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NEWS: Strato V Player Announced

MikeKobb said:
Very reasonable request. I will raise that with the store team.
Click to expand...

Delete and Replace should definitely be an option for all upgrades. Even before Dolby Vision, with so many titles just getting 4K upgrades that was a feature I'd hoped for as it can be a chore to go in and clear space by deleting the old and now unneeded HD versions.
 
DmitryB said:
Yeah, I actually have a JVC projector, so that's never going to have DV. But the new V model does have storage, which the C doesn't. That's my main source of blargh.
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More importantly, if you have a Dolby Vision title, it will down convert for HDR so you don't have to keep two versions and use double the storage. If you have the Strato C, that's not possible.
 
Here's an image with some details that I hadn't seen shared before. The SSD is 960GB.

1721187544887.png
 
David23 said:
The new limited interface for the Strato V in standalone mode.
Click to expand...
Does this mean we should expect to see the SD/HD/4K badging disappear from poster art in a future K update?
 
MikeKobb said:
We're anticipating that the vast majority of titles will be able to be updated, and this work is ongoing, with tranches of titles being added regularly. It is possible that a small number of titles may not be able to be updated.

As an example, one of the possible reasons for a title to be incompatible with Strato V would be if it is using the VC-1 codec, which the new chip in the Strato V does not support. For most of those titles, we'll be able to source mezzanine files that we can encode appropriately, and we'll do that, starting with the most popular titles. If we can't get access to a mezzanine file, then that title may not be able to be updated. We did look at possibly transcoding those files, but we don't think the attendant loss in quality is acceptable.

Another thing that I think will be important for some customers to consider is that in some cases, the updated HD versions of titles don't currently have extras, where the original version did. So if the extras are important to you, you may want to double-check before you update the HD version of a movie to ensure that there are still extras available. We are working to re-add those extras as part of this process, but ensuring that the movies themselves were available was given priority over handling the extras.
Click to expand...
Would you consider using Co-Star as a work around for this? Rather than a Strato C and a M-Class player, the revised Co-Star would have a Strato C and a Strato V on its each HDMI inputs. Strato V would play all compatible movies and the Co-Star would switch inputs to Strato C for incompatible movies. For brownie points, you could consider a 3 input Co-Star switch that would seamlessly switch between a Strato V, a Strato C and a M-Class player based on the content played.
 
LoveCinema said:
Does this mean we should expect to see the SD/HD/4K badging disappear from poster art in a future K update?
Click to expand...
Yes. The next release of kOS, which was released and has started its phased rollout this week, removes the quality badges from the cover art included in the media guide. The cover art replacement process will start shortly after your system updates to 10.18.0 and has downloaded and extracted the new version of the guide. The time it will take for all of the images to be replaced will depend on the size of your library.

NOTE: This process will not replace any custom cover art images you have uploaded. They will remain intact.
 
J.Green said:
Yes. The next release of kOS, which was released and has started its phased rollout this week, removes the quality badges from the cover art included in the media guide. The cover art replacement process will start shortly after your system updates to 10.18.0 and has downloaded and extracted the new version of the guide. The time it will take for all of the images to be replaced will depend on the size of your library.

NOTE: This process will not replace any custom cover art images you have uploaded. They will remain intact.
Click to expand...
Will this update only affect my system if I have the new Strato V? Or, will I possibly be able to opt out and retain the K provided cover art on my older system as it looks today?

When I'm deciding what to watch and scrolling through the cover view, I like the fact that I can see at a glance whether its a 4K, HD or SD version of a movie and that helps me decide what to watch.
 
Anyone notice they could be making CEC available at a later date on this unit? That will be a first!
 
I ran the compatibility report (thank you @J.Green !) and only 25 titles still to be converted to the new HD format in my library that can not be played on Strato V....... most significant to the overall group I believe (and #1 on my wish list) would be Gravity, due to the fact of the Atmos soundtrack which I believe is only available on K-Scape and the special Diamond Edition disc (or recent re-release).......
 
