• Thanks for visiting the Kaleidescape Owners' Forum

    This forum is for the community of Kaleidescape owners, and others interested in learning about the system, equipment, services, and the company itself.

    It is run by a group of enthusiastic Kaleidescape owners and dealers purely as a service to this community.

    This board is not affiliated in any way with Kaleidescape, Inc.
    For official technical support, product information, or customer service, please visit www.kaleidescape.com

  • You are currently in "Guest" mode and not logged in with a registered account.

    The forum is free to use and most of the forum can be used by guests who are not registered....

    ... but we strongly encourage you to register for a full account. There is no cost to register for a full account.

    Benefits of registering for a full account:

    • Participate in the discussions! You must have a registered account to make posts on the forums. You will be able to start your own thread on a topic or question, or you can reply to other threads/discussions.
    • Use the "Conversation" feature (known as "private messaging" on other forums) to communicate directly with any of the other users here.
    • Access the Files area. The "resources" area of the forum contains many "Favorite Scene" and Script files that can dramatically increase the enjoyment of your Kaleidescape system. Go directly to great scenes in your favorite movies, created by other owners, and add automation to playback of your system with Scripts.
    • You won't see this annoying notice at the top of every screen!😊

    It's easy and free to register for the forum. Just click the "Register" button in the upper right corner of this page, and follow the instructions there.

DVD-CA is trying to put Kaliedescape out of business again by ammending dvd license agreement

Personally, I recommended this system to my father in law and a few other people, all of whom have bought it and love it. They all buy more movies than they had before, and they watch more movies. I am holding off buying one now because I can't afford to spend the money without knowing that either hddvd or bluray will be supported. And that seems to be held up by foot dragging by the content providers.

So what's an amateur DIY'er to do? Build my own illegal ripping system.

A word to the DVD CCA- the technology is out there, the Hard drives are large enough. If you don't let Kaliedescape do it, someone else will, even if it is technically illegal.
 
No one likes to lose at trial. This is obviously a response to that loss and, IMO, ill-advised. I'm not sure what firm is handling the DVD-CCA's legal work, but there is surely some questionable legal advice being thrown around.

The antitrust argument contained in K's response has significant merit and, again IMO, is a winner if litigated.

I noticed that the CCA vote to amend their bylaws was supposed to take place on Wednesday but has been delayed. This is the first smart thing they've done. Unfortunately, the CCA's law firm will likely continue to give advice that allows the "money faucet" to fund even more litigation.

In any case, even if the CCA votes to amend their bylaws, a resolution of the issues involved is a LONG way off. The amendment would be scheduled to go into affect in 2009. In theory, any legal action to enforce the new bylaws (assuming they are enforceable) would take place some time in 2009 (or later) and the response by any Defendant would likely result in prolonged "antitrust" (and other issues) litigation. Any competent trial lawyer could delay the process at least 2-3 years, possibly longer, and in the end prevail on the merits. The CCA must have a lot of "throw away" money!!


Jim
 
cinelife said:
The antitrust argument contained in K's response has significant merit and, again IMO, is a winner if litigated.
Click to expand...

I'm curious about this. Since I don't know much about antitrust law beyond the basics, could you elaborate further? Thanks.

Jeff
 
rgbyhkr said:
I'm curious about this. Since I don't know much about antitrust law beyond the basics, could you elaborate further? Thanks.

Jeff
Click to expand...

Hi Jeff,

It is probably easier just to point you to the main article which discusses the DVD-CCA's move and K's response. (You may have already seen the article over at AVS.) K points to several Supreme Court decisions that address issues similar to the issues presented in their conflict with the CCA. These decisions would favor K's position (assuming they have been properly interpreted and are really applicable).

Jim


www.cepro.com/article/dvd_cca_aims_to_prohibit_dvd_ripping_once_and_for_all/
 
The annoying thing is that this does not bode well for managed copy of blu-ray and HD-DVD. Kaleidescape has about one year tops in my mind to bring out support for these formats before their sales will be impacted. That's based on a guess that within a year, there will be critical mass in the high def formats such that people buying new content won't be able to ignore it.

Hopefully K can do a two-pronged strategy of getting access to HD content to deliver over broadband to their customers to at least put pressure on managed copy.
 
Nothing has really changed in the world of BR/HD-DVD regarding managed copy or licensing and until it does, until there is consensus among the players (read as HD content companies), there is nothing K can do but wait.

K has acknowledged there is a demand for the ability to store BR/HD-DVD among K owners and prospective owners, but they are waiting like the rest of us for the legal right to store this material. As has been noted many times, the servers already have the ability to work with HD material, and the HD readers are obviously available (not sure if they meet K's standards at this point), it is the licensing and encryption standards that are needed.

