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Alto to Strato strategy

ht guy

Well-known member
⭐️ Premium ⭐️
I'm a new K owner. Strato incoming next week and (used) Alto incoming today.

My plan is to register the Alto, and start cataloging my blu-rays. Then when the Strato comes in next week, add that to the account and remove the Alto (to lend to a friend for cataloging,) and then add it back when he returns it.

I realize most just add the Alto for cataloging purposes, and then remove it, so want to be sure doing it "in reverse" won't cause any issues.

It mostly seems like it shouldn't, as it would be the "regular" upgrade path? (i.e. I'm an Alto owner just now getting around to getting a Strato.)

Will this work as planned?
 
I'm still waiting for the confirmation from K. If I get it before someone else answers here on the forum, I'll post it. If you get the answer here I'll withdraw the question with K so as to not burden support.

Jim
 
Thanks Jim.
Didn't understand you were going to reach out. Much appreciated.
 
The Cataloged titles will remain in your account as soon as you add the Strato all the cataloged titles will be there..
Remember that the Alto has a 4TB hard drive that you can paired with the Strato but the hard drive from the Alto will only allow SD and HD downloads.
 
Last edited:
Excellent.
This one is a later model with a 6TB, but understood about SD and HD.
Is it possible to keep the Alto on my network and just store SD and HD on it, and have only 4K on the Strato?
That would be very cool.

And to be clear, I would like to lend this to a friend for cataloging after I get the Strato. Assume I can dis-associate, and then re-associate it (after he finishes,) from, and then back to my account?
 
And to be clear, I would like to lend this to a friend for cataloging after I get the Strato. Assume I can dis-associate, and then re-associate it (after he finishes,) from, and then back to my account?
Yes. You can remove the Alto from your system (while keeping the Strato active) and then re-add it to your system once you get it back. Here are some things to keep in mind:

When you are removing the Alto from your system to loan to your friend, be sure that you do it in such a way that the Alto is ungrouped from the Strato rather than the Strato being ungrouped from the Alto. This will preserve the activation state on the Strato.

When you load the System browser interface and go to Settings > Components, you want to ensure that you click the "Remove from system" button for the Alto and not the Strato.

Similarly, when you get the Alto back, you will want to use the Strato's browser interface to group the Alto to your Strato rather than using the Alto's browser interface to group the Strato to the Alto. By using the Strato's BI to do the grouping, you ensure that the Alto gets its system ID changed to match Strato and that system ID is what tracks the activation state. So if you instead grouped the Strato to the Alto, you would be changing the Strato's system ID to match the Alto and your system would become unregistered.

I hope I haven't over-complicated this for you. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

One final thought:
Your Strato can't play Blu-ray Discs and so you won't see those discs listed on the on-screen display (OSD) of the Strato. Once you get your Alto back from your friend and you add it back to your system, you might want to consider Co-Star pairing the Strato and Alto (you'll need a Co-Star license along with a Co-Star switch, a Lumagen, or a Crestron NVX in order to do so). That would allow you to play your Blu-ray discs via the Alto's ODD but control it from the Strato.

Unless you are planning to use the Alto as a second, HD-only zone somewhere else in your home.
 
Thank you. Very helpful.

On your final thought: As much as playing the discs, I would like for them to show up in the Strato view of the library. I'm fine putting them in the Oppo. From what you are saying, they will only appear in a library view from the Alto - unless I get a Co-Star setup?

I have a Lumagen, so do I just need the co-star license? Assume I get that from my dealer?

Similarly, will the Alto view not show 4K titles (as the Alto can't play them?)
 
I had a very unfortunate experience that I need to share. I borrowed an Alto from Kaleidescape, and cataloged hundreds of discs. I followed the instructions to
1) remove the Alto from my Strato/Terra system.
2)After it was removed from the system I was instructed to open the Alto in the browser via Unidentified System and delete the cataloged titles in the Alto to ready the unit for the next person. You aren’t allowed to loan to someone before doing this because the next user would get the benefit of your cataloged titles. All the titles were still on my Strato/Terra. All was good until my brother in law called and said he had some duplicate titles he’d give me since I was going to his house later that day. When I got home that night I reconnected the Alto to my system. It immediately began to remove all cataloged titles. All downloads stayed on the Terra but the nearly 1000 cataloged titles were removed. After some correspondence I was told by Kaleidescape that when I reconnected the Alto the system saw that I had deleted those titles from the Alto so they were then deleted from my system. I was told this was some kind of security thing put in place to prevent cataloged titles getting shared on systems that don’t own the titles and it was only triggered because I had removed, deleted and then reassociated the Alto to my system. The solution for me was to spend many hours to recatalog everything The KScape IT group did temporarily restore my Movie Store flags so I could D2D before I was finished recataloging everything. However without cataloging on your system the OSD collection only shows downloaded parts of your collection so there was no way around redoing the work even if KScape IT made the movie store flag permanent.

