I think we are just looking at it from different perspectives. You are saying the disc based format K is using today is the highest form, most reference quality. I agree. I'm just saying, "for now".
BUT- a few thoughts:
a. That statement is true for now. MOST don't care- and thats where the big money resides. This will push the streaming services into other territories. As we are seeing in every market, there is the high end luxury market and there is the low end budget market- with little in the middle. This ends with services like Amazon offering UHD and master audio or whatever you want to offer it. And it will happen. Its a matter of time. Tidal is now offering MQA. I haven't gotten into streaming audio, simply because Im happy with what I have, but other friends tell me there are high res options out there that are really amazing. Premium services are in their infancy. I think they will grow.
b. You seem to think theres some kind of physical barrier preventing these services. Its simply a question of money. There is not much stopping these services from delivering the bits. Its just a question of compression, bitrate, and the pipes. Both are improving all the time. I remember several years ago it was almost unfathomable to stream HD video. Today its no problem. You can relatively watch a 4K video on YouTube. Netflix and Amazon offer some UHD and some HDR. Is it the same quality as off a UHD disc or our K system? Not yet. But it will come. I know you are hung up on the full audio, if the market clamors for it, they will offer it. The problem we face is the market might not clamor for it, but there might not be enough of us to keep Kaleidescape afloat. However, this is not a feasibility problem, its simply a problem of market demand.
c. I believe the UHD disks can go up to 120mbps while K is limited to 100- so someone could argue we are not getting the full playback on the Encore system. Just something too consider when Amazon or Netflix does 120mbps playback.
Some thoughts on HDR- Ive spent a bit of time looking at it and I find most "HDR" displays really can't display HDR properly. Its a problem. The only displays I know of that can really show HDR well are OLED. And then, in normally lit rooms, many people complain the picture looks a bit dull. The industry is suffering from an alphabet soup problem. I mean you have 4K, which is technically different from UHD, but most use interchangeably, and then you have HDR, SDR, WCG, etc. A problem. Most people just want to sit down and enjoy the latest and greatest and "4K" rolls off the tongue better than the rest of this nonsense.
You said: "You CAN download both but why would you? If you have a 4K display, then why would you want to download the non-4K version?" So, unfortunately you misunderstood my statement. I said "My understanding is if you have both HDR and SDR displays in your system then the K system will give you options to download either. And I think the idea is you would down load both. Which, if I am correct, is really crazy that the Strato cannot do what the Oppo can re: converting HDR-SDR. I wonder how good the conversion is. If I am right then you are downloading perhaps 3 versions of the same movie: 1- HD for Premiere system; 2 SDR UHD; 3- HDR UHD... that's crazy! (I hope to be wrong!)"
Please note I said HDR and SDR, both flavors of UHD. The problem is the Encore hardware does not convert HDR to SDR. Im not sure why it can't, when Oppo can do this for so much less cost. But the point remains, if you were to download only the HDR version of content and then tried to play it back on a non HDR capable device, it would not work. Firstly the EDID wouldn't allow it, and secondly, the dynamic range of the image would be far too wide for the display. Hence, and I could be wrong, but as I understand it, the Encore system will download both versions. Unless I am wrong or missing some information, this just seems silly to me.
I think you took my response as meaning you would download both a UHD copy (of which there are sometimes 2 varieties- HDR/ SDR) and a HD copy. This would not be necessary for the Encore hardware since it can downscale UHD to HD. And I think you can buy the same HD content for the Encore system. So this would be fine if you are starting from scratch. However, for those with Premiere systems it could still be beneficial to do just this, and the K store will do it for you- you just tell it you want both the UHD and HD versions.
There are two reasons I can think of for the above:
a. You are running both systems side by side and the only way to display all the content currently would be to have HD duplicates on the Premiere system. The user has to remember what resides on which system. If you have people in the house who simply just want to watch a movie and pick from all the movies in the system, then you need to have a unified list of content and (until it changes) that would be on the Premiere system. I think this is a growing problem with Kaleidescape's Encore line for those who own Premiere systems. Its one thing to remember a few UHD movies as curiosities on another system, but as you build the UHD collection, you might forget. I hope Kaleidescape is working on this.
b. Unlikely, but you have a distributed video system where some displays which cannot play UHD/4K content, they require 1080P and for whatever reason you don't have the ability to downscale from 4K to 1080P. I think in this instance you'd find the distributed video system can do the downscaling for you but its still something that comes to mind as a possibility.
So, sorry for the confusion. You are right that as of right now Kaleidescape is the way to go if the small differences matter to you. That's why I'm still a Kaleidescape user and owner. But I can see my kids and wife don't use the system nearly as much as they used to. They watch things on their phones.
I'm simply pointing out things K should do to improve the experience, which I think are very important for Kaleidescape to stay relevant in the high end, especially since I see the future holds powerful storm clouds.