No one really knows how long this will take. In the meantime, K continues work to improve our experiences with K systems.

Jim
 
Kaleidescape Strategy

Like many others on this list and no doubt off it, I am holding back on buying any HD movies until my Kaleidescape can store them (I no longer have a conventional player and I don't want to buy and install one).

My HD movie collection comes from setting my SKY+ to store movies that are broadcast in HD and watch them. Only room for 5 movies on the SKY+ disk though ... Most of my DVD viewing is in standard definition which is "OK".

On the other hand, I too have decided to avoid adding to my K-Scape system (i.e. no more rooms, avoid buying hard discs) until its clear that K-Scape will handle HD. The option is as others have said to simply copy HD DVD's to a PC based system and watch them on a PC connected to an HD projector or screen. Clunky but it works surprisingly well, although I don't like doing illegal stuff.

Obviously K need to do whatever is right on the legal side, but perhaps they will have considered two other strategies:

(1) Use European Community Competition law.
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/index_en.html
EU law is far more supportive of competition than US law. Specifically Collusion (Art.81) and Abuse of a Dominant Position (Art.82) are targetted right at the sort of behaviour that K-scape is trying to stop. Moreover, the EU commissioners seem keen to support actions that target "bullies".
At a previous company I worked for, Microsoft was trying to enforce a contract make us pay a royalty for software we did not use (they backed down and paid us damages when threatened with EU court action and they also threatened action when we reverse-engineered some of their proprietary technology (RDP+security) to open us access to NT servers. They had to back down when we reminded them of EU law on "abusing a dominant position". Might be an angle here.

(2) Go with [encourage] the flow.
Surely K-scape will(must) soon respond to customer demand to allow the upload of digital video material encoded using H.264 (AVC, MP4), VC-1 (SMPTE 421) etc. We can then transfer our movies (from AVCHD) or media we have bought to our servers.
The "back door" is then open for movies to be copied using PC tools or simply downloaded from wherever onto our K-scapes. Since K-scape makes money by selling hardware and software maintenence fees, the more content the better. Its like Apple and the i-Pod - only about 1-2% of i-Pod content is ever bought for an i-Pod, most of it is simply copied from a CD (as Steve Jobs himself recommends!) you bought some time ago.

Kaleidescape seems to be quite a "secretive" company - avoiding talking about the future and shying away from publicity. Perhaps it will soon be bought by Apple, who knows. It will certainly be aware of the threats to its existence from big consumer brands and from small "movements" and above all from the PC, gaming and internet giants. So the company needs to be prepared to step forward a little more and be prepared to "surf" some trends rather than taking a more navel gazing "follower" attitude if it is to keep its customers happy.
 
Last edited:
The idea of giving HD upload tools isn't a bad one, but there are a few problems with it. As it is now, they will facilitate users wanting to get home video HD content onto their K systems. It's less than desirable having to send things back and forth to K, but it can be done. For them to allow for direct upload of HD content, they'll likely only do it within the context of the solution they eventually implement for importing of commercial HD content. I say this because they have been and assumingly will continue to be very intent on keeping the system a closed loop. By only allowing content import via disc based methods, they can keep the system more secure and thus argue in court that they are doing everything they can to limit the system's use as a pirating tool.

You could separately argue that the system's overall capabilities could be dramatically expanded by allowing content importation over a network, from an external HDD or flash drive, etc. There are more than a few folks who would like the system to support photo content, internet based video content, their existing digital music collections, etc. However, K seems to be standing firmly behind the more narrow use of the system primarily as a disc-based content server. They are interested in downloadable offerings, but I think less than perfect content quality available over download (especially for video) is the major obstacle.

Now, you could say that they should go ahead and support HD-DVD/BR in a playable form, with uploading capabilities included for non-copyrighted material only (such as HD home video content burned to HD-DVD/BR). The question there is what issues may arise when the AACS standard goes final. In other words, will the final AACS agreement that includes MMC make K want to change a few things hardware-wise for better support? That's a headache K surely does not want - rolling out new hardware for basic HD-DVD/BR support that could benefit from being upgraded yet again in order to make best use of MMC.

