NEWS: Strato K Movie Player with 8K capability and new "4K Cinematic" full-chroma & higher bitrate support

[rafaelsmith]

The upgrade cycle never stops.... get a bigger screen to get another 5-10%, and after a while there's the Strato K2 with 12-bit 4:4:4 8K....

These days...if i can actually notice a 10% upgrade in anything...i consider it a major upgrade!

 

[todo]

Here is my preliminary observation of the Strato K Cinematic Movies, I spent barely 45 minutes watching on it after I overcame the LLDV issue and headed to watch the world cup.

Many thanks to Kris Deering for helping troubleshoot my Lumagen 5348 on a Sunday as for some reason LLDV got turned off last month I was without a K Player and the Strato K was showing my display is not capable of Dolby Vision.

The video chain is Strato K (Powered by a FARAD Linear Power Supply) – Lumagen 5348 – Christie M4K25 RGB Laser Projector.

I could easily do a A/B comparison with my cheap Uoogos AMB6Plus player with avdvplus (also powered by a FARAD) – 5348 – M4K25.

The cinematic DV I watched was my very familiar No Time To Die starting scenes, the picture was very clean and more filmlike with much better details as compared to my beloved (not anymore Uoogos). The improvement is easily visible, this is the best picture I have seen in my theater, what a joy.

Watched the opening scene of ‘Greatest Showman’ and again the details are superior to my ripped media – looking at Hugh Jackman’s black hat I could see way more texture on the Strato K – this will percolate on all movies and details make the final output as we all know.

This one I will get flamed for, but here it is…. My Uoogos was the king of audio as compared to the Strato V… but with the Strato K the bass is much more tighter and fast as compared to my 200 dollar Uoogos both are powered by the FARAD.

I will post more observations in the coming days, but my preferred player going forward Is the Strato K.

 

[cardsdoc]

Here is my preliminary observation of the Strato K Cinematic Movies, I spent barely 45 minutes watching on it after I overcame the LLDV issue and headed to watch the world cup.

Many thanks to Kris Deering for helping troubleshoot my Lumagen 5348 on a Sunday as for some reason LLDV got turned off last month I was without a K Player and the Strato K was showing my display is not capable of Dolby Vision.

The video chain is Strato K (Powered by a FARAD Linear Power Supply) – Lumagen 5348 – Christie M4K25 RGB Laser Projector.

I could easily do a A/B comparison with my cheap Uoogos AMB6Plus player with avdvplus (also powered by a FARAD) – 5348 – M4K25.

The cinematic DV I watched was my very familiar No Time To Die starting scenes, the picture was very clean and more filmlike with much better details as compared to my beloved (not anymore Uoogos). The improvement is easily visible, this is the best picture I have seen in my theater, what a joy.

Watched the opening scene of ‘Greatest Showman’ and again the details are superior to my ripped media – looking at Hugh Jackman’s black hat I could see way more texture on the Strato K – this will percolate on all movies and details make the final output as we all know.

This one I will get flamed for, but here it is…. My Uoogos was the king of audio as compared to the Strato V… but with the Strato K the bass is much more tighter and fast as compared to my 200 dollar Uoogos both are powered by the FARAD.

I will post more observations in the coming days, but my preferred player going forward Is the Strato K.

Nice. Thanks for reporting your observations. Seems to be a similar theme amongst early users. I think at some point I will upgrade my V to a K but it’s just not in the cards now due to way too many family and house expenses. Hopefully sometime in 2027.

I will flame you a bit on the audio. Sorry! K-scape is not processing the audio tracks and the players are just sending the bitstream so all processing is being done in your processor. Since they are lossless you are getting the same track provided by the studio. So differences are very likely something different between your inputs or placebo.

 

[artur9]

.... K-scape is not processing the audio tracks and the players are just sending the bitstream so all processing is being done in your processor. Since they are lossless you are getting the same track provided by the studio. So differences are very likely something different between your inputs or placebo.

In theory, the K-player may have better jitter (that is, less) than the other player when output digital. That could account for the perceived better audio,

There was an interesting letter from a reader on Stereophile about that recently.

 

[todo]

BTW - I did play the Cinematic SDR (same file size as DV Cinematic) of No Time To Die and the Lumagen showed incoming signal as Rec709 (both Jim Peterson and Kris Deering confirmed this is correct) - the Lumagen was showing output as SDR2020.
The picture was a complete mess - the skin tones were off and what not, I will hit a delete button on that file and free up some space.
It cannot be my calibration as the same calibration I use for SDR Blu Rays on my Dune Player and I was using with the Strato V had no issues - I will test SDR (non cinematic on K such as Mumford and Sons) and will report back.
Looks like Spain is going to win - they deserve it...

 

[thrillcat]

In theory, the K-player may have better jitter (that is, less) than the other player when output digital. That could account for the perceived better audio,

There was an interesting letter from a reader on Stereophile about that recently.

Though he's already running audio through the Lumagen 5348 which also greatly reduces jitter in the audio signal.

