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Cataloging: How to Catalog

cinelife

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I've posted this in other Forum threads, but decided to post this as a sticky in this thread as well.

Jim

HOW DO I CATALOG A MOVIE OR TV SERIES?​

Cataloging is a feature of kOS 6.0.0 or later, and may be able to be performed from a player with an optical drive, a disc server or a disc vault depending on the capabilities of your system.

NOTE: The behavior described in this article applies to systems purchased from Kaleidescape after November 30th, 2014, unless otherwise noted.

Strato Systems

Any Blu-ray disc or DVD can be cataloged from Kaleidescape Alto or a Kaleidescape Disc Server. Strato systems do not import discs.

Cataloging from Kaleidescape Alto

Insert a Blu-ray disc or DVD into the slot of Kaleidescape Alto, and then press the Catalog button.

User-added image


Once identified, the movie is cataloged and added to your library where it appears alongside titles downloaded from the Kaleidescape Movie Store.

A disc in the slot of a player can also be cataloged from the on-screen user interface without cataloging it. Insert a Blu-ray disc or DVD and wait for the Disc in Player screen to appear (do not press the Catalog button).

User-added image



Select Catalog DVD (or Catalog Blu-ray disc), and the movie is cataloged and added to your library where it appears along side titles downloaded from the Kaleidescape Movie Store.

Cataloging from a Kaleidescape Disc Server

When a Blu-ray disc or DVD is inserted into a Kaleidescape Disc Server, the movie is automatically cataloged and added to your library where it appears along side titles downloaded from the Kaleidescape Movie Store.

Premiere Systems and Cinema One

Depending on the capabilities of your system, Blu-ray discs and DVDs can be cataloged from a player with in an optical drive or a disc vault so that they can appear in the on-screen user interface, just like content downloaded from the Kaleidescape Movie Store or imported from disc. The ability to catalog discs depends on the type of media, the date of purchase of the system from Kaleidescape, whether a disc vault is present in the system, and whether the amended service agreement to enable downloads of Disney content from the Kaleidescape Movie Store has been accepted (in territories where the Movie Store is supported).

Cataloging from a player

Insert a disc into the tray, or slot of a player, and then press the Catalog/Import button.

User-added image

If the disc is a Blu-ray disc, it is cataloged if your system does not include a disc vault. If your system includes a disc vault, the Blu-ray disc is imported. If the disc is a CSS-protected DVD, it is cataloged. If your system was purchased from Kaleidescape before November 30th, 2014, all Blu-ray discs and DVDs (whether protected or not) are imported.

Regardless of the purchase date, if the amended service agreement to enable downloads of Disney content from the Kaleidescape Movie Store has been accepted, your system no longer supports the import of Disney Blu-ray discs and DVDs. A Disney Blu-ray disc or DVD inserted into a player is cataloged.

A disc in the tray, or slot of a player can also be cataloged from the on-screen user interface without cataloging or importing it. After the disc is inserted, wait a moment for the Disc in Player screen to appear (do not press the Catalog/Import button).

User-added image


Select Catalog Blu-ray disc (or Catalog DVD). If your system was purchased from Kaleidescape before November 30th, 2014, only Blu-ray discs can be cataloged from the tray or slot of a player in this manner (in systems that do not contain a disc vault).

Cataloging from a disc vault

When a Blu-ray disc is inserted into a disc vault it is automatically imported. When a CSS-protected DVD is inserted into a disc vault, it is automatically cataloged. If your system was purchased from Kaleidescape before November 30th, 2014, all Blu-ray discs and all DVDs (whether protected or not) are imported.

Regardless of the purchase date, if the amended service agreement to enable downloads of Disney content from the Kaleidescape Movie Store has been accepted, your system no longer supports the import of Disney Blu-ray discs and DVDs. Any Disney Blu-ray disc or DVD inserted into a disc vault is cataloged.
 
A cautionary note for those of you using an Alto to catalogue your discs:

You must have a qualifying device, such as the Alto, in your "My Systems" in the Kaleidescape cloud to retain the disc-to-digital rights/offers. Once you delete the last qualifying device in your "My Systems", the disc-to-digital offers will disappear.

Thus, if you are borrowing an Alto, or looking to sell an otherwise qualifying device, be sure to purchase any and all of the disc-to-digital offers that you intend to before deleting the device from your "My Systems".

I am only aware of this because it happened to me, but luckily it was a small number of catalogued items that I lost.
 
A cautionary note for those of you using an Alto to catalogue your discs:

You must have a qualifying device, such as the Alto, in your "My Systems" in the Kaleidescape cloud to retain the disc-to-digital rights/offers. Once you delete the last qualifying device in your "My Systems", the disc-to-digital offers will disappear.

