Kaleidescape now charging to scan unrecognized discs

[digitalvd]

So I then K will sell the components much cheaper now? The high end prices are often argumented with the good service for customers. If I have to pay the service now they can sell a 3U server for the price of the hardware plus a software development.

Patrick

 

[sbutter]

It would be nice to have a list of available titles by UPC that are correctly bookmarked.
The Iron Man Special Edition BluRay was not bookmarked, however, the regular Iron Man was bookmarked. If I had known, I would have just bought the bookmarked version.

Checking my version of Life of Pi, it is bookmarked and bet Mark H owns a different UPC for the same movie.

 

[cinelife]

It would be nice to have a list of available titles by UPC that are correctly bookmarked.
The Iron Man Special Edition BluRay was not bookmarked, however, the regular Iron Man was bookmarked. If I had known, I would have just bought the bookmarked version.

Checking my version of Life of Pi, it is bookmarked and bet Mark H owns a different UPC for the same movie.

Multiple pressings of the same movie, often resulting in multiple UPC's, is yet another complication for the bookmarking process. K attempts to bookmark popular films immediately upon release, which is great, but then has to find the time to revisit additional editions with different UPC's when new versions are released, and that's a lot of work.


Jim

 

[Pio435]

Well, while reading this posts there is one question coming up: all are talking about bookmarking. In my point of view there are to ways k is doing this:

- Full bookmaring with scenes, beginning, end an maskinformation
- Providing moviedata to make sure, correct movie Infos and covers are shown in the gui

First Point ist really expensiv process while second should be easy. For me K should Change bookmarking only for begin, end (credit rols) and maskinformation. This makes sure, all users have the full service of K. When somebody don't want to bookmark scnenes himself, the take service of loan-programm an pay for it. All ohters can create the scenes themeself!

But at the moment I have the impression off beeing a little bit alone in using this Bookmarks/Information for fully intergrated controlsystem of lights and automatic mask in my cinema ... no body else there also happy to have this feature?

 

[Yetis]

Seeing how upset and disruptive this could be to K, it seems like K would be well suited to A) Provide a list of movies with UPC codes, that K has bookmarked. Maybe this alone could save a lot of heartache. B) Provide basic software tools that allow owners to do their own basic bookmarking. Both don't seem all that difficult.

 

[cinelife]

...................... B) Provide basic software tools that allow owners to do their own basic bookmarking. Both don't seem all that difficult.

Might not be difficult, don't know, but might not be legal (meaning not sure what we end-users are permitted to access on a disc). Still, a cool idea if it were possible.



Jim

 

[JohnJ]

Obscure titles OK but is Life of Pi on BluRay obscure or much of the BBC's worldwide output? I think not but they are generally not bookmarked and now months after release Life of Pi is still un-bookmarked as is a lot of my BBC disks.

Have you checked with K support on this? On major releases that I have had problems with, K has always fixed it without me having to send in my discs. There have even been some where they thought that they should have already had it and went out and obtained on their own.

From the sound of the response from K on this forum it sounds like this activity will still be supported.

John

 

[Mark H]

I suppose I can ask especially as in Europe after end Nov K are pitching their product as a BluRay server. I currently have 16 BluRay disks (20%) of my small BluRay collection) that need bookmarking (all purchased from Amazon) so as to have the play movie option available and only 2 of these are unrecognised.

 

[bdo21]

I am considering buying a kaleidescape system and the recent changes are certainly making me consider my decision again. For bookmarking, I had two questions I hope someone can clarify:

1) Does each individual version of a movie need to be separately bookmarked? I am in the UK so buy region 2/B DVDs/blurays and I assume most of the discs bookmarked by kaleidescape are from region 1/A - does this matter? Would I sill benefit from the bookmarking if the discs are otherwise identical? Most of my movies are mainstream so hopefully they would be covered

2) What exactly does bookmarking cover? Providing I get the cover art with some basic movie information and the ability to play the movie immediately without the trailers, this is all I need - does this require a disc to be bookmarked?

Thanks

 

[Mark H]

To answer:-

1. Yes each disk / disk set needs to be bookmarked - I am also in Europe and buy a lot of UK titles and most are OK but there are getting more and more missing bookmarks. (I have posted a list below of titles I have that are not bookmarked which is small compared to the 3800 bookmarked titles on my server). What surprises me is when mainstream BluRay titles are not bookmarked even months after release, the same goes for major drama series output from UK TV.

2. It allows the option to play film, or episode if part of a set without the need to have all warnings and advertising. There may also be scenes or songs in a concert bookmarked so you can play scene or song.

So yes we all need bookmarking to enjoy the basics of play film or episode.

