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Alto into system with Strato/Terra

mootang

Well-known member
I recently picked up an Alto to place in the system rack that already had my Strato and Terra for general instances where i have various movie and show BD's that are not in the store. From the config setup it alludes to being linked through the Strato unit; so would the disc signal run through the ethernet cable or would i need an additional HDMI from the Alto either into the Strato or run a separate line into the receiver to watch discs?
 
Howdy Mootang. You pair the Strato with the Alto to see one view of all your movies, the Strato is your primary player. When you select a disc to play, the Strato will switch to the Alto to play it. Here you have two choices;

  • Select the 2nd HDMI input on your receiver that is connected to the Alto manually
  • Purchase a Co-Star unit and have the Strato and Alto HDMI go into that, and then the HDMI out on the Co-Star to your receiver. Doing this allows the switch over (and back again) to happen seamlessly.
When HD and SD downloads exist on the Alto storage, I not 100% if it is the Alto that handles the playback or if the Strato plays this over the LAN
 
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Happened to speak to K support tonight, whilst I was at it, they confirmed the Strato will play the HD/SD content on the Alto if the Strato initiates the play request
 
Let me elaborate just a bit. You basically have three options here:
  1. Leave the Alto as an independent system, and just use it to play discs. Basically, it becomes a very fancy Blu-ray player that has full benefit of Kaleidescape metadata for things like bookmarks, scenes, songs, etc. You’d need to have it connected to a separate input on your receiver or display. It will show up as a download destination when you buy movies from the movie store, but you can just opt not to send anything to it.
  2. Add the Alto to your existing system, but leave it as an independent player. Again, you’d need for it to be on its own input, but the storage on the Alto would be available to the rest of your system. Given that you have a Terra now, though, all downloads will go to the Terra until it fills up, which will probably be quite awhile. Note that having the Alto as part of the system, but un-paired, will mean that the Movie Store sees it as a movie zone that is only capable of HD playback, and so the store will download HD versions of any of your 4K purchases to the Terra by default. Assuming that you intend to use the Alto in the same zone as the Strato, just for optical discs, there’s not much benefit to this configuration, at least until the Terra is full.
  3. Add the Alto to your existing system, buy a Co-Star switch, and pair the Alto with your Strato. You’ll only need one input on your TV/receiver, and if you put a disc into the Alto, its details will automatically open on the Strato’s display just as if the Strato itself had the optical drive, and you can play the disc. As with #2, the storage in the Alto will be available to your system, but won’t be used until the Terra fills up. The store will not treat this as an HD-only zone, so it won’t download HD versions of all your 4K content to your system by default.
So, I’d probably recommend either 1 or 3.
 
Is the only way to force HD downloads to Alto to unplug the terra storage? (Terra and Alto in same system)

I have space for 0 UHD titles, so I try to load up some HD thinking they will go to Alto, but those download speeds tell me they are squeezing into the last few open spots on the terra.
 
I have a costar paired setup. Unplugging the download destination doesn't route the downloads to the other possible server. Instead, the downloads pause and I get a warning message that one of my servers can not be detected (something in this sense)
 
Let me elaborate just a bit. You basically have three options here:
  1. Leave the Alto as an independent system, and just use it to play discs. Basically, it becomes a very fancy Blu-ray player that has full benefit of Kaleidescape metadata for things like bookmarks, scenes, songs, etc. You’d need to have it connected to a separate input on your receiver or display. It will show up as a download destination when you buy movies from the movie store, but you can just opt not to send anything to it.
  2. Add the Alto to your existing system, but leave it as an independent player. Again, you’d need for it to be on its own input, but the storage on the Alto would be available to the rest of your system. Given that you have a Terra now, though, all downloads will go to the Terra until it fills up, which will probably be quite awhile. Note that having the Alto as part of the system, but un-paired, will mean that the Movie Store sees it as a movie zone that is only capable of HD playback, and so the store will download HD versions of any of your 4K purchases to the Terra by default. Assuming that you intend to use the Alto in the same zone as the Strato, just for optical discs, there’s not much benefit to this configuration, at least until the Terra is full.
  3. Add the Alto to your existing system, buy a Co-Star switch, and pair the Alto with your Strato. You’ll only need one input on your TV/receiver, and if you put a disc into the Alto, its details will automatically open on the Strato’s display just as if the Strato itself had the optical drive, and you can play the disc. As with #2, the storage in the Alto will be available to your system, but won’t be used until the Terra fills up. The store will not treat this as an HD-only zone, so it won’t download HD versions of all your 4K content to your system by default.
So, I’d probably recommend either 1 or 3.
on number 2, can you not choose the highest quality option on the app while purchasing the movie? I thought this option downloaded the best possible resolution for the most capable player and ignored all lesser players? I always use this in my Terra/Premiere Co-star'd system and it downloads the 4K copy only.
 
Is the only way to force HD downloads to Alto to unplug the terra storage? (Terra and Alto in same system)

Yes.

