[Buyer’s Guide] Kaleidescape Quality Compared to Blu-ray & other Digital Sources

[thrawn997]

Apparently the mobile app experience is what has them busy, not fixing their defects

Post in thread 'Announcement: Kaleidescape Mobile App for iOS, v2.0'

May 8, 2026

There are also a few things that Second Screen supports that the new Mobile App doesn’t handle yet. Playing a disc in the tray, for example. It also has dedicated buttons for creating new favorite scenes. There are a handful of other things, but the plan is to eventually surpass the functionality of Second Screen in the Mobile App, except for music. Because the music features of Premiere are not being actively maintained anymore, that functionality will not come to the Mobile App.

• MikeKobb

• 

 

[baltz]

Apparently the mobile app experience is what has them busy, not fixing their defects

Post in thread 'Announcement: Kaleidescape Mobile App for iOS, v2.0'

May 8, 2026

There are also a few things that Second Screen supports that the new Mobile App doesn’t handle yet. Playing a disc in the tray, for example. It also has dedicated buttons for creating new favorite scenes. There are a handful of other things, but the plan is to eventually surpass the functionality of Second Screen in the Mobile App, except for music. Because the music features of Premiere are not being actively maintained anymore, that functionality will not come to the Mobile App.

• MikeKobb

• 

I’m pretty sure they work on more than one thing at a time.

 

[Balthazar2k4]

I’m pretty sure they work on more than one thing at a time.

Unless they have one guy in the basement doing it all….

 

[thrawn997]

I’m pretty sure they work on more than one thing at a time.

If I didn't have the bandwidth to fix a critical issue that makes our front page advertising unambiguously false, I'd probably reduce the number of things I was working on at the same time. But I also would be much more embarrassed about this than they are.

 

[rafaelsmith]

If I didn't have the bandwidth to fix a critical issue that makes our front page advertising unambiguously false, I'd probably reduce the number of things I was working on at the same time. But I also would be much more embarrassed about this than they are.

Unless you have the fanboy defenders they seem to have!

 

[Edgar]

I understand feeling shortchanged for having spent a premium for that incremental improvement in visual fidelity, only to learn that improvement is intermittent based on the age and tools applied to a particular file. I understand expecting an update to fix everything, only to find it only partially addressed the problems.

At the same time, I think it’s useful to consider two things. One, most of these defects were unknown until a talented consumer saw them and reported them. Two, once reported, K responded to address the issues, provided rational context, and began issuing updates of files and software. Once those were released, K shared more update plans to address unsolved issues for late model players.

Context matters. From my POV, this is light years beyond the virtually silent “responsiveness” of studios ghosting consumers when discs are released with defects, only to later sell us back the same format discs as fixed this time. Look at the Superman and Rambo sets. I’m honestly much more annoyed at that than I have felt about these issues with K movie files.

Also for the record, I guess I can afford to be calm about things since I have a Strato C. I checked those frames in Prometheus and Interstellar, and not a block in sight. In fact both looked slightly better than I remembered following their updates. So @Rmarci ‘s feedback and @MikeKobb ‘s responses are working. At the pace of a responsive startup managing multiple objectives.

I’d recommend trying to keep a fair tone, so the K team is both inclined to keep reading this thread and treating it with validity. It would suck for all parties involved if the long term productive aspects of this conversation got lost among the short term reactions.

 

[thrawn997]

At the same time, I think it’s useful to consider two things. One, most of these defects were unknown until a talented consumer saw them and reported them. Two, once reported, K responded to address the issues

1. I don't think it's to their credit that they do not QA their hardware or encodes as thoroughly as one of their consumers even after almost a year of reported issues. This is literally front page of their website core benefit to the product.
2. There are still serious visual defects, with no commitment to a date for fixing them after almost a year.

 

[rafaelsmith]

1. I don't think it's to their credit that they do not QA their hardware or encodes as thoroughly as one of their consumers even after almost a year of reported issues. This is literally front page of their website core benefit to the product.
2. There are still serious visual defects, with no commitment to a date for fixing them after almost a year.

Agreed, while I am glad they are trying to fix things....I think its just not a good look for a premium product that even after a year its all because of one customer...and seems to continue to be the only source of anything resembling QA.

 

[Edward Nygma]

Agreed, while I am glad they are trying to fix things....I think its just not a good look for a premium product that even after a year its all because of one customer...and seems to continue to be the only source of anything resembling QA.

The really atrocious part to me is how long they have made the unvetted claim that they provide reference quality video and very obviously don't even understand what reference quality video is nor how to provide it on a consistent basis.

Now that they have been vetted to some extent, it is strikingly obvious that they do not possess the subject matter expertise to address the issues and are basically throwing things against the wall. This also destroys the credibility of every social media platform who have supported their untruthful claims and didn't bother to vet it themselves either.

 

[rafaelsmith]

The really atrocious part to me is how long they have made the unvetted claim that they provide reference quality video and very obviously don't even understand what reference quality video is nor how to provide it on a consistent basis.

