EDITORIAL 🎵 It was 20 years ago today... 🎵 🎂 🥳

[josh]

________________________

Hard for even me to believe this, but the forum today has hit a significant milestone: we've been operating, essentially without interruption for 20 years. While we're still a pretty small community as internet forums go, I'd say not many continue to exist for this long and stay active, relevant, and well supported by the community.

It actually was conceived on April 16, 2006 over on AVS Forums with a post I made asking if there were enough Kaleidescape users back then to support building a forum to share thoughts and info on the equipment and service.

Kaleidescape Owners

I'm trying to figure out how many other Kaleidescape owners are here and if there's enough of us, and if interest is there, I may look to find someone to host an owners/users discussion board somewhere. The advantage of our own board would be topic areas such as hardware/setup issues, music...

www.avsforum.com

A handful of owners said to give it a shot, and despite a couple of others telling me it will not work, I decided to try setting it up.

In my mind, I really envisioned it as a place to primarily share favorite-scene files and scripts, as I was finding those to be a big boost to my own enjoyment of my Kaleidescape, and while the system permitted sharing those file, there wasn't really a place for users to do that. Secondarily, I thought maybe there'd be some sporadic news about the company and maybe some posts about movies themselves.

 

[josh]

In May of 2006, I registered a domain, purchased a server hosting package, and installed vbulletin to start playing around.

After some customization, some unix education, and some (bad) graphics work, I became user #1 and made a couple of posts.

The first one, still here in our forum, is from May 29, 2006, 20 years ago today, relaying the announcement that Kaleidescape had launched custom "Welcome to the {your name} theater!" video introductions for its customers.

Thread 'Kaleidescape announces 'Custom Introductions''

May 29, 2006

In case you missed it a few weeks ago, Kaleidescape introduced a set of custom movie introductions that let you create a real theatrical experience at home.

You get 6 very nicely animated introductions, all in Digital Dolby 5.1... these are different styles of 2-3 minute "And Now For Our Featured Presentation" intros.

You also get nice DD and DTS intros too, the 5-10 second sound "sweeps" and little audio intros.

And for a real theatrical experience, you get a set of about 80 "movie buff" trivia questions, terminology slides, oscar winner slides, etc. These have music behind them...

• josh
• Replies: 4
• Forum: General News & Misc. Items

If a user posts to a forum and zero other forum members yet exist,
is the forum really launched?

​

I made a few other posts just to seed the forum a bit, and then went back to AVS Forum to announce the opening of the forum with a post on June 2, 2006.

Many of the encouraging AVS Forum members and early Kaleidescape users did join in those days, and the forum was off and running.

 

[josh]

I'd like to look back and laugh at how ugly the forum was back then... and oh yes, it was!

But sadly, in reality... it's not THAT different than it is today! Graphic design isn't really a skill I possess.

July 15, 2006: Kaleidescape Owners' Forum.
(courtesy of Wayback Machine: Link)​

---

Yeah, 20 years later and it's really not much different. Maybe it's now 'retro-chic'.

 

[josh]

Remarkably, a handful of users from those earliest days are still here on the forum.

​

• @Mr.Poindexter was among the very first members, joining that same day I announced it, June 2, 2006, and jumped in with his first post that day. He's still here, 1,252 posts later, and has been a longtime *Patron* supporter of the forum. (Thank you @Mr.Poindexter!)
• @carajo wasn't far behind him, joining a few days later, and is still also a valued *Patron* supporter here (Thanks!!) and closing in on 500 posts. He first posted on June 7, 2006 in a discussion I started about setting up a URC MX-880 remote.

But of course the biggest day in those first few months was when user #16 joined a month later (July 27, 2006). @cinelife set up his first system and was soon contributing here... describing his own setup and answering questions, posting detailed info, and contributing in so many ways.

​

Check out Jim @cinelife's first post "Just saying Hello! (link!)", announced his first Kaleidescape arrived the day before, and, ironically, ended with "I hope there remains enough interest going forward to keep the forum alive!". Sorry Jim, but i guess there was!

And you have to love Jim's 2nd post on August 5th where he triumphantly announces he's got his Kaleidescape working and marveling at how fun and easy it is.

Soon thereafter Jim asked if he could help in any way with the forum... and quickly became the forum's greatest resource, it's most prolific contributor (an incredible 6,184 posts as of today), and my partner in all of this!

--jim
​

Thanks for all you've done here for me, and more importantly, for the community!