I also kind of wonder if the industry won't surprise us in the end with a new hardware requirement for MMC compliant ripping. So, we've been told that existing players will be firmware upgradeable for MMC support. But what if they decide that that will only apply for MMC playback support? In other words, due to some of the cracks that have appeared in the protection schemes for both formats, what if the AACS group decides that new hardware will be required in order to rip discs via MMC and that existing hardware will only be able to playback MMC rips (backup discs, etc) after the firmware upgrade. See the distinction there? I could see them doing this to "honor" the upgrade promise for existing units while still taking additional steps to protect themselves. You have to think that one of the major obstacles to getting the final AACS spec ratification is the fear of MMC ripping hardware being used by hackers to pirate content. Perhaps, in order to get all sides to agree, they come up with additional protections and hardware requirements in order for a drive to be an MMC compliant ripper. Sure, it would anger existing consumers, but what else is new? It's clear that the industry as a whole values some things above the wants.needs of consumers, early adopters, etc. It wouldn't surprise me one bit.

There's also the issue of available hardware - specifically HD-DVD/BR/DVD multi readers. They are few and far between and I'm sure K wants to get on board with one they feel comfortable with reliability wise. As time goes on, we'll see more of these with increased read speeds, better reliability, etc. I doubt they want to have to implement a multi-tray design.

It sucks having to wait, but K wants to do this in a way that keeps the user experience consistent. That's how they added music and that's how they want to add HD disc support.

Jeff
 
The thing that amazes me is that BD+ has been ratified, and that is the final standard for encryption that can be applied to a Blu-ray disk. This was supposedly actually holding up releases. Slysoft seems confident that they can break it for anydvd-hd. Keep in mind, they broke the newest version of AACS- the touted fix for the keys being found- before any software hit the streets. It was kind of sad.

So here is what we have now- a system that was designed to keep the most dedicated pirates from copying hd-dvds and blu-ray disks to computer hard drives. This system keeps HD disks off of your K. This system lessens the user experience for legitimate users, but the argument is made that it has to be that way because of the potential piracy problems. Only it does not stop pirates from copying it. An advertised, commercially available program makes it a piece of cake to rip hd disks to a hard drive (anydvd-hd.) And main consumers are not buying the hd disk product because of a format war.

And legitimate users who want the best movie watching experience are being held back from enjoying movies on their Kscape systems. I heard a rumor that these people tend to buy a lot of movies, watch a lot of movies, and tell their friends what technology to buy.

Brilliant, simply brilliant.

IF either of these idiot companies- toshiba or sony really wanted to win this war, they would stop screwing around with aacs because it does not nor will it ever work to stop the truly motivated pirate.

They would lower the price of stand alone players to the $199 price for Walmart by subsidizing the cost of the cheapest player possible.

And- try this one- they would contact K and offer to subsidize the development or some other aspect of the cost of the implementation of the hardware necessary to rip/store/playback hd disks.

Imagine the PR that move would generate. Forums everywhere would be buzzing with enthusiasts who would respect those moves.

And Imagine the instant- and I do mean instant sales force they would have in high-end Kscape-dealing AV shops around the world. Every high-end person who deals K systems would take a side in the format war. They would create an army of highly-trained knowledgeable sales people saying, "Well, the format war used to be ... but (insert Kscape supported format here) is winning hands down. Let me show you this K over here..."

I just don't understand who these idiots have doing their marketing strategies for them. Hit from the top (wealthy enthusiasts- maybe some readers here) and hit from below (Walmart) and meet in the middle.
 
Excellent points guys. My 2 cents is this reeks of the music companies going after their customers.

best regards,
Jerry
 
Kaleidescape seems to be quite a "secretive" company - avoiding talking about the future and shying away from publicity. Perhaps it will soon be bought by Apple, who knows. It will certainly be aware of the threats to its existence from big consumer brands and from small "movements" and above all from the PC, gaming and internet giants. So the company needs to be prepared to step forward a little more and be prepared to "surf" some trends rather than taking a more navel gazing "follower" attitude if it is to keep its customers happy.
Click to expand...

These thoughts are very misguided.

K is not secrective at all. they just choose to talk about what is shipping and what they CAN do. from the beginning they have stated that they plan to do everything they can do to support BD/HD-DVD. and that is what they are doing. THe part everybody keeps missing is that there is nothing to report right now. Would you rather they blow smoke up your wazoo and demo vapourware?

As far as being bought by apple? Where the heck would you get that idea. Talk to the owners at a tradeshow. they are building something that has no quick exit strategy for the ownership.

And last i checked, virtually all their customers rave about the system that does more and is more stable than almost any product in the CE space. Certainly more stable and robust than ANY PC out there.


What everybody hates about them is that they do not go to tradeshows and buy tequila for everybody and do lots of dealer councils and show all the new stuff that it coming. No, they do off the wall crap like announce some new thing that is ready to ship within two weeks and actually ships.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top