Given the new $10 per disk charge the list below means a spend of around $1300 to get one of the basic K features available

Blu-Ray Titles missing bookmarks

21 Days: The Heineken Kidnapping
Arbitrage
Borgen (Series 1)
Borgen (Series 2)
Byzantium
Chloe
False Trail
A Hijacking
The Hunt
Jackpot
J?garna
The Paperboy
The Railway Man
Trance
Vares: Pahan suudema
Walkabout

DVD Titles missing bookmarks

The 7.39
37 Days
Annika Bengtzon: Crime Reporter ? (Episode 1) Nobel's Last Will
Annika Bengtzon: Crime Reporter ? (Episode 2) Prime Time
Annika Bengtzon: Crime Reporter ? (Episode 3) Studio 69
Blondie: Panic of Girls
Braquo (Season 2)
Breathless
The Crimson Field
Dates (Series 1)
Dead Head
Death in Paradise (Series 2)
Fallen Angel
The Fear
Florence + The Machine: MTV Unplugged
From There To Here
George Gently (Series 5)
George Gently (Series 6)
Happy Valley (Disk 1)
Happy Valley (Disk 2)
The Indian Doctor (Series 2)
The Indian Doctor (Series 3)
The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries (Complete Collection)
Jack Taylor (Collection 1)
The Jury
The Last Contract
Lewis (Series 7)
Lie to Me (Season 1)
Line of Duty (Series 1)
Line of Duty (Series 2)
Lucan
The Men's Room
The Old Grey Whistle Test (Vol. 2)
The Poison Tree
The Politician's Husband
Prey
Quirke
Rebecca
Ripper Street (Series 1)
Run
Salamander (Season 1)
Sebastian Bergman (Series 1, Parts 1 & 2)
Sensitive Skin (Series 1)
Sensitive Skin (Series 2)
Silent Witness (Series 15 & 16)
Strike Back (Series 4): Shadow Warfare
Those Who Kill
Torn
The Tube (Series 1)
The Tunnel
Van Veeteren Films (Vol. 1)
Van Veeteren Films (Vol. 2)
Vera (Series 4)
A Very British Coup
Wallander (Original Films 1-6)
Wallander (Vol. 21 to 26)
Yasmin

 

[bdo21]

Thank you. What happens when a disk has not been bookmarked? Can it be imported but with no cover art? Does it play the whole disc, including trailers and menus? Thanks

 

[Mark H]

Yes it can be imported.

If the disk is unrecognized then the system asks you to add the barcode and generally within a few days the artwork and description is added automatically but not the bookmarks.

You can add your own artwork and description etc if you like.

Yes it plays just like a regular disk does in any DVD player

 

[Peter Nielsen]

With this change, I sure hope Kaleidescape is going to let us users add aspect ratio information ourselves. If a movie (or in my case - usually a music video) is not bookmarked, it will show up with BLACK BARS ON ALL 4 SIDES on my 2.35 Cinescope screen. Bookmarked movies have the aspect ratio programmed and the Kaleidescape player will zoom away the black bars (so that they never appear on all 4 sides - 2 sides sometimes, inevitably, of course).

Since I use my Kaleidescape player in Cinescope mode, I cannot use my projector to zoom (it does not have a zoom compatible with Kscape Cinescope mode). I could purchase an external scaler that does the job, but after investing this much in a 3U Kscape system, why would I want to spend that money and add an extra device in the chain that normally is not needed? IMHO if they no longer can bookmark for free, they should at least give us consumers a way to do aspect ratio bookmarking ourselves - or at the very least add a zoom function to the Kplayer! Right now, I think this is one of the biggest flaws with the Kaleidescape system.

 

[cinelife]

...............IMHO if they no longer can bookmark for free, they should at least give us consumers a way to do aspect ratio bookmarking ourselves - or at the very least add a zoom function to the Kplayer!...................

Just to be clear, K is NOT charging a fee to bookmark ALL discs. K will continue to supply bookmarks for movies they are entering into the database, i.e. new releases, K-Store, etc.. They are only charging a bookmarking fee for discs sent to them by owners, most/many of which are not mainstream titles, and not likely to be used by others. The reasoning for the fee has already been mentioned in other posts.


Jim

 

[Peter Nielsen]

Just to be clear, K is NOT charging a fee to bookmark ALL discs. K will continue to supply bookmarks for movies they are entering into the database, i.e. new releases, K-Store, etc.. They are only charging a bookmarking fee for discs sent to them by owners, most/many of which are not mainstream titles, and not likely to be used by others. The reasoning for the fee has already been mentioned in other posts.


