
The vault will light up amber if it's not able to communicate with a Kaleidescape system. What you should be able to do is to go to your player's browser interface (do you know how to find this?), click the Settings tab, and you will see the Components sub-tab. At the bottom of that page is an "Add Component" button. Click that, and it should allow you to add the Disc Server to your system. Once you've done that, it may take some time for the Disc Server to update its software to match the Strato's software. At that point, the front panel lights should actually turn off (Disc Servers don't glow blue with Encore systems like they do with Premiere systems).
naylorman32
Well-known member
When i mentioned the Vault- communication failure, it was in the browser interface. so im assuming this has something to do with the gigabit switch. i honestly just plugged it into an open port on my router- so i didnt pay attention to any gigabit ports, if my router has any. i will check that again.
so could that connection error be why i cant link the 2 yet?
i should also add, even though my screen shows "kscape dv700 vault", it wont allow me to do anything such as click any buttons. its as if its frozen.
and how do i turn it off? i unplugged it as i noticed after 30 mins of non usage went by, it was still lit up with the same screen interface and amber glow.
so could that connection error be why i cant link the 2 yet?
i should also add, even though my screen shows "kscape dv700 vault", it wont allow me to do anything such as click any buttons. its as if its frozen.
and how do i turn it off? i unplugged it as i noticed after 30 mins of non usage went by, it was still lit up with the same screen interface and amber glow.
Let me also expand a bit on the various CinemaScape modes.
We should start by thinking about how 2.35 systems work when they don't have a Kaleidescape system. In systems that have an anamorphic lens, when viewing regular 16:9 content or non-2.35 movies, the lens is usually moved away from the front of the projector, so that the projector fills the height of the screen, but not the full width.
When it's time to watch a 2.35 movie, two things happen. First, an "Anamorphic" mode is engaged on the projector, which takes the incoming video signal and stretches it vertically. The effect of this is to eliminate the black bars, and fill the full height of the image with the content that was originally in the letterboxed area in the middle. Everybody at this point looks very tall and skinny.
Then, the lens is moved into position. That stretches the image horizontally, filling the screen, and restoring everybody to their average height and portly build. ;-)
In these systems, the viewer typically presses a button of some kind on a remote control to engage the projector's stretch feature and the motorized sled that moves the lens.
Alternatively, if somebody does not have an anamorphic lens, then they can simply zoom the projector's lens so that the image gets bigger. The black bars are projected onto the area above and below the screen, and the actual image fills the 2.35 screen. Again, this is usually done manually (typically with a lens memory on the projector).
We wanted to eliminate this manual stuff, so the Kaleidescape system has long included a feature where we send an event to the user's control system, saying "Aspect ratio is now 2.35" or "Aspect ratio is now 1.78". The control system programmer could program the system to engage the lens sled and projector stretch, or to select a different lens memory.
We weren't really satisfied with that solution either, because especially when you do something like playing a scene, it can be a lot of back and forth. So that's where CinemaScape comes in.
In the main CinemaScape mode -- CinemaScape Anamorphic -- you configure the system so that the anamorphic lens is always in front of the projector when the Kaleidescape source is selected, but the projector's vertical stretch mode is not engaged. The Kaleidescape player draws all of the onscreen display graphics, and renders all of the video content, so that it will always look correct when projected through the lens. We still emit the aspect ratio triggers, so that motorized screen masking systems can adjust accordingly.
CinemaScape Letterbox is designed for situations where there's no way to engage the anamorphic lens without also engaging the projector's vertical stretch feature. The player draws everything within the 2.35 letterboxed region in the frame, so that (again) everything looks correct on screen. This mode produces somewhat reduced video quality compared to CinemaScape Anamorphic, because it doesn't use the full 1080 pixels of vertical resolution. (Or, eventually, 2160 on Strato.)
Finally, CinemaScape Native 2.35 Display mode is intended for "21:9" televisions, or 2.35 projectors like the Projection Design Avielo projectors, which are native 2.35 devices that look for letterboxed content and automatically stretch the image when they see it. In this mode, the onscreen display is drawn in 2.35 letterbox format, 2.35 video is displayed letterbox, but 1.78 and 1.85 content is displayed normally. This allows the sensing functions in the display to adjust automatically.
How does this shake out for somebody who is using projector zooming? CinemaScape Anamorphic is not the right setting for projector zooming. You could elect to use CinemaScape Letterbox, which would basically allow you to always zoom out to 2.35 while using the Kaleidescape. Or, you could select CinemaScape Native 2.35, which will draw the onscreen display as a 2.35 letterbox (suitable for zooming), and 2.35 content suitable for zooming. But you'd zoom the picture back down to normal size for 1.78. You could automate this with lens memories and the aspect ratio triggers.
