NEWS: New Strato M Movie Player

[thrillcat]

Would've loved to see wifi in this, even if it's limited to store connections only and still required a LAN connection to a Terra.

 

[LoveCinema]

This product definitely delivers better quality 2k, but with a large number of people having 4k tvs and those same people likely watching 4k material on Netflix, or Apple TV+ or Prime Video, I feel that like this product may not land with a number people that maybe sitting on the fence with K due to price.

Without ever seeing it, I'm absolutely positive that the Strato M will produce a superior picture and audio to Apple TV, Prime Video, Netflix, etc. However, this is exactly the 1/3lb burger issue and I don't envy K trying to explain this.

 

[rafaelsmith]

Maybe I missed it in the specs but can a standalone Strato V and M share downloaded movies?

 

[StanfieldNC]

I thought this was an April Fool's joke.

 

[MXT]

So, this makes a lot more sense. However, I still think this is Hard Mode for K's marketing team. Everyone knows the story of the 1/3lb burger.

Everyone but me, apparently. I had to Google it.

Third-pound burger - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[J.Green]

Maybe I missed it in the specs but can a standalone Strato V and M share downloaded movies?

No. Neither Strato V nor Strato M in standalone mode can share movies with any other player. They must be grouped with a Terra or Terra Prime server for that.

 

[LoveCinema]

Everyone but me, apparently. I had to Google it.

Third-pound burger - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sorry, I should have included a brief explanation:

In the past, Americans wouldn't buy a 1/3 pound burger because 'It's smaller than the 1/4 Pounder!"

Here comes K with a 2K player outperforming a 4K streamer for 10x the price.

(Again, I absolutely believe the Strato M outperforms a 4K streamer. I have the highest hopes for this device. I think it's an even easier/cheaper option to get into the ecosystem. As all of us owners know, dipping your toes leads fairly quickly to jumping right in. Good luck to K!)

 

[David23]

 

[David23]

I don't get this product and to me it goes against the K brand. There should be no current K system in existence that isn't capable of playing the absolute best quality. That is what the K brand is all about. Yes, you can cut back on features (storage, UI capabilities, etc) but the core functionality (video & audio) should always be the best available.

Haha, I say all of that but I actually may buy this simply because of the price.

 

[SterlingMax]

This seems pretty smart. We have K set up in our home theater downstairs but can't use it with our upstairs TV, a 65" Samsung Frame that sits in the main part of the house. Not being able to access the library is annoying, but not annoying enough for me to buy a Strato V for that room. At $1995 it might be worth it to add this to that room, so this is a pretty good hardware add-on sale to a customer who would otherwise have just stood pat.

 

[Furnace Inferno]

Seems like they went 2K to continue to differentiate the product line. Otherwise it's more or less a V with half the storage.

I don't know if I'm interested in it for a second display, since we rarely watch content outside of the theater. If K handled TV shows better, I might be swayed.

I like the product and the price point, just don't know that it fills a need that I have, but I think it's a great option for a lot of folks. Getting tired and want to finish up a movie in the bedroom? Now you can for a much more enticing cost, without unplugging your Strato V, carrying it upstairs and connecting it. Been binging S1 of The Last of Us before S2 launches, but don't feel like holing up in the theater? Watch an episode in the living room tonight.

This opens up a lot of scenarios that I wouldn't have paid $3-4K for, but at $2K they're more interesting.

Also factor in that my primary goal with every system in the house these days has been simplification, so no surround systems outside of the theater, no immersive audio, smaller screens, minimalist setups. This is good for that.

Personally I don’t understand why you’d need this to play on a soundbar/tv speakers because you aren’t going to be able to hear the difference thus negating the entire premise of it superior performance.

In my living room I don’t want any movies I actually care about on it but I do watch streamed TV programs because the audio in the HT is underwhelming for those so listening on the soundbar I have low expectations anyway .

The difference between 2K and 4K isn’t that big in reality, one of many reason Blu-ray still sells better than 4K, it’s not as big a hit as people make out and I’d bet most streaming subscribers across all platforms only pay for 1080p/HD. A lot of movies are just 2K upscales after all but you still get a good uptick in resolution purely from the fact the encoding and bitrates are better. I personally don’t think sitting 3.8m from a 3.2m wide 16:9 screen, JVC NZ8 (and recently tested with 20:15 vision) there is much in it with video content, (rendering games at 4K vs 2K is a different discussion though), some Blu-rays look better than some 4K’s so I’d say the content makes a bigger difference.