Jim

Of course, but 200 of my 1400 titles were not bookmarked. I have dozens of music videos that appear as a "small rectangle" in the middle of the screen with black bars on all 4 sides (2.35 material letterboxed to 4:3 [DVD native] without reverse processing done by the Kplayer because of missing bookmark/aspect info. To put it in other words: 68% of the screen area is occupied by black bars ). Will I have to pay Kscape $10 to get a disc with just one music video bookmarked so that it displays correctly??!!! Come on! At least the player should offer a zoom function that can be used in situations like this when a disc is not bookmarked.

I complained about this to Kaleidescape and asked for a zoom function. Their answer was that I need to send in the disc for processing. I guess I now will have to spend a lot on a good video processor that lets me do the zooming for future material that is missing aspect info. MADNESS!

Fortunately I got the appointment for my discs before the $10/disc fee

 

[Peter Nielsen]

What makes the $10 fee so annoying is that Kaleidescape does not give the customer THE OPTION to bookmark his own collection.

Essentially they're saying, give us $10/disc and let us fix the problem. We're not going to let you fix it yourself, not even on your own collection! That just plain out sucks!

I sure can understand the $10/disc processing fee. However, forcing us to use this service as the only option is unacceptable IMHO. I hope they address this issue and provide us customers with the bookmarking tools needed to maintain our own movie collection.

 

[Mark H]

Mainstream - Not necessarily the bookmarking criteria it would seem

I think it is all about your definition of 'mainstream titles'. I appreciate many of my list that I posted earlier may not make that list in the US (some did and are still missing bookmarks whilst others had larger audiences in Europe than bookmarked US titles and are also missing said bookmarks). There is also often no logic as Series 1 my be un-bookmarked whereas the rest are or Series 1, 2, 3 and 5 are bookmarked but not Series 4.

Remember K systems are generally at least 50% more expensive here than the US and the UK store by the new CEO's own admission is not a priority for the present so I think we should be offered a solution of free processing for 'mainstream titles' at least until we can add them ourselves to our databases like we can with artwork etc.

 

[cinelife]

Fair point Mark, and I agree that mainstream is overly broad and may be different depending on the country. Poor choice of a word on my part.

I guess my only point is that there are a lot of movies that get released each week, and given the limited resources available, judgments have to be made on which discs will be bookmarked. They cannot bookmark them all, and they cannot bookmark a disc not in their possession (meaning they initially get access to a single pressing of a movie, not all versions released anywhere in the world). If additional resources are needed to keep up with requests from owners, then there must be a financial offset somewhere in the process to pay for that support. That's just sound financial management, which I would expect from any successful company.

For those that think K instituted this new fee to increase profit, that is just not correct. Even with the new fee, K is still not being fully compensated for the actual cost of providing the service, but it does help offset those costs.




Jim

 

[Drhemi]

I do understand the need to recoup some costs, but $10 per disc doesn't seem fair or reasonable. For a single disc movie, great, $10 is likely worthwhile. For a TV series with 2, 3, 4 or more discs, paying per disc is just not reasonable. In many cases we may be doubling or even tripling the original purchase cost. Again, I do realize it is labor intensive, but how about something a little more consumer-friendly for those of us who have already committed a lot to K. Maybe something in the range of $10 per movie and $20 per multi-disc set (movies or TV). Just make sure you don't send in discs you don't want bookmarked (such as supplements, DVD versions of a blu-ray, etc.) if you want the single disc price. Much of this will be ironed out if the K. store ever really expands, especially for those of us not in the USA.

Respectfully,

Wayne

 

[JohnJ]

Of course, but 200 of my 1400 titles were not bookmarked. I have dozens of music videos that appear as a "small rectangle" in the middle of the screen with black bars on all 4 sides (2.35 material letterboxed to 4:3 [DVD native] without reverse processing done by the Kplayer because of missing bookmark/aspect info. To put it in other words: 68% of the screen area is occupied by black bars ). Will I have to pay Kscape $10 to get a disc with just one music video bookmarked so that it displays correctly??!!! Come on! At least the player should offer a zoom function that can be used in situations like this when a disc is not bookmarked.

I complained about this to Kaleidescape and asked for a zoom function. Their answer was that I need to send in the disc for processing. I guess I now will have to spend a lot on a good video processor that lets me do the zooming for future material that is missing aspect info. MADNESS!

Fortunately I got the appointment for my discs before the $10/disc fee

I am not sure I understand the part about having to watch with 4 black bars. Can't you just go in to the browser and change the video string manually so it shows correctly on your screen. Am I missing something on this? I realize that this would not be optimal and would bug me whenever I had to do it but it is a work around the same as a zone would be on the kplayer.

I don't use the aspect ratio myself so I could be wrong on this.

John