Thus, if you are borrowing an Alto, or looking to sell an otherwise qualifying device, be sure to purchase any and all of the disc-to-digital offers that you intend to before deleting the device from your "My Systems".

I am only aware of this because it happened to me, but luckily it was a small number of catalogued items that I lost.
Wow, that's good to know! But seeing how Kaleidescape "promotes" the use of a dealer-loaned Alto for cataloguing, it's a bit odd the system would cancel the D2D offers in case the user removes the Alto from their system list. Can someone from K comment on this?
 
Wow, that's good to know! But seeing how Kaleidescape "promotes" the use of a dealer-loaned Alto for cataloguing, it's a bit odd the system would cancel the D2D offers in case the user removes the Alto from their system list. Can someone from K comment on this?
It may very well have to do with licensing, meaning they may be required to handle it this way. I don't believe that Kaleidescape promotes the loaning of an Alto, I perceive it as an informal thing instigated by the user community and not sanctioned by K. In fact, I'd be worried that too much stink about it could result in the technique getting shut down.

Of course, one can simply avoid the issue by purchasing all desired disc-to-digital items before jettisoning the Alto from their system.
 
A cautionary note for those of you using an Alto to catalogue your discs:

You must have a qualifying device, such as the Alto, in your "My Systems" in the Kaleidescape cloud to retain the disc-to-digital rights/offers. Once you delete the last qualifying device in your "My Systems", the disc-to-digital offers will disappear.

Thus, if you are borrowing an Alto, or looking to sell an otherwise qualifying device, be sure to purchase any and all of the disc-to-digital offers that you intend to before deleting the device from your "My Systems".

I am only aware of this because it happened to me, but luckily it was a small number of catalogued items that I lost.
I'm new but not sure this is true?. I just borrowed an Alto this weekend. Catalogged 300+ disks. Purchased many but not all disks. I then deleted the alto from my system.
When I go into the ios app under "digital offers", I see offers for most of the disks I uploaded but didn't purchase immediately (I held off given large number I did transition). It does seem to be slightly different format in that it says "purchase $XX*" with the asterisk noted "special disc to digital program". I would assume those are still cheaper offers then just new. I think someone mentioned about going into the store from Chrome-private mode without being logged in to see the price difference.
Addendum: I did check a few disks out and while not "huge" savings on the some titles, I was still getting the cheaper rates than what is being offered as a new purchase.
 
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I always hesitate to say anything because I’m aware things may have changed, or my memory is inaccurate. So perhaps things are not as I describe, but I did lose all of my digital offers when I removed the Alto from my system.

And when I say removed, I mean I updated the K database to know that specific serial number was no longer in my system. I exchanged an email with customer support at the time and was told that is how it works (digital offers withdrawn).

My experience occurred 2 years ago, in 2020.
 
I always hesitate to say anything because I’m aware things may have changed, or my memory is inaccurate. So perhaps things are not as I describe, but I did lose all of my digital offers when I removed the Alto from my system.

And when I say removed, I mean I updated the K database to know that specific serial number was no longer in my system. I exchanged an email with customer support at the time and was told that is how it works (digital offers withdrawn).

My experience occurred 2 years ago, in 2020.

Maybe it changed since then, but I borrowed one earlier this year and cataloged 1000 discs and all the titles that I didn't buy still show up in my D2D section with no Alto present in my system. (Maybe it works Dif with a Strato C/Terra system than it does with other older combos of K systems?)
 
I hesitate to comment too, never having owned or used an Alto but I do know that a feature has been added that means that the K servers retain a central list of the cataloged disks regardless of whether they are in the system. I also believe that change occurred within the last 2 years and likely in the past 12 months. This sounds likely to be the explanation but take it as something to check with someone wiser than I rather than as a fact. :)

The change makes sense now they rely on loaning out players to new customers because players etc are no longer manufactured.
 
I always hesitate to say anything because I’m aware things may have changed, or my memory is inaccurate. So perhaps things are not as I describe, but I did lose all of my digital offers when I removed the Alto from my system.

And when I say removed, I mean I updated the K database to know that specific serial number was no longer in my system. I exchanged an email with customer support at the time and was told that is how it works (digital offers withdrawn).

My experience occurred 2 years ago, in 2020.
Thanks Mike
I just did this weekend. I will share word of warning. After I got done catalog, I removed Alto. I then deleted all the titles from alto. I then realized I forgot a few titles not in usual place. When I plugged back in, and added back to my system, since it was same serial number on same system (as I was later told by tech support), it “synced” my deletions back to my terra. Ugh, smh. All blu ray and dvd were wiped out of terra. Digital offers still there but any future offers for disks not currently offered prob won’t be listed. I redid my blu rays and only select DVDs but couldn’t bring myself to do whole collection again and lose most of another day. Lesson learned and warning to all!
 