Based on my recent fiasco I’d be very careful. Maybe you should loan it to your friend first before you catalog. Then you can delete @by the book” without it being a problem for you. I was told this is usually a non- issue because people don’t reconnect like I did. Your scenario sounds like it could be trouble and I wish my situation on no one.

Jim loans these out too so he likely knows the do’s and don’ts for your use case..
 
I do now.....;)

Jim
 
Yes. You can remove the Alto from your system (while keeping the Strato active) and then re-add it to your system once you get it back. Here are some things to keep in mind:

When you are removing the Alto from your system to loan to your friend, be sure that you do it in such a way that the Alto is ungrouped from the Strato rather than the Strato being ungrouped from the Alto. This will preserve the activation state on the Strato.

When you load the System browser interface and go to Settings > Components, you want to ensure that you click the "Remove from system" button for the Alto and not the Strato.

Similarly, when you get the Alto back, you will want to use the Strato's browser interface to group the Alto to your Strato rather than using the Alto's browser interface to group the Strato to the Alto. By using the Strato's BI to do the grouping, you ensure that the Alto gets its system ID changed to match Strato and that system ID is what tracks the activation state. So if you instead grouped the Strato to the Alto, you would be changing the Strato's system ID to match the Alto and your system would become unregistered.

I hope I haven't over-complicated this for you. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

One final thought:
Your Strato can't play Blu-ray Discs and so you won't see those discs listed on the on-screen display (OSD) of the Strato. Once you get your Alto back from your friend and you add it back to your system, you might want to consider Co-Star pairing the Strato and Alto (you'll need a Co-Star license along with a Co-Star switch, a Lumagen, or a Crestron NVX in order to do so). That would allow you to play your Blu-ray discs via the Alto's ODD but control it from the Strato.

Unless you are planning to use the Alto as a second, HD-only zone somewhere else in your home.
Thanks John.

If I only want to view the cataloged discs from the strato, and be presented with any upgrade options, will I need costar? Or is that only so that I can play a disc from the Strato that has been loaded into the Alto. If so, I don't need that - just the ability to see the cataloged titles when viewing my movies from the strato.
 
On your final thought: As much as playing the discs, I would like for them to show up in the Strato view of the library. I'm fine putting them in the Oppo. From what you are saying, they will only appear in a library view from the Alto - unless I get a Co-Star setup?
That is correct. Catalogued Blu-ray discs will not appear on the Strato OSD unless it is Co-Star paired to a player that can actually play the discs.

I have a Lumagen, so do I just need the co-star license? Assume I get that from my dealer?
Yes. If you have a Lumagen Radiance Pro, you don't need to buy the Co-Star switcher. The Lumagen handles the HDMI switching. You just need the Co-Star license which you should be able to get through your dealer.

Similarly, will the Alto view not show 4K titles (as the Alto can't play them?)
Correct.
 
That is correct. Catalogued Blu-ray discs will not appear on the Strato OSD unless it is Co-Star paired to a player that can actually play the discs.


Yes. If you have a Lumagen Radiance Pro, you don't need to buy the Co-Star switcher. The Lumagen handles the HDMI switching. You just need the Co-Star license which you should be able to get through your dealer.


Correct.
I was a beneficiary of Jim’s Alto and I must have done something wrong, because on my current Strato some of the titles I cataloged (and haven’t yet purchased and downloaded from the K store) do indeed appear in the Strato UI. When I go to one of those titles, it says I need to insert the disc to play.
 
I was a beneficiary of Jim’s Alto and I must have done something wrong, because on my current Strato some of the titles I cataloged (and haven’t yet purchased and downloaded from the K store) do indeed appear in the Strato UI. When I go to one of those titles, it says I need to insert the disc to play.
Are they DVDs?
 
Okay, that's the explanation. Strato can actually play DVD (from a Disc Vault), so they will show up in the onscreen display.
 
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