DmitryB said:
Yeah, I actually have a JVC projector, so that's never going to have DV. But the new V model does have storage, which the C doesn't. That's my main source of blargh.
Click to expand...
On its own it doesn’t do DV, but as I’ve mentioned with the addition of an HDFury or EZCoo you can get native DV on that JVC.

Do you already have a Prime Server? Sounds like you do since you have a C player, so the fact that the V has storage is moot because it deactivates its internal storage when paired with a Terra Server.
 
kragan said:
Will this update only affect my system if I have the new Strato V? Or, will I possibly be able to opt out and retain the K provided cover art on my older system as it looks today?

When I'm deciding what to watch and scrolling through the cover view, I like the fact that I can see at a glance whether its a 4K, HD or SD version of a movie and that helps me decide what to watch.
Click to expand...
This is a system level change in kOS that is not tied specifically to Strato V. It will affect all Strato systems.
 
StanfieldNC said:
Hey folks, the Dolby Vision is a great improvement, but what about this audio upgrade.

Of course, my projector doesn't have Dolby Vision, but I run a 7.2.4 Atmos setup and this sounds like a pretty sweet upgrade.

Was this a typo by K or is the C only capable of lossy 5.1, because I thought I was decoding lossless 7.1 channels on my Strato C (with my Marantz SR8015, but I could be misunderstanding.

Thoughts? Can anyone elaborate on this?


View attachment 5247
Click to expand...
They are referring to lossless decoding over PCM not bitstream. A bitstream signal is lossless. You would not want the Kaleidescape to do any decoding anyway - the decoding is best done by your AVR/Trinnov.

Honestly, I am completely underwhelmed by the "new" features here. What really should have been done is major improvements to the power supply and HDMI noise (e.g., jitter), and I am not seeing any references to that.
 
Thanks for the link to check compatibility of our movies with SV. My library shows 600+ incompatible movies. Is the expectation that all movies will become compatible with Strato V over time? Is the re-encoding something K can do on their own or is this something you are dependent on studios to provide them with appropriate files?
 
StanfieldNC said:
More importantly, if you have a Dolby Vision title, it will down convert for HDR so you don't have to keep two versions and use double the storage. If you have the Strato C, that's not possible.
Click to expand...
This is not correct - HDR and Dolby Vision are not two different versions of the same thing. Dolby Vision is a way to get (fake) HDR to display better (some say) on a non-HDR display. You need an HDR source for any kind of tone mapping solution, like DV.
 
Surge said:
This is not correct - HDR and Dolby Vision are not two different versions of the same thing. Dolby Vision is a way to get (fake) HDR to display better (some say) on a non-HDR display. You need an HDR source for any kind of tone mapping solution, like DV.
Click to expand...
"According to @MikeKobb earlier in this thread, the Strato V can play a DV download and output it as either DV or HDR10. The Strato C can’t play the DV download at all and requires a separate download for HDR10."
 
StanfieldNC said:
"According to @MikeKobb earlier in this thread, the Strato V can play a DV download and output it as either DV or HDR10. The Strato C can’t play the DV download at all and requires a separate download for HDR10."
Click to expand...
Yes, but this has nothing to do with HDR. You must have an HDR title to "take advantage" of DV or HDR10. I put take advantage in quotes because many videophiles believe that HDR10 and especially DV degrade the image, not improve it. The best image quality with HDR content is not using tone mapping at all - i.e., using a display that can display HDR.
If you do need to tone map, use a Lumagen or MadVR, not HDR10 or DV - you will get far better results.
Any serious HT will have either a display that is true HDR or use Lumagen/MadVR, so the Strato V is not an "upgrade" for those users.

At the risk of repeating myself: this is a very disappointing "upgrade" for serious users. Nothing that has improved A/V quality for the past ~2 decades is in this new player.
 
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