Now that they have been vetted to some extent, it is strikingly obvious that they do not possess the subject matter expertise to address the issues and are basically throwing things against the wall. This also destroys the credibility of every social media platform who have supported their untruthful claims and didn't bother to vet it themselves either.

I could be wrong...but it does seem like the "content" side of the house has kinda been on the back burner for them. They clearly make their $$$ from hardware sales. For the most part most of these issues would have never been noticed if it were not for @Rmarci . Playing armchair....boss here but I really think they could stand to spend some resources and hire proper subject matter experts....not just to QA but also help with how their tools are built.....they need to move beyond playing catchup and actually fix things so that these issues do not occur moving forward.

Given that K has no space or bandwidth limitations...there simply is no excuse for these artifacts to even be there in first place or for their "tools and process" to be doing some of the stuff they seem to be doing. If the source file from the studio has a artifact...fine...don't try to "fix" it.

 

[HighImpactAV]

As it stands audio is the only metric in which K beats out streaming....kinda sad considering the cost!

Do you realize that in Rmarci's Quality Check spreadsheet that only 10.89% of movies he has checked that are streamed have a better image quality than Kaleidescape? That is 28 of 257 movies. I think there are movies on the spreadsheet that have now been improved since he last reviewed them and would now also beat streaming. Kaleidescape beats streaming most of the time per Rmarci's own testing.

Edit: I included discs in my previous percentage of 35%. For streaming it is only 10.89%.

 

[rafaelsmith]

Do you realize that in Rmarci's Quality Check spreadsheet that only 35% of movies he has checked have a better image quality than Kaleidescape? I think there are movies on the spreadsheet that have now been improved since he last reviewed them and would now also beat streaming. Kaleidescape beats streaming most of the time per Rmarci's own testing.

Given the premium cost and the lack of storage and bandwidth limitations that should be: "all the time". If 35% is the number then its still pretty bad all things considered. When I buy a movie...a 1 in 3 shot that it will be worse than on iTunes is just sad.

 

[Broncowrangler]

I was wondering if Zootopia 2 has been checked out by Rmarci. I have the elusive 4k disc (steelbook) as well, but I felt K appeared a tad softer compared to the disc. No objective way of verifying this so I would have to defer to Rmarci for final validation.

 

[HighImpactAV]

If 35% is the number then its still pretty bad all things considered.

I realized I included discs in the 35%. It is actually 10.89% for streaming. Looking at the list of movies that beat Kaleidescape by streaming, I only have one in my library of ~800 movies.

 

[Rmarci]

I was wondering if Zootopia 2 has been checked out by Rmarci. I have the elusive 4k disc (steelbook) as well, but I felt K appeared a tad softer compared to the disc. No objective way of verifying this so I would have to defer to Rmarci for final validation.

I own the first one, but I didn’t like the sequel enough to buy it on KS too.
Grainless animations are the worst right now with the faulty firmware (block artifacts), so I’ll wait before checking it out.

Last night I watched Avatar 3, and oh boy, the block artifacts in highlights were so bad, some of the worst I’ve seen yet. There were also a few shots with tons of banding and chroma artifacts, but I didn’t check whether those were also present on Movies Anywhere.

This needs to be fixed as soon as possible, especially if they already have a solution like @MikeKobb mentioned in his latest update.

At least Project Hail Mary looks grainy on itunes, so the artifacts shouldn’t be too distracting on KS...

 

[Broncowrangler]

I own the first one, but I didn’t like the sequel enough to buy it on KS too.
Grainless animations are the worst right now with the faulty firmware (block artifacts), so I’ll wait before checking it out.

Last night I watched Avatar 3, and oh boy, the block artifacts in highlights were so bad, some of the worst I’ve seen yet. There were also a few shots with tons of banding and chroma artifacts, but I didn’t check whether those were also present on Movies Anywhere.

This needs to be fixed as soon as possible, especially if they already have a solution like @MikeKobb mentioned in his latest update.

At least Project Hail Mary looks grainy on itunes, so the artifacts shouldn’t be too distracting on KS...

That’s a bummer regarding Avatar 3. I had purchased it last month. I was planning on watching this over the weekend with a great deal of anticipation. Hope this gets sorted out soon with the upcoming update. I would have thought that newer releases would exhibit lesser issues.

 

[dinom]

I thought this last issue to solve (block artifacts) was mostly due to a player issue (V and E only) and not the content itself.

 

[Rmarci]

Yes, the issue I'm talking about is software-related.

 

[Rmarci]

Project Hail Mary 2026

Project Hail Mary (2026) Kscape vs iTunes | Slowpoke Pics

Slowpoke Pics image comparison service

slow.pics

- Looks pretty good and grainy as expected, so the block artifacts shouldn't be too annoying.

 

[Rmarci]

Fight Club 1999

Kscape vs UHD-BD vs iTunes

unknown | Slowpoke Pics

Slowpoke Pics image comparison service

slow.pics

- Nice: much better grain than the UHD Blu-ray, which has chroma artifacts.

If Kaleidescape could fix that damn block artifact bug, it would finally live up to their “reference quality''