Hi folks. I'm compiling some information for Kaleidescape, and I'd like to ask people visiting this thread that are either owners or prospective owners to share some feedback. Please take a minute and direct message me (or just post if you like) your answers to the following.
I am an: owner | prospective owner
For owners:
1. The top three things I like about Kaleidescape are...
2. The top three things I want to see changed/improved/fixed about Kaleidescape are...
For prospective owners:
1. The top three things drawing me to consider buying into Kaleidescape are...
2. The top three things I need to see changed/improved/fixed to get me to finally buy into Kaleidescape are...
Edit: Of course if you have less than three things, just share what you have. Extra credit to you if you want to list more than three.
Note: I have cross-posted this as is to AVS Forum as well and many of us migrate between both forums, so please only give a reply once.
Currently a recent owner of a used system (Alto/DV700 combo). My comments are as follows:
1. Ease of use and professionalism of the system. It looks like it belong in a dedicated theater and I enjoy most aspects of the interface, love the ability to have a music concert style session with the ipad app
2. Love the tie into the automation system. We use crestron in our house, and the lights, intermission functions, and child controls are great as we don't have line of sight to the equipment.
3. Ability to purchase movies from my home, and know that I will have a quality download available when I am able to watch with really improved sound quality. I also find the video quality amazingly sharp for the 1080P player and will be grabbing a Strato in the near future as our projector setup supports 4K.
4. I love the fact that through different collections and notifications older movies that I have forgotten about, never bought, or are indeed similar to other titles I had interest in are recommended and this has led to a lot of impulse purchases.
Top things I would like to see changed:
1. There is multiple ways to cut this issue up, whether it be Movies Anywhere or just pure zone player pricing. But as the hardware cost to me is quite extreme for a zone player (Strato-C), and it has been a struggle in our house to justify the next purchase. I am sure I will, but to me having some sort of local in-house streaming via an Apple TV app to other areas in the household would make us go full in and probably just grab a Terra. The reason I purchased a DV700 instead of a Strato, is that we always buy our children's movies on the Bluray/DVD + digital combo so that we have the most flexibility around the multiple TVs, Ipads in the house. I would be making all the purchased on KScape if I had access to these through other more economical options. MA is obviously something I would love having 100+ movies on it from pre-Kscape purchases, but that to me is not the only option.
2. The overall price increases over the past year have also stopped myself from adding the Strato in the short tem that I intended on purchasing local through my HT dealer. Most likely will grab a used one now, but hate the fact that I can't access my DV 700 currently with it (which will get to my 3rd area of improvement). It is also concerning that with a shift to cheaper hardware across the board and an all-digital store that the hardware has seen two price increases in the past year. Logic to me would dictate that they should be trying to drive store sales, and although I know a lot on this forum probably exceeded this, but our family has purchased about 120 movies since November.
3. Disc-to-digital pricing - I would have never bought the DV700 had there been decent digital to disc pricing for all the supported stuidos. We do have some movies of course that aren't available on the store, but for us we could have lived with that. Our issues is that we have almost 100 kids movies on blu-ray, with the majority getting the disney disc-to-digital pricing of 38 Canadian. I know this may not be a KScape issue, but I do find it difficult to see constant Itunes/Google play sales weekly when the alternative on KScape is 38 CAD. It's not apples-to-apples obviously, but some movies are just fine on the ATV.
4. Advanced Codes - no need to drill on this one as it is talked about ad nausea.
In general, I think there are two things that concern me in that streaming will continue to improve and the hope for long-term success of KScape should be on getting dedicated platform users increased while still providing the premium product they have. The price moves on the Strato suggest to me that this is truly going to an "elite of the elite" style system and that is a bit of a shame and could prevent the company from surviving long term. Perpetual revenue is important, and I would have thought the shift to a digital store would mean a focus on movie sales instead of hardware.
Secondly, the other part I find difficult is lack of communication, roadmap, etc... I know that companies avoid this as it sets expectations and customers get upset. But you have to also balance that with how many customers you are losing because there is limited information on the platform and the past issues are still remembered by dealers.
Hopefully we get some clarity on some of the consistent points raised on this forum. I really want KScape to be around in 20 years and for my entire movie collection to remain in that ecosystem.