Okay, let's try clear this up (maybe). If you only "Add" the Alto to an existing system, the Alto will be tied to that system's Store account and any content that is Cataloged by that Alto will be attached to that System's Store account. When Cataloging is completed, you simply select "Remove from system," in the Components section and the Alto is no longer in the system or attached to that Store account. The Cataloged content will remain attached to that Store account and digital offers will continue to be generated in that Store account based on the content that was Cataloged.

If you make the mistake of "Registering" the Alto, even if you select the same Store account email during Registration, and then Catalog your content, the Alto must remain as one of your systems in order to continue to generate digital offers based on the Cataloged content. If you subsequently remove the Alto from your Store account (Deregister it), any content that was Cataloged on that Alto, and not yet purchased, will be deleted in the Store. Any Alto Cataloged content you already purchased will remain in your collection.

Over a year ago, I started loaning 4 separate Altos to clients and Members, 1 was subsequently sold to a client, 1 disappeared in shipping, 1 was damaged, and 1 had a failed optical drive. That last Alto was recently replaced and is back in circulation. My records indicate we have helped 83 client/members catalog their content. As far as I know, I only had two owners lose their Cataloged content, and in both cases it related to how they added the Alto to their Store account. All the other folks used the "Add to system" option described above, and all of them retained their Cataloged content and still have their digital offers available in the Store, to my knowledge. (No one has come back to me to state otherwise.)

Jim
 
Thanks Mike
I just did this weekend. I will share word of warning. After I got done catalog, I removed Alto. I then deleted all the titles from alto. I then realized I forgot a few titles not in usual place. When I plugged back in, and added back to my system, since it was same serial number on same system (as I was later told by tech support), it “synced” my deletions back to my terra. Ugh, smh. All blu ray and dvd were wiped out of terra. Digital offers still there but any future offers for disks not currently offered prob won’t be listed. I redid my blu rays and only select DVDs but couldn’t bring myself to do whole collection again and lose most of another day. Lesson learned and warning to all!
This exact thing happened to me last year after cataloging about 1200 titles. I followed instructions to delete off alto and removed from my system to send it back. I found more dvds and thought I’d hook it back up. Once I started cataloging again I notice the Terra was deleting cataloged titles. I unplugged it all but the damage was done. I had to redo everything. At first I was told this couldn’t happen but then they realized that since I had removed and reinstalled, the Terra took the Alto and history of deleted discs and decided to delete from my Terra. After cataloging nearly 1200 discs again I told Brett Bjorkquist (when he still worked full time at KScape) that I would remove from my system and send back to him without deleting titles in case the deletion cause was different than we thought. I wasn’t taking any chances of a round 3. The problem I did see later was that even though the Alto was removed from my system, Kaleidescape cloud thought it was still a secondary server in my system that wasn’t calling in. Once I finally sent in a ticket service logged in and fixed it.

Another cataloging tip to add to Jim’s post:

Have your laptop logged into your Kaleidescape browser console and logged into history. You’ll get a disc by disc history as you go. The reason this is important is occasionally you’ll think the disc has been cataloged but it has not. If you don’t catch it then you didn’t catalog it. If you are doing 100’s of discs you will learn to set up an assembly line to catalog 2-3 discs per minute. The history makes it very easy to check off your finished stack of discs without having to verify one by one. Just glance at the history list and your stack to make sure nothing is missing. This saves real time and avoids you not recognizing you had a misread even if Alto looked okay. Having catalogued 1200 discs twice I had to figure out how to be most efficient.
 
From my understanding, cataloging serves 2 purposes:

1. Establish ownership of a DVD or BD, giving you access to any D2D offers
2. Enter the title into your list of movies, so you can select it from your screen for playback. It will ask you to enter the disc into the Alto or DV700/M700 to start playback.

The latter is for most of us not the objective, bar some DVDs / BDs that are not yet available on K (The Abyss, for one). The first topic, getting the D2D offers, is the main objective.

Once you've catalogued a disc, the Alto will sync with the K-store every 15min or so. Once that happens, you'll get a popup on the K-Store that new D2D offers are available, if any. Once this sync has happened, the K store knows which discs you have catalogued and owned, even if no D2D offer is available.

At this point, you can safely delete the DVD or BD entry from Alto. Deleting it from Alto will remove the movie from your list on screen. It will not remove the disc from your K-Store account used to establish D2D offers. And this is the crucial part. You can clean up your movie list for day to day use on your local K system, and still safely get the D2D offers at your leisure.

I'm sure Mike at K can clarify more, but this is how I understand the system to work.
 
