Downloads, Blu-Ray and the 1080P Player

[DigitalStudioWerks]

First off - Sorry for the LONG post. I was just thinking and I thought I would share some of those thoughts.

ALSO, I DO NOT have any inside information as to what Kaleidescape is doing as far as BR players, KEAOS updates, hardware updates or future product enhancements. As a Kaleidescape dealer I only know what other dealers know and none of the stuff I talk about below has been announced by Kaleidescape.

The following is just MY personal thoughts and opinions.

A bit of information I found interesting.
About 7-8 months ago I was talking to our sales rep and asked if they were going to integrate Rhapsody, Music Giants or any other online service and at that time I was told they were in talks with Music Giants since they were the only ones who currently have HD music content that one can legally download and that hopefully something will come of it soon.

Fast forward to this past week and I was talking to a Music Giants sales rep in regarding selling "HD" Music AND HD movies pre-loaded on a "Server" system. I said GREAT! That would be nice for our Kaleidescape clients. Before I even said the word clients he said "Oh, we do not support Kaleidescape." I said "I heard you (Meaning Music Giants) were in talks with Kaleidescape he said they have been for quite a while BUT "There are a few things they (Music Giants and Kaleidescape) can not come to agreement on." He did not say what those terms were BUT he did say that "It appears Kaleidescape wants to control the download experience too and go out on their own." Note the last part of that sentence "go out on their own." The sales person from Music Giants said "they are the only download service that's working with all the major studios in order to provide HD downloads." He went on to mention that the studios like this method since 1, movies can not be copied and 2, they do not have to pay any Blu-Ray royalties on the HD downloads. You can take a look at the Music Giants web site you will see that all the movies offered are HD. The movies are sold through a online store thats integrated with the end users movie server.

How is this related to Blu-Ray you ask?, Well it got me thinking and I stress THINKING. I have NO inside information or knowledge WHATS SO EVER. But in order to support Blu-Ray they would have to come up with a player that can import and play that type of movie. The importing and playing back is not that difficult and I would be surprised if they DO NOT have a prototype player in the lab. If thats the case what's holding them up?

Well one they still have to enter, bookmark, and scan almost every Blu-Ray disk out there and new ones coming out. I would say that this has already been started BUT I am sure it will take a while to get a good Blu-Ray movie database going. Remember that Kaleidescape owns and manages the movie database and all the movies and cover art are entered and scanned manually. Thats a tedious process. Kaleidescape is known for its interface and releasing a BR player with a movie database that is lacking in Blu-Ray content is DEFINITELY not in the cards. Kaleidescape is known for it's perfection. Ok, so the BR database is not all together if it was what else can be holding up a BR player?

Movie Studios and Licensing! Although I do not believe this to be a issue for many reasons, I wont go into them here. I do believe that the Kaleidescape legal team is double and triple checking to make sure every i is dotted and every T is crossed in their agreement. This alone can take a months.

There are a lot of reasons why a BR Player is taking a while to come out. As I have mentioned above Kaleidescape is a company that strives on perfection and would rather be a little late coming to the table with a product that reflects Kaleidescape, than join the party with a "we too have a BR Player" thats not up to par with the Kaleidescape Experience.

Why the 1080P player. It sorta baffled me as to why Kaleidescape released a 1080P player when, according to Kaleidescape, a Blu-Ray Kaleidescape player would be out in 09. Ok so you may get a picture thats a "Little" bit better. But with the type of up convertors, projectors and plasmas the Kaleidescape player is running through there is not that BIG of a difference. Especially since all the DVD content is SD. So why a 1080P player when next year a BR player is coming out. Then I remembered my conversation with the Music Giants sales rep about Kaleidescape wanting to "go out on their own" in regards to HD downloads.

If Kaleidescape is truly building their own HD Movie Download service OR partnering up with another company now you have a reason for a 1080P player to take advantage of the HD content. With a 1080P player and HD content that you can purchase and download you are getting the same quality as Blu-Ray. Kaleidescape gets HD movies for their clients, the studios don't have to worry about copying since you can not copy a movie or music for that matter from the server to a DVD, CD or any other media, and clients are happy they can get movies in HD and enjoy the Blu-Ray LIKE experience.

