• 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!😊

    It's easy and free to register for the forum. Just click the "Register" button in the upper right corner of this page, and follow the instructions there.

4K version with subpar audio track

purefun

Well-known member
I'm a movie collector since the laserdisc days, and just recently invested in a Strato. I'm getting frustrated that many 4K HDR versions get a subpar audio track, for example, Hobbs & Shaw has just a DTS 5.1 while the HD version has Dolby TrueHD Atmos track.

I have almost all major movies available for pre-order on order, closer to release date when the audio-track is listed, there are too many titles that get just a 5.1. Recently Once upon a time in Hollywood K-version 5.1 4k-Disc 7.1. Canceled my Ad Astra last week due to only 5.1 while the 4K-disc get the Dolby TrueHD Atmos track.

I'm sure most of us here have invested in excellent systems and want to have the best available version of the movie, from what I have read I understand this is out of K's control and it's the choice of the studio?

In the current situation, I have to continue to buy 4K discs for major movie titles to get the best available audio track. I hope this will change sooner than later. Right now, the best selling point for me to use K is for all the titles that don't get a 4K-disc release at al.
 
Very valid points....i’m hoping 2020 responds with an update to the overall quality and service across the K board. It really is unfortunate that we have to balance the versions of the movies that we purchase when, more times than not, the superior versions are still given to disc formats. It’s hard to understand why the talk continues of studios giving up disc sales for digital when the formats issued seem to be continuously inferior. I assume the streaming world that is continuously pushed on us is the overriding catalyst.
 
It's especially strange like NBC Universal where they provide K the Dolby TrueHD Atmos track for the low-res HD version, and only give us a 5.1 track for the 4K version. K obviously has the audio track but can't / are not allowed to use it with the 4K version. Can anyone shine some light on this?
 
Good luck with that one - some of us have been trying to get K to provide an explanation for some considerable time - without any success. Stoney silence is as much as you can look forward too. :(
 
I am pretty sure K are aware of that and I think they are work on FOX and NBC matter coz really it’s annoying but with a lot of goodies they provide as adding MGM so the overall experience are K are the best and it should be the best in all what they provide and hope for an early release come aboard soon


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Of course K knows, and they also know that some store sales are lost to physical discs because of this issue, but not much they can do about it.

I have a few friends that don't buy 4K from the Store unless the HD codecs are included at release (assuming they are available on the disc version), and they don't go back and buy later after buying the disc version because they refuse to pay twice for the same content. They are also unwilling to wait for a possible update to the audio at some future point because they want to watch immediately upon release, and refuse to compromise that viewing experience.

I also have one friend that eventually gave up, sold his K gear and went back to physical discs. His comment to me indicated that although he loved the K interface (GUI) and functionality, the point of owning the system was to be able to conveniently watch the very best content available, and that was not happening for him because of the missing or delayed HD codecs. He decided the inconveniences of working with physical discs was worth the end result of always having the best available version in his collection.

Personally, although I do get his point, that wouldn't work for me. After nearly 20 years of using Kaleidescape, I don't think I could voluntarily go back to a disc only based system (like others I do have a couple dozen 4K discs just for the better audio), the K user experience is just too good IMO to give up voluntarily.

Jim
 
I get all the frustration about the lack of immersive audio on Fox and Universal titles. However, it has become pretty clear that this lack is due to the studios and not K. The last four studios added (Lionsgate, MGM, A24 and now STX) have all had the immersive audio included. I have listed below all of the studios that have 4K titles available, whether they have HD codecs available and whether they have both HDR and UHD versions available or just one:

A24 - Yes (UHD/HDR)
BBC - ? (UHD/HDR)
Disney - Yes (UHD/HDR)
Lionsgate - Yes (UHD/HDR)
Magnolia - Yes (UHD/HDR)
MGM - Yes (UHD/HDR)
NBCUniversal - No (except for “Lucy“) (HDR)
Paramount - Yes (UHS/HDR)
Red Bull Media - Yes (UHD)
Sony - Yes (UHD/HDR)
STX - Yes (UHD/HDR)
Twentieth Century Fox - No (UHD/HDR)
Warner Bros. - Yes (UHD/HDR)

I could not tell with BBC as I am not sure any disc versions have HD codecs or not. So 10 out of 12 studios have the new audio (BBC not counted yet) while Universal and Fox do not. I can see that Fox might have an excuse as they were acquired by Disney and it takes a while to merge companies and harmonize procedures. However, Universal is a head-scratcher!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

John
 
Thanks @JohnJ ! It’s great to see that no other studio followed the NBC/Fox practice. I also fully echo @cinelife comments.

Leaving outside some 7.1 soundtracks missing, which is (for me) a non-event, for those movies missing immersive audio my processor’s DSU does miracles. This is obviously my own personal opinion and I don’t expect everyone to agree.
For those movies that I absolutely want to have the immersive audio(i.e. Queen-Bohemian Rhapsody) I buy the disc but if I remember correctly, I haven’t bought more than 5 this year.

I very much hope that we get the HD codecs soon for these two studios. If not, it’s not a deal breaker for me, the family or friends don’t really hear the difference but we all appreciate the content and the user experience.

Worth mentioning again that K offers 288 4K movies(as per @JohnJ latest post) that are not available on disc....this is not often brought forward!

Happy Holidays and all the best for 2020 !

Kostas
 
Last edited:
Worth noting that Sony's first two DTS:X audio tracks available on UHD blu ray are missing from the Kaleidescape store - Angry Birds 2 and Zombieland double tap. The audio track for the movies in question are also available on Fandago via Sony TV’s.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t be too fussed with this lossy audio codec missing, however the content is IMAX Enhanced compatible. Something which I think will be far bigger in 2020 as more studios and av manufacturers are onboarded. I may be another consumer being sucked into the latest tech hype, but I’ve resorted to buying the physical version of AB 2 and preordering Zombieland Double Tap (a first for me).
I also think that k are missing the boat here with marketing IMAX enhanced content if it were available.

Just to echo the above posts, the k experience, including the GUI, simplicity of downloading movies and the ability of building customised scripts is second to none. I’m not the first to admit that I’ve explored alternatives (zappiti/dune/m9702 ripping & streaming) a number of times, but I always end up returning to k’s unparalleled ecosystem.

Hopefully k and/or studios will resolve the immersive audio issue this year.

Happy new year all!!
 
It would be interesting to compare the DTS:X tracks to the Dolby Atmos tracks on these two titles in the Store. DTS has been MIA on HD codecs for movies. We will see if they can get back in the game.

John
 
Back
Top