If you haven't run screaming from the room at this point, you can check out our detailed CinemaScape white paper, which explains all of this in more detail, with pretty pictures.
To reiterate, CinemaScape is not available on Strato yet, but it is planned for the April kOS release.
Feel free to ask more questions if you'd like! CinemaScape was sort of my baby, so I know it pretty well.
We should start by thinking about how 2.35 systems work when they don't have a Kaleidescape system. In systems that have an anamorphic lens, when viewing regular 16:9 content or non-2.35 movies, the lens is usually moved away from the front of the projector, so that the projector fills the height of the screen, but not the full width.
When it's time to watch a 2.35 movie, two things happen. First, an "Anamorphic" mode is engaged on the projector, which takes the incoming video signal and stretches it vertically. The effect of this is to eliminate the black bars, and fill the full height of the image with the content that was originally in the letterboxed area in the middle. Everybody at this point looks very tall and skinny.
Then, the lens is moved into position. That stretches the image horizontally, filling the screen, and restoring everybody to their average height and portly build. ;-)
In these systems, the viewer typically presses a button of some kind on a remote control to engage the projector's stretch feature and the motorized sled that moves the lens.
Alternatively, if somebody does not have an anamorphic lens, then they can simply zoom the projector's lens so that the image gets bigger. The black bars are projected onto the area above and below the screen, and the actual image fills the 2.35 screen. Again, this is usually done manually (typically with a lens memory on the projector).
We wanted to eliminate this manual stuff, so the Kaleidescape system has long included a feature where we send an event to the user's control system, saying "Aspect ratio is now 2.35" or "Aspect ratio is now 1.78". The control system programmer could program the system to engage the lens sled and projector stretch, or to select a different lens memory.
We weren't really satisfied with that solution either, because especially when you do something like playing a scene, it can be a lot of back and forth. So that's where CinemaScape comes in.
In the main CinemaScape mode -- CinemaScape Anamorphic -- you configure the system so that the anamorphic lens is always in front of the projector when the Kaleidescape source is selected, but the projector's vertical stretch mode is not engaged. The Kaleidescape player draws all of the onscreen display graphics, and renders all of the video content, so that it will always look correct when projected through the lens. We still emit the aspect ratio triggers, so that motorized screen masking systems can adjust accordingly.
CinemaScape Letterbox is designed for situations where there's no way to engage the anamorphic lens without also engaging the projector's vertical stretch feature. The player draws everything within the 2.35 letterboxed region in the frame, so that (again) everything looks correct on screen. This mode produces somewhat reduced video quality compared to CinemaScape Anamorphic, because it doesn't use the full 1080 pixels of vertical resolution. (Or, eventually, 2160 on Strato.)
Finally, CinemaScape Native 2.35 Display mode is intended for "21:9" televisions, or 2.35 projectors like the Projection Design Avielo projectors, which are native 2.35 devices that look for letterboxed content and automatically stretch the image when they see it. In this mode, the onscreen display is drawn in 2.35 letterbox format, 2.35 video is displayed letterbox, but 1.78 and 1.85 content is displayed normally. This allows the sensing functions in the display to adjust automatically.
How does this shake out for somebody who is using projector zooming? CinemaScape Anamorphic is not the right setting for projector zooming. You could elect to use CinemaScape Letterbox, which would basically allow you to always zoom out to 2.35 while using the Kaleidescape. Or, you could select CinemaScape Native 2.35, which will draw the onscreen display as a 2.35 letterbox (suitable for zooming), and 2.35 content suitable for zooming. But you'd zoom the picture back down to normal size for 1.78. You could automate this with lens memories and the aspect ratio triggers.
If you haven't run screaming from the room at this point, you can check out our detailed CinemaScape white paper, which explains all of this in more detail, with pretty pictures.
To reiterate, CinemaScape is not available on Strato yet, but it is planned for the April kOS release.
Feel free to ask more questions if you'd like! CinemaScape was sort of my baby, so I know it pretty well.
Hi naylorman32,
If the DV700 is showing "DV700 Disc Vault" it is not running the correct software version to work with your Strato. It would say "DV700 Disc Server".
Disc Vaults/Servers don't have on/off switches. They're intended to be always-on components, like servers.
Did you try going to the Settings page and doing the "Add Component" thing?
If the DV700 is showing "DV700 Disc Vault" it is not running the correct software version to work with your Strato. It would say "DV700 Disc Server".
Disc Vaults/Servers don't have on/off switches. They're intended to be always-on components, like servers.