 

[todo]

Though he's already running audio through the Lumagen 5348 which also greatly reduces jitter in the audio signal.

Folks who have not used a LPS will never understand what it does to audio - I had the best calibrator 'Adam Pelz' at my home with my audio calibrator he started working with and Adam could not believe how much audio improved with the FARAD.
We need to keep a open mind and try if before writing it off...
In AVS someone responded that on Stereophile that the Strato K is playing audio better - it is not Placebo.
And when you start with lower jitter a LPS can work ever better - I am very curios to know if Kaleidescape implemented better jitter circuits in the K - I hope @tayloe or @MikeKobb can comment in the audio aspect of the Strato K.

 

[lujan]

...

Watched the opening scene of ‘Greatest Showman’ and again the details are superior to my ripped media – looking at Hugh Jackman’s black hat I could see way more texture on the Strato K – this will percolate on all movies and details make the final output as we all know.

...

Same impressions here when I watched about half of "The Greatest Showman" Cinematic. Cut short because of a power outage.

 

[thrillcat]

Folks who have not used a LPS will never understand what it does to audio - I had the best calibrator 'Adam Pelz' at my home with my audio calibrator he started working with and Adam could not believe how much audio improved with the FARAD.
We need to keep a open mind and try if before writing it off...
In AVS someone responded that on Stereophile that the Strato K is playing audio better - it is not Placebo.
And when you start with lower jitter a LPS can work ever better - I am very curios to know if Kaleidescape implemented better jitter circuits in the K - I hope @tayloe or @MikeKobb can comment in the audio aspect of the Strato K.

Andre specifically called out that the audio is unchanged with the K, but did see an upgrade between the C and the V/E/M series. Though I also interpreted what he mentioned as being related to the decoding path, not bitstreaming.

 

[MikeKobb]

I think what Andre was referring to is that the Strato V and later have the ability to decode the advanced lossless multichannel formats and output multichannel LPCM. This makes the players easier to integrate with audio systems that may not support decoding of formats like TrueHD or DTS-HD MA. Absent player-side decoding, all Strato players output the same bitstream. I don't know if there were changes made specifically to minimize jitter or the like. I will ask.

 

[mkozlows]

Jitter basically doesn't matter for surround formats. Everything is buffered before decode, and the DAC doesn't get any clock from the source.

 

[todo]

I watched Mumford And Sons Concert which is a 1080P SDR file and it payed beautifully unlike the Cinematic SDR for the No Time To Die which was a complete Mess.
I want to reiterate how much better the audio is on the Strato K as compared to Strato V - this time I am not comparing it to another player and another file ...
If someone has the ability to do a A/B of audio between the V and the K using this concert - I am all ears.

 

[Reezepees]

Do you think the concert sounded great?
I am hesatating on buying this one..

 

[todo]

Do you think the concert sounded great?
I am hesatating on buying this one..

Music is a personal taste - there should be a trailer on YouTube etc you can check out or maybe listen on Spotify if you want.
This concert is recommended by Audio calibrators as it has great kick drums.
I personally love it and ended up watching the whole thing 'again' last night.

 

[Reezepees]

Thanks! I like M&S.

 

[Techthusiasm]

I mentioned this on my podcast last week, but I had a couple of enthusiasts come visit for demos a week ago Saturday. We demoed everything on the Strato K and had them experience both of my rooms. I showed them the same clip in Minecraft in 4KC vs. not that I had showed my family. Both were clear they could see a positive difference in 4KC for all the reasons that have been covered. I very remain pleased with what the K and 4KC brought have us.

Looking forward to Mando and He-Man, both hopefully hitting this week!

 

[lujan]

I mentioned this on my podcast last week, but I had a couple of enthusiasts come visit for demos a week ago Saturday. We demoed everything on the Strato K and had them experience both of my rooms. I showed them the same clip in Minecraft in 4KC vs. not that I had showed my family. Both were clear they could see a positive difference in 4KC for all the reasons that have been covered. I very remain pleased with what the K and 4KC brought have us.

Looking forward to Mando and He-Man, both hopefully hitting this week!

I usually wait until the more recent titles hit the $14.99 price, so still waiting on "Project Hail Mary". "Obsession" is already down to $19.99 so might not be too long now.

 

[Balthazar2k4]

I have probably watched ten or so films on the K in 4KC DV and only one was questionable. The Furious had some weird jerky vertical full screen panning in a couple scenes. I haven't experienced it in anything else I've watched so I can only assume it is something in the title itself. I don't have another version of the film to compare to so I don't know if this is just Kaleidescape problem or a Lionsgate one. Otherwise, my Strato K and 4KC experience has been fantastic.

 

[steelman1991]

Looking forward to Mando and He-Man, both hopefully hitting this week!

Think you might be waiting a bit longer on "He-Man" Jaremy - someone posted that it's an Amazon Prime exclusive initially.

 

[Patricio]

Getting mine installed tomorrow. Gear currently includes Strato V with server, Mad vr core MK II, Marantz cinema 40, JVC nz 900, 150 inch CinemaScope screen.

Swapping out the V for a K.