Will be curious to see how it performs though because it’s still a lot of money, selling to an enthusiast crowd who are obsessed with numbers over hands on experience so the loss of 4K playback could be an issue.

 

[thrillcat]

Personally I don’t understand why you’d need this to play on a soundbar/tv speakers because you aren’t going to be able to hear the difference thus negating the entire premise of it superior performance.

Because my content is in Kaleidescape, which can't be accessed on my AppleTV.

 

[Mr.Poindexter]

You have to realize that not all content you watch will be 4k anyway. I have a TON of titles for my kids that are not 4k and never will be. I have Hello Kitty, Sesame Street, Barbie movies (not the new one but the old cartoons) and if I can save $2k on the player for the game room for the kids, I will. Also, for RV systems, how many of those TVs are 4K? I have 6 TVs in my RV and half of them are not 4k. There are plenty of uses for non-4k players and top end 2k is still not bad.

Too many people focus on resolution to the point that they ignore everything else. How much resolution would you trade up to if you had to give up color? Probably nobody makes that trade these days. My iPhone has a higher resolution camera than my old Canon SLR. You already can guess which one takes better photos.

 

[andy]

I'm holding out for the super affordable Strato Q that will do 480i over an S-video connection with stereo audio to my garage TV

 

[jglowinski]

This product does nothing to bring in potential customers like myself. This may be useful to a subset of existing Kscape customers, but does little to grow the customer base. A cheaper StratoV would have been a much better move.

 

[josh]

I don't get this product and to me it goes against the K brand. There should be no current K system in existence that isn't capable of playing the absolute best quality. That is what the K brand is all about. Yes, you can cut back on features (storage, UI capabilities, etc) but the core functionality (video & audio) should always be the best available.

Haha, I say all of that but I actually may buy this simply because of the price.

I felt that way when I first heard about this as well. But I do see a customer base that will appreciate that new price point, especially if they currently watch blu-ray discs and typical streaming encodes. This could give them the Kaleidescape experience (no discs, better UI, and better quality) for what may finally be an attainable price.

I saw a demo of the M today on a 100" screen with no external video processing, and it was really very impressive. To all but the most discerning eye, it was as good of a picture as one could expect in consumer-priced gear, at least at a typical viewing distance.

And while I scoffed at the idea of this player in my own future at first, I soon realized I have a perfect use case for it: we have an RV that would get ZERO benefit from 4K content & delivery on the 42" screen in the main living area. We only use an AppleTV in there today for content. The M fits that use case very nicely. The price is right, it's physically half the size of a Strato V (space is at a premium in an RV), has onboard SSD storage of a bunch of movies so won't need streaming-level connectivity on the road, and will deliver a great experience for the less-than-videophile equipment and viewing environment we have in the RV. May have to add it before the next long trip.

 

[Packers]

If your TV or projector has a really good upscaler, then this may be a better option than the V as you will still get DV and HDR10 and perhaps not some of the issues that the V has.

 

[rafaelsmith]

At first i was...un sure...but realized i have friends and family that would benefit from M....if only i could convince them....time for movie night!

 

[clueluzz]

I'm wondering if K will be making 2K (1080p) HDR content downloadable instead of having 4K HDR downloads with 2K downscales so that we can save space internally (and our servers when we have them)

 

[Transepoch]

I'm holding out for the super affordable Strato Q that will do 480i over an S-video connection with stereo audio to my garage TV

The studios would never go for a device that couldn't support HDCP strong enough to at least require breathing hard.

Feels weird to quote download times based on the 4k files, but it seems the primary use case is leveraging the DV files for FHD presentation (agree that 2k means something else.) One might wonder if it makes more sense to do a true FHD device instead of packing all the downscaling, but K must have decided the extra unit sales from Terra integration was worth the extra cost. Contrarily, wouldn't the revived C be a better choice for folks looking to add zones to their Terra-powered system (unless you've already started down the Path of V?)

The chart halfway down the page makes me think they are foreshadowing... Nothing like having a graph suggesting whether "2K is good", "4K is worth it", and then "8k is worth it" next to a blurb talking about distance viewing is fine to only be 2k or you can step-up to 4k. So K, are you suggesting that some situations would warrant an 8k presentation?

At least they have the 2k UI in the specs up-front. Crisis averted (no matter how long you stand on your head an M is not the double-V you are looking for.) However, the "maximum player components in system" under the comparison chart should probably say "Server dependent" on the Terra side instead - not that unlimited is technically wrong, just potentially misleading (in the same way you could have more than 4 in a Strato S system.)