 

[josh]

Fun forum facts: as of today:

• Total of 87,208 posts
• 7,374 separate threads/topics
• 3,358 current registered members

Top Contributors:

1. (no surprise here!): @cinelife with 6,184 posts. Hard to even list or describe everything Jim does here for the forum and the users.
   • And you guys only see his public posts here. If you knew the number of private messages he writes to help out users, answer questions, and solve problems, and then his hours of calls, texts and messages to me here to help me out, his real contributions here are actually an order of magnitude bigger that what any of you really see.
   • And virtually no one here knows of Jim's amazing career, life events, and adventures outside of this industry and this forum. If you did know, you'd be amazed... and, as they say, he'd have to kill you. But in addition to all the stuff here on the forum, he's busy with serious shit no one sees or knows about that truly helps countless people around the world.
2. @JohnJ with 3,251 posts. For so many years now, John has put in many hours of work each week to compile the upcoming releases posts... probably THE most visited and popular threads on the forum. Big thanks!
3. @MikeKobb with 2,671, incredible contributions and (along with @J.Green) really the voice of the company here on the forum. So many updates, helpful posts, individual answers to users questions which goes way beyond his job description, and many hours of work put in here.
4. @ironcross with 2,318 posts. Another forum superhero, who puts in countless hours to keep the movie updates, movies-on-sale, and also contributes to new relases. !
5. me a distant #5 with 2,274!
6. @Kostas: with 2,207 posts! Haven't seen him in a few months, but he's been super prolific in updates and releases as well as other topics.
7. @LoveCinema roaring into the top 10 this year with 1,942 posts. He's become THE authority on what studios put out what, who owns what in the complex content rights world, if and when a title will likely show up, and so much more, and always willing to answer individual questions on movies. Username checks out! thanks @LoveCinema!
8. @JerryL with 1,924 posts still ranks high... but where have you been @JerryL? hope to see you back sometime.
9. @thrillcat, another newish member in the last few years joining the top 10 @ 1,666 posts total and tons of great content added. He's becoming a bigtime content producer on his own, with a big growing youtube presence amont other places... but glad he still frequents us here and keeps posting great stuff for us.
10. @Substance, another relatively new member (well, 5 years now!) with 1,519 posts over many years, but another great user who has gone quiet or left for other places or new hobbies maybe.

Honorable mentions to @Mr.Poindexter, @SJHT, @steelman1991, @Techthusiasm (another super busy home theater retailer and bigtime content producer) all now in the 1000 posts club. (so very close, @J.Green with 997 posts... but thank you for all you do also! Incredible technical answers and help to many members here!)

 

[josh]

Thank you, to all the members that have supported the forum, with financial contributions, but more importantly with your having contributed content, joined in discussions, added valuable forum threads, answered questions from other users, and made suggestions to me and Jim to improve the forum.

There are so many users who work really hard here to keep us up-to-date on movie releases, updates, sales and price changes, studio activity... this place wouldn't still exist without all that great content coming from these guys. I love that the most popular forum areas are now created and maintained by these hard-working community members.

I still find this a fun place to hang out, to learn, and to chat, so thanks again to you all.

 

[Johnraiders]

I thought it was going to be a thread about Sgt Pepper.

No need to change graphics, its easy to use thats what counts

 

[cinelife]

Thanks @josh, I look back at that post and smile. It was fun to put a system in my home and join the members already a part of this, at the time, young community. My first system was actually purchased years earlier under a different account and location, spent crazy money to store about 370 DVD's! Interesting that in these last 20+ years, and our many, many emails, texts, and phone calls, and your professional guidance for one of my tech companies, we've actually only met face-to-face one time, and that was while taking an elevator ride at CES!! My wife was with me at the time, and after we separated to visit various booths, she asked who you were, and I explained your background and the owner's forum connection. She then asked "given the cost of these systems, how many members can you possibly have on an owners forum.?" That number sure has changed over the years! Fun times!

In honor of our 20 years of friendship as owners, let's have another drawing for K Movie Store credits!!

Let's do, , $2,000! ($100 x 20 years!!)

I'm thinking :

1 x $500
1 x $400
1 x $300
1 x $200
6 x $100
Josh and I will discuss who is eligible to be in the drawing (limited space on the "Wheel"). Drawing date to be determined!

Jim

 

[MadScientist]

Congratulations to you @josh and everyone else who set up this Forum. I know it could not have been easy and would have taken a lot of time. I was a member of AVS Forum (and still am) in June 2006 but I was thinking about getting into 2K Hi-Def discs at the time (remember the format wars?) so I was not paying attention to Kaleidescape news at the time. But I am glad you started this forum since I have already benefited a lot from being a member.