Did you try going to the Settings page and doing the "Add Component" thing?
I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand this part of your question. Encore components (Alto, Strato, Terra) don't store imported discs (Blu-ray or DVD). The only thing stored on the hard drives in Encore is content downloaded from the Movie Store.
Now, what about discs? You can "catalog" discs, which means that you add a virtual copy to your library, but when you play it, the movie has to be played from the optical disc.
If you have an Alto, you can put a disc into the player's disc slot and catalog it that way. When you go to play it, the Alto will ask you to insert it.
Or, you can put the disc into a Disc Server. The player will catalog it, and when you go to play it, the Disc Server will automatically load it up and send the bits over the network. If you had, say 500 discs and one Disc Server, you could catalog all 500 discs and keep, say, 315 of them in the Disc Server and 185 of them on the shelf. If you happened to play one of the 185, the player would ask you to insert it into either the player or the Disc Server.
Now, let's talk about Strato. Strato doesn't have a disc slot of its own, so to catalog discs, you really need a Disc Server. And, you need a kOS software update that is scheduled for May. Strato doesn't support playback from disc server yet, primarily because as a new hardware architecture, it has to go through Blu-ray certification.
Does that answer your question? If you have a specific scenario or use case in mind, fire away!
naylorman32
Well-known member
Ok so i just plugged it back in and its showing "disc vault". does that mean I should just let it sit and it will update the software version automatically?
I did try the add component the first time i went on tonight. i clicked add and nothing appeared to happen. but when i refreshed the page, that is when i saw the communication failure. so i just went on the browser interface again just now (about 5 mins after plugging my vault back in), and i dont have the add component button and the vault isnt showing up. I assume i need to give it time?
I did try the add component the first time i went on tonight. i clicked add and nothing appeared to happen. but when i refreshed the page, that is when i saw the communication failure. so i just went on the browser interface again just now (about 5 mins after plugging my vault back in), and i dont have the add component button and the vault isnt showing up. I assume i need to give it time?
Okay, if you're in that state, that indicates that the vault is configured to be part of the system, but because of the software version mis-match, the system can't get any information from it (that's why it's not showing up). Parenthetically, yes, this is confusing and we need to fix it.
I would leave it for a bit. It *should* update itself and reboot.
If it doesn't, we'll need to get our support team involved, which we can do tomorrow.
Thanks for your patience!
I would leave it for a bit. It *should* update itself and reboot.
If it doesn't, we'll need to get our support team involved, which we can do tomorrow.
Thanks for your patience!
naylorman32
Well-known member
Sounds like a plan! Thanks Mike!
In the meantime, if anyone needs a good, inexpensive Gigabit Ethernet switch, I can heartily recommend the [ame="http://smile.amazon.com/NETGEAR-ProSAFE-Gigabit-Desktop-GS108-400NAS/dp/B00MPVR50A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456463263&sr=8-1&keywords=GS108"]Netgear GS108 8-port unit[/ame]. It's fast, solid, and has a lifetime limited warranty.
Here is my confusion. Between this:
Yes, if you group a Disc Server with the Strato, you can catalog all of your discs. They will not, however, show up in the Strato's onscreen display. (Generally, we only show things that are actually playable.) This is so that the things that you can play aren't lost in a sea of things you can't. So, for the use case you've described (using the onscreen display as a way to browse your discs), that would not work for you.
And this:
Now, what about discs? You can "catalog" discs, which means that you add a virtual copy to your library, but when you play it, the movie has to be played from the optical disc.
If you had, say 500 discs and one Disc Server, you could catalog all 500 discs and keep, say, 315 of them in the Disc Server and 185 of them on the shelf. If you happened to play one of the 185, the player would ask you to insert it into either the player or the Disc Server.
I have approximately 800 Blu-rays. What I am hoping to do is a) catalog every one of the 800 discs through the Disc Server, b) use UV rights to load 150 or so movies into the Strato, c) fill the Disc Server with 300 or so discs, d) insert the remaining discs that are not in the Strato or Disc Server manually "on call" in the Disc Server. The key is though - to see all of the 800 movies in the Strato UI. In other words, select one of the 800 movies for viewing through the Strato UI, and it either plays from the Strato or Disc Server OR tells me to insert the disc into the Disc Server (because it is sitting on a shelf somewhere).
The first quote leads me to believe I cannot do what I am describing above, whereas the second quote leads me to believe that I can. Hence my confusion!
Oh - and thank you for your heroic efforts to help me understand CinemaScape! I am going to read the white paper again together with your detailed post and see if I can finally reach a state of true enlightenment!
