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Kaleidescape needs a new hardware offering

jfh

Well-known member
As a brand new K owner but long time follower I am now running an issue all too familiar to those new to the ecosystem - how do I get my years/decades old collection into Kaleidescape? Of course the most common answer is catalog your discs and wait for disc to digital transfer offers. But there’s no reasonable way to do that anymore - every solution seems to rely on begging/borrowing/buying outdated hardware long out of warranty to read and catalog discs, hope that the hardware actually works and then returning/selling the hardware to the next new guy. What an absolutely stupid barrier to adoption.

Kaleidescape Inc needs a low cost (and I mean well under $1k) 4K/BluRay/DVD dedicated “Cataloguer” drive with a LAN connection and perhaps just a basic HDMI port to display operational/status info that does nothing but catalog a disc you put into it. I guess it could be a ‘player’ to preview discs (since it’s going to have to read discs), but it needs no audiophile/videophile features. It needs the most minimum hardware specs (for many it’ll be a throwaway device; an accessory for setting up a new system) and 99% of the software is already developed.

And this would allow cataloging of 4K discs (seemingly not available with existing options).

Yes, I understand the development process and realize this isn’t going to be a mass market $100 player. I’ve got about 2k discs that I spent a lot of time ripping to stick on a NAS to have a Dune/Zappiti/whatever player feed to my system. But after getting a Strato C/Terra I want to throw that all away and go all-in to a (almost discless) K-centric solution.

Why don’t we have this?
 
It certainly would be easier on us supporting dealers that work to keep Cataloging capable components available to our owners (and Forum members) if a device like you described were available. This has been discussed with K many times historically, and although I don't personally have the answer as to why the described "reader" has not been developed, I suspect the simple answer is they have not yet been convinced the business benefit outweighs the cost of adding a reader to their product line.


Jim
 
Your simple answer is almost certainly the correct (and shortsighted) one. The business benefit is a variation on Gillette’s “razor and blades” strategy adopted after their patents expired - develop and expand a loyal user base with a loss-leading product (”razor”: KCataloger) and make money with the profit engine that locks users to your ecosystem (“blades”: content (volume) and K system upgrades).

Your remarkable and generous Alto loaner program highlights shows how impractical and unsalable the current options are. If I read correctly, you started with four players are are down to one and still have a growing waitlist of those wanting to catalog their collections. And all pretty much on your dime. Few, if any other dealers do anything similar and Kaleidescape’s loaner program at $10 per disc cataloged clearly isn’t an option for most people with hundreds or thousands of discs. And it’s going to be even worse for customers new to Kaleidescape in 2024/2025/2026 when the existing cataloging-capable hardware is even further depleted/unavailable/insufficient (no 4K cataloging).

Kaleidescape should want to make their users forget that ripping content to a NAS or streaming from other content providers can be a “good enough” solution. But the longer users don’t convert entirely to the K infrastructure (or the longer it takes them) the less likely they are to do it which decreases demand for content and upgraded systems. And “KCataloger” development wouldn‘t necessarily have to be entirely paid fir by K - the studios/content providers have just as much incentive, if not more, to encourage users on double-dipping for content and encouraging disc to digital conversations which will only increase the odds that future purchases are strictly K ecosystem based.

Not having this hardware is only going to make the barrier of entry problem harder for dealers to overcome.
 
This has been discussed before. Lots of options if K wanted to pursue (drive, Vodu model, etc). As physical discs go away, enthusiasts might go to K if they could better leverage their current physical disc collection by making it easy to catalog. There‘s also groups of people who will never go to K, but likely don’t own any physical discs and stream on their phones. 😆
 
It should be illegal to stream movies to a phone ;)

yeah I’m also bummed about no digital to digital conversion but that’s a different problem.
 
Can't argue with any of that, and agree it would be great to have a solution for attracting more disc based content owners to K, I'm sure they exist out there. Personally, I think it would be a very helpful marketing tool in the pursuit of new business to be able to say "and we have an optional disc reader that confirms your current disc based movie collection and allows us to present digital offers that save you money......" etc..

You did read correctly, I had 4 Alto's and now down to one. I did this on my own, mainly to support my clients, but also to help Members when possible, and the split between them was about 50/50. I'd like to see a better solution, something simple, like a small external optical drive similar to what we use with one of the Apple MacBook's here. I'm not a coding guy, so not sure how much work would be required from a software perspective to make that possible, but the concept is not new to K, they created a KREADER to read and import disc based content for the Premier line back in the early years (still works today).

Jim
 
I agree this is needed. And thank you Jim for continuing this great program!

One simple option for at least 4K disc owners would be to be able to insert the digital code that came with the disc, as I am not aware that any current option (Alto, KREADER) supports beyond blu ray disc.

Being future forward looking, this would become more relevant when 8K material, TV’s, displays etc become more prevalent and standard in the next 5-10 years.

From a physical device perspective, it Could be a software architecture/infrastructure based reader ala MadVR or Trinnov where future updates can simply be pushed out without the need for new hardware other than a potential HDMI board update….this would future proof it for 8K and beyond content as well…
 
Given K has been reluctant (non-responsive) to other customer requests for software enhancements (ZERO software improvements/enhancements announced at CEDIA), I would suggest the chance of them implementing both the necessary hardware and attendant software to accomplish this at exactly zero.
 
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