Looking forward to the next 20 years and beyond. Cheers!

MadScientist

 

[Oldred]

Huge congrats to you. Wonderful forum that untypically does what it says on the tin These things so often seem to go off on a tangent and wither but this is just as useful today as it was when I first looked at it for info before confirming my purchase of our first Kaleidescape kit. I have always been interested since the first demo which was when we put in out first ever projector which was a long time ago now but it never quite made enough sense to us to 'push the button'. As it moved to the download model and the compact options it all fell into place and this forum helped us through that early selection period and ever since for info and solving problems/adding features. Big thanks to Josh and of course @cinelife and @ironcross who provide great content and wise words.

 

[Yame01]

Congratulations for staying true to your dream and seeing it through to its 20th anniversary! We are all benefiting from it.

 

[thrillcat]

It's not the fancy dressing on a forum, it's the ad-free experience and the community that make this the best home theater forum out there.

 

[paulc]

Thanks for creating and maintaining this space for our community to interact within. This is the only forum I really frequent because of the people and content.

Thanks again and Congratulations!!

 

[josh]

I thought it was going to be a thread about Sgt Pepper.

yeah, that's what i was going for

No need to change graphics, its easy to use thats what counts

Function over form in this case. Agree, and glad it works for you!

 

[josh]

...These things so often seem to go off on a tangent and wither...

There's been a few close calls!
Thanks for the nice note and for being a patron member here! Means a lot...

 

[josh]

Thanks @josh, I look back at that post and smile. It was fun to put a system in my home and join the members already a part of this, at the time, young community. My first system was actually purchased years earlier under a different account and location, spent crazy money to store about 370 DVD's! Interesting that in these last 20+ years, and our many, many emails, texts, and phone calls, and your professional guidance for one of my tech companies, we've actually only met face-to-face one time, and that was while taking an elevator ride at CES!! My wife was with me at the time, and after we separated to visit various booths, she asked who you were, and I explained your background and the owner's forum connection. She then asked "given the cost of these systems, how many members can you possibly have on an owners forum.?" That number sure has changed over the years! Fun times!

In honor of our 20 years of friendship as owners, let's have another drawing for K Movie Store credits!!

Let's do, , $2,000! ($100 x 20 years!!)

I'm thinking :

1 x $500
1 x $400
1 x $300
1 x $200
6 x $100
Josh and I will discuss who is eligible to be in the drawing (limited space on the "Wheel"). Drawing date to be determined!

Jim

Wow, this is incredible... thank you Jim!

Will be interesting to see how many people will bother to even read this thread and find your little gem of an announcement hidden in there.

 

[andy]

Thanks for starting the forum all those years ago, @josh, and thanks @cinelife for all your contributions along the way!

I still remember creating my account back in 2009 and thinking how cool it was that there was a dedicated forum for all things Kaleidescape. Back then, there might have been one or two new posts a day. Now it feels like if I don’t check in for a few days, I can barely keep up with everything I’ve missed.

I may not contribute as much as you both, but I’ve always appreciated the time and effort you’ve put into making this community what it is. Congratulations on 20 years, and thanks for keeping it going!

 

[leo9000]

Congratulations. This is the only forum I check everyday. Always interesting film watching discussions and love being kept up to date on all the K platform news!

 

[Techthusiasm]

Congrats!

 

[Oldred]

Thanks @josh, I look back at that post and smile. It was fun to put a system in my home and join the members already a part of this, at the time, young community. My first system was actually purchased years earlier under a different account and location, spent crazy money to store about 370 DVD's! Interesting that in these last 20+ years, and our many, many emails, texts, and phone calls, and your professional guidance for one of my tech companies, we've actually only met face-to-face one time, and that was while taking an elevator ride at CES!! My wife was with me at the time, and after we separated to visit various booths, she asked who you were, and I explained your background and the owner's forum connection. She then asked "given the cost of these systems, how many members can you possibly have on an owners forum.?" That number sure has changed over the years! Fun times!

In honor of our 20 years of friendship as owners, let's have another drawing for K Movie Store credits!!

Let's do, , $2,000! ($100 x 20 years!!)

I'm thinking :

1 x $500
1 x $400
1 x $300
1 x $200
6 x $100
Josh and I will discuss who is eligible to be in the drawing (limited space on the "Wheel"). Drawing date to be determined!

Jim

Jim, your generosity knows no bounds it seems Thank you - Its also great fun