Yes, if you group a Disc Server with the Strato, you can catalog all of your discs. They will not, however, show up in the Strato's onscreen display. (Generally, we only show things that are actually playable.) This is so that the things that you can play aren't lost in a sea of things you can't. So, for the use case you've described (using the onscreen display as a way to browse your discs), that would not work for you.
And this:
Now, what about discs? You can "catalog" discs, which means that you add a virtual copy to your library, but when you play it, the movie has to be played from the optical disc.
If you had, say 500 discs and one Disc Server, you could catalog all 500 discs and keep, say, 315 of them in the Disc Server and 185 of them on the shelf. If you happened to play one of the 185, the player would ask you to insert it into either the player or the Disc Server.
I have approximately 800 Blu-rays. What I am hoping to do is a) catalog every one of the 800 discs through the Disc Server, b) use UV rights to load 150 or so movies into the Strato, c) fill the Disc Server with 300 or so discs, d) insert the remaining discs that are not in the Strato or Disc Server manually "on call" in the Disc Server. The key is though - to see all of the 800 movies in the Strato UI. In other words, select one of the 800 movies for viewing through the Strato UI, and it either plays from the Strato or Disc Server OR tells me to insert the disc into the Disc Server (because it is sitting on a shelf somewhere).
The first quote leads me to believe I cannot do what I am describing above, whereas the second quote leads me to believe that I can. Hence my confusion!
Oh - and thank you for your heroic efforts to help me understand CinemaScape! I am going to read the white paper again together with your detailed post and see if I can finally reach a state of true enlightenment!
Last edited:
This was the key line buried miles deep in my previous answer:
Strato should allow you to catalog discs today with a Disc Server, but because it can't play those discs until we get the certification stuff done and release that update, they won't show up in the onscreen display. They will appear in the Browser Interface, and the inventory will be uploaded to the Movie Store, though.
So, you could catalog all of your discs, go to the Movie Store and do the Disc-to-Digital offers for the 150 or so you plan to do, and those movies will download, appear in the onscreen display and be playable normally. But, you won't see any cataloged discs in the onscreen display until that update that's planned for May.
Hope that clarifies things!
Strato should allow you to catalog discs today with a Disc Server, but because it can't play those discs until we get the certification stuff done and release that update, they won't show up in the onscreen display. They will appear in the Browser Interface, and the inventory will be uploaded to the Movie Store, though.
So, you could catalog all of your discs, go to the Movie Store and do the Disc-to-Digital offers for the 150 or so you plan to do, and those movies will download, appear in the onscreen display and be playable normally. But, you won't see any cataloged discs in the onscreen display until that update that's planned for May.
Hope that clarifies things!
Another question....hopefully a simple one this time!
If I download a movie to the Strato now - will I have to reload that movie later to get the lossless version of the audio track or will an upcoming kOS release (I think estimated for April) simply "unlock" lossless audio tracks that are already there (assuming they were also already there on the original Blu-ray version)?
If I download a movie to the Strato now - will I have to reload that movie later to get the lossless version of the audio track or will an upcoming kOS release (I think estimated for April) simply "unlock" lossless audio tracks that are already there (assuming they were also already there on the original Blu-ray version)?
When you view the movie's details in the Movie Store, you can see the audio tracks that are included in the download. For all of the 4K Ultra HD movies, this is lossless audio, and it's almost universal for Blu-ray quality content as well. That's what gets downloaded.
So, yes, when lossless audio support arrives (planned for April), then when you play that content you'll be able to output those lossless audio formats.
Note: both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA include within or alongside them a 5.1 lossy version. It's implemented differently in the two formats (one is a "core" and the other it's a separate substream, but whatever). So, that's what Strato is using for now.
So, don't be worried if you look at a movie and see that it only has, say, DTS-HD MA listed on the Movie Store (as most of our 4K Ultra HD titles do). Strato will still play that just fine, using the core stream.
So, yes, when lossless audio support arrives (planned for April), then when you play that content you'll be able to output those lossless audio formats.
Note: both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA include within or alongside them a 5.1 lossy version. It's implemented differently in the two formats (one is a "core" and the other it's a separate substream, but whatever). So, that's what Strato is using for now.
So, don't be worried if you look at a movie and see that it only has, say, DTS-HD MA listed on the Movie Store (as most of our 4K Ultra HD titles do). Strato will still play that just fine, using the core stream.
Regarding Gigabit switches, we don't recommend any switches in particular, but here's a Knowledge Base article that lists some switches that have been reported to work well.
I can happily say that I now understand CinemaScape - and I can't wait to see the Cover Flow in all of its 2.37 glory!
My compliments - I love a good and elegant engineering solution!!