Agree with all of that, but would also point out it is not necessary to catalog a disc to get the D2D offer - you only need to put the disc in the alto, wait until you get to the screen that gives you the option to catalog and go to the ”offers” drop down. Select blu-ray (or if available, 4K) and make your purchase - which also saves time not having to delete the cataloged title from the browser later.
 
My brain hurts after reading this thread. I've been a Kaleidescape system owner for 15+ years and have never heard of "cataloging". Lucky I own a Premiere system with DVD import rights in a market without access to the Kaleidescape store and everything is simple. It just works as its always worked without having to think too much about it. Although I have noticed virtually none of my recently purchased disc content has been video bookmarked. The cost and effort to get that work done is often more than the cost of buying the disc.
 
OK. Let me clear this up:

Up until a short time ag, you would only receive digital offers for cataloged content that was still present on your system. And thus, for people who had cataloged content using a borrowed Alto that they activated as a separate system, once they deactivated the Alto and sent it away, the digital offers for those titles were no longer presented.

However, a recent change was made to our headend and now, once you catalog a title and you see a digital offer for it _in the web store's interface_, then that cataloged title will be remembered even if/when you remove the system that has the cataloged discs on it.
 
I think it’s great what Jim and other dealers are doing with this Alto borrowing process, but I think it is time for K to come up with a new process. Disc ownership is a barrier to some for entry into a new K system. Let’s remove that barrier. Many suggestions have been made. Thanks!
 
I'm happy to continue to buy discs and import them into my Premiere system. I would prefer to have access to the Kaleidescape store, but that is not going to happen. My gripe is very few movies I buy locally have video bookmarks, and it costs me more to buy a disc and have it book marked than what the same title would cost as a download from the store. The solution to this problem would be for Kaleidescape to re-instate the free video book marking loan program in markets that do not have access to the Kaleidescape store. My other gripe is about Kaleidescape dropping music guide updates. End-user manually entering information is only a half baked solution to a properly supported music guide. There is not a lot of love in the air for CD imports in Kaleidescape. But that is a topic for discussion elsewhere.
 
Adding my experience on this topic. This is not a recommendation by any means but my own recent experiences.

  • Cataloged approximately 660 DVD’s starting two weeks ago (thank you Cinelife!)
  • Purchased and downloaded ~ 200 movies to my 18 TB Compact Server the first weekend
  • Then I saw the post about…If you remove the Alto, the cataloged movies/D2D Offer would go away.
  • I had planned to hold off buying D2D offers until some movies went on sale. So in a panic, i purchased about another 120 movies that had the biggest D2D discounts. I didn’t bother those Disney, Marvel, and other movies that only had $1-3 savings. Instead I bought those with significant D2D savings $5-20+ savings.
  • I removed the Alto from my system, restored the Alto to original settings.
  • I turned on my K-system and checked my movies. The vast majority of the that I cataloged are still showing in my movies. Those cataloged-but-not-yet-purchased movies are still showing in my “digital offer” section. Very happy to see that!
Thank you
 
Interesting. Was there anything in common with the movies that were no longer showing in My Movies?
 
Adding my experience on this topic. This is not a recommendation by any means but my own recent experiences.

  • Cataloged approximately 660 DVD’s starting two weeks ago (thank you Cinelife!)
  • Purchased and downloaded ~ 200 movies to my 18 TB Compact Server the first weekend
  • Then I saw the post about…If you remove the Alto, the cataloged movies/D2D Offer would go away.
  • I had planned to hold off buying D2D offers until some movies went on sale. So in a panic, i purchased about another 120 movies that had the biggest D2D discounts. I didn’t bother those Disney, Marvel, and other movies that only had $1-3 savings. Instead I bought those with significant D2D savings $5-20+ savings.
  • I removed the Alto from my system, restored the Alto to original settings.
  • I turned on my K-system and checked my movies. The vast majority of the that I cataloged are still showing in my movies. Those cataloged-but-not-yet-purchased movies are still showing in my “digital offer” section. Very happy to see that!
Thank you
Correct. Just don't replug in the alto that you have removed (and erased). It will then synch back to the terra. As noted elseswhere, the current disk to digital offers will stay, even if you do (as long as they have been synched up to the cloud). It would just delete the reference to your disks (which you won't be able to use anyway if you don't own the alto). Only thing I'm not sure and defer to the experts, if no current disk to digitial offers, but you had the blu-ray and then deleted the reference, would you still get future disk to digital offers that were not active at the time (ie, is there some other reference file with whole catalog stored up at cloud kaleidescape, including deleted disks)? I hope i'm clear with the last comment regarding, if the alto synched back and deleted reference to disks, and no current offers on file, would it be eligible for future D2D deals?
 
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