Remember these are just my thought. Call it Pie in the Sky, Fantasy, Dreaming, what ever you want. It's JUST a thought. In fact I am probably 100% wrong on everything I just mentioned.

 

[JerryL]

I like your thinking but I see one potential wrinkle: codecs. I don't know if the new 1080P players can decode H264 and VC1. If they cannot and they can only do MPEG2 then this is a problem. If they can then yes, I like the idea- deploy the hardware first- then add a software feature to enable the downloads.

Ill throw some other fuel on your fire- I dont follow this stuff nearly as tightly as I used to but Apple has this ProRes codec or modification for H264 that apparently slices the size of these large HD movie files down to SD size- and its lossless. This would certainly help with downloading. The nice thing for K is that their client base most certainly has high speed internet access. You could buy a HD movie/ other content and let it download while you sleep. There is the issue of what happens if my system fails. First of all the RAID setup will help protect that and second if K is doing something like that then the records should show which content you have purchased and they should be able to replace it.

Now here is my super dooper wishful thinking- if they were to do this- it means K is getting the digital masters- maybe they could offer anamorphic 2.35:1 content for those with 2.35 setups- putting those black bars to use- giving true 1920x1080 on 2.35 content........

Just my ramblings. I will say that all my experiences with K have been very positive so I hope they just keep doing what they have been doing and yes, I would love to see some kind of HD setup offered by them. I am building a pretty decent library of BR discs. Thats the other issue they might face- people who already own BRs.....

 

[TivoSloth]

As a side note to the downloading of HD content to the server, also consider that, with respect to HD downloads, K could create a simple interface for "ordering" movies for download in advance of any official release date. Once ordered, the movie could be downloaded to the user's server(s) several weeks before the release date, eliminating or minimizing bandwidth issues. The content could be locked (made inaccessible) to to prevent user access until the actual release date through software modules.

This could be implemented as direct download or through a bit-torrent like feed similar to Vudu and other implementations.

The studios would maintain their launch date, K would avoid potential bandwidth bottlenecks, and the user would get the convenience of immediate access to the highest available resolution version of a desired movie or other content. Pricing would of course be an issue, as well as payment terms and processing, but this would seem to be very doable. This also eliminates the concern of managed copy while managed copy licensing gets worked through during the next year or so.

 

[JerryL]

Very interesting!

 

[BritBlaster]

This could be implemented as direct download or through a bit-torrent like feed similar to Vudu and other implementations.

I had assumed that Vudu was a simple server-client download design. Is it really using a peer-to-peer network for downloading ?

I do not purchase movies on my Vudu; the movies aren't available for playing in my other rooms and the capacity is too small. If I had K then I would certainly purchase HD content directly if they had an online store, and I'd never bother with purchasing discs again. The only proviso to that would be they'd have to ensure that in the event of complete data-loss I'd be able to re-download any purchased movies at any point in the future.

 

[cinelife]

....The only proviso to that would be they'd have to ensure that in the event of complete data-loss I'd be able to re-download any purchased movies at any point in the future.

Good point. I gotta believe they (industry) recognize this as a given requirement for any such system.

Jim

 

[MrCaseyB]

The Kaleidescape 1080p Player is not capable of decoding MPEG-4, so downloads to it are unlikely. Then again the picture quality is insane, some booth attendees at CEDIA thought Kscape had come out with a BR player based on the upconversion quality.

I have a very small collection of BR discs and hope there is a Kscape Blu-Ray player that can IMPORT to the server in 2009. Meanwhile I have been enjoying the latest SD and HD releases instantly on VUDU, which I believe is the perfect companion to Kaleidscape. Disclaimer: I used to work at Kscape, now work at VUDU. I own and love both systems.

 

[JerryL]

Congratulations Casey! I have seen some excellent upconverting and while it can be very well done, lets face it, you can't create resolution nor color depth and a good BR is going to shame an excellent DVD.