It takes a while to get started and you need to start the download after you turn off the Terra. Of course, it is a lot slower (can be ~45 minutes, or longer, for a HD quality download vs 10 mins for 4k on the Terra.)

If you have several HD titles to download, que them up and after each is a few minutes into download change the order until all titles have started. Once you’ve done that, you can turn the Terra back on and regain use of your system (I.e.: to watch a movie,) and all queued titles will download to the Alto.
 
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Ugh, thanks for the info, and helpful tip @ht guy

Just bought a Cinema One for future cataloging and to help free up space on my Terra from all my Blu-ray downloads, but went in thinking there would be an easier process to transfer and download data between the two systems. Like mentioned above, the end goal would be to have my Blu-rays on the Cinema while loading the Terra with UHD's. Looks like I have some work to look forward to.
 
Ugh, thanks for the info, and helpful tip @ht guy

Just bought a Cinema One for future cataloging and to help free up space on my Terra from all my Blu-ray downloads, but went in thinking there would be an easier process to transfer and download data between the two systems. Like mentioned above, the end goal would be to have my Blu-rays on the Cinema while loading the Terra with UHD's. Looks like I have some work to look forward to.
Your dealer should be able to request Kscape migrate the titles to your alto or C One
 
Yes.

It takes a while to get started and you need to start the download after you turn off the Terra. Of course, it is a lot slower (can be ~45 minutes, or longer, for a HD quality download vs 10 mins for 4k on the Terra.)

If you have several HD titles to download, que them up and after each is a few minutes into download change the order until all titles have started. Once you’ve done that, you can turn the Terra back on and regain use of your system (I.e.: to watch a movie,) and all queued titles will download to the Alto.
Thanks for the tip. That would allow some freedom to use the system while it takes 3-4 days to fill up with downloads. I have experienced some "difficulty reading title" notifications while downloading and watching at the same time.
 
Ugh, thanks for the info, and helpful tip @ht guy

Just bought a Cinema One for future cataloging and to help free up space on my Terra from all my Blu-ray downloads, but went in thinking there would be an easier process to transfer and download data between the two systems. Like mentioned above, the end goal would be to have my Blu-rays on the Cinema while loading the Terra with UHD's. Looks like I have some work to look forward to.
If you bought a Cinema One, that is a completely separate system from your Terra, with its own download queue.

Although, if you planning to Co-Star pair you Cinema One with your Strato, then the paired systems will have a single download queue, but you can select the option to send SD and HD downloads to your Cinema One.
 
If you bought a Cinema One, that is a completely separate system from your Terra, with its own download queue.

Although, if you planning to Co-Star pair you Cinema One with your Strato, then the paired systems will have a single download queue, but you can select the option to send SD and HD downloads to your Cinema One.

I didn't plan on actually using the Cinema One disc drive for anything other than cataloging. Hopefully I didn't misunderstand, but was hoping I was able to use it with the intent that it could also store my HD downloads and that they'd show up and play from the same menu as my Strato downloads. (without dealing with a Co-star etc)
If not I may have made a purchasing error. lol

It arrives later today so looking forward to messing around with it.
 
Ah, yeah, you will need Co-Star for this to work. Strato/Terra systems can only use Strato, Terra, and Alto players and storage. You can certainly use the optical drive in the Cinema One to do movie cataloging (even though it will be a separate system, the cataloged titles are registered to your account, so you can use them for disc-to-digital purchases that can download to either system).

But in terms of using the Cinema One's storage, because they are separate product families, you would need to Co-Star pair the Cinema One with a Strato player, and then the movies stored on the Cinema One will be playable in that player zone.
 
Ah, yeah, you will need Co-Star for this to work. Strato/Terra systems can only use Strato, Terra, and Alto players and storage. You can certainly use the optical drive in the Cinema One to do movie cataloging (even though it will be a separate system, the cataloged titles are registered to your account, so you can use them for disc-to-digital purchases that can download to either system).

But in terms of using the Cinema One's storage, because they are separate product families, you would need to Co-Star pair the Cinema One with a Strato player, and then the movies stored on the Cinema One will be playable in that player zone.
Ughh, guess that’s what I get for thinking the last model Cinema One and the Alto were basically the same thing. 🤦🏻‍♂️
 
If you happen to use a Lumagen in your HT, that will also act as a Co-Star.
 
True, but still will require a co-star license…

Yup. There are 3 Co-Star options to acquire the License:

Co-Star Switch Kit: this is the physical component switch, including cables, with a paired Strato controlling playback (Premiere player plays back Premiere content).
Co-Star for Lumagen (Controlled by paired Strato, separate player HDMI Inputs to a Lumagen Radiance Processor)
Co-Star for Crestron (Controlled by paired Strato, separate player Inputs to NVX controller)

(Most posting here already know about Co-Star, posting this is for new owners.)

Jim
 
Yep, now to figure out how to unload it and just wait for an Alto to pop up.

Why did they have to make the two look identical? lol
 
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