Guys, i have been thinking long and hard about this... long and hard...
The majority of the titles we play are available in the store. There are a few GLARING omissions- Star Wars episode 4, the James Bond titles, every single Beavis and Butthead title *just search for "Beavis- trust me they aren't there)...
When you think about it, the path forward isn't as bad as it seems. Sure, the Premiere line is dead if we want 4K. But really, the cost of a new player was going to be a few thousand dollars anyway. Instead- a few thousand dollars and we get 4K in the form of a player and server in one that can download 4K movies, up to 100 of them in fact. A Stratos with a hard drive that can store 100 4K films is $4,500. And it can store and play any movie from the Kaleidescape store.
For those titles we own that the store does not have, we put them in a disk changer and they play from there. It takes some more time for the disk to load, but we still get the K experience. And each day that goes by, more and more titles are added to the store, meaning fewer and fewer chances of a disk access delay if we want to buy or upgrade to the store-sourced copies.
Granted- it infuriates me that I cannot download James Bond movies, Star Wars episode 4, any of the Beavis and Butthead titles, a whole host of nature shows,.. but the more extensive the store becomes the fewer and fewer disk slots I will need to use.
Think of it this way- you go through your premiere system and pay all the "disk to digital" charges and remove all the disks that you do not need anymore. One day you get a nice 4K tv and add a Stratos player. It fires up and starts downloading all the titles you bought in the K store. As long as your speeds are not so slow as to be impossible, eventually your titles are on there. And then you start to watch your viewing habits. One day, you realize you are sick of switching your systems and decide it is time to pull the plug on the premiere system- you simply group your vault or vaults away from the premiere system, in with the Stratos player and now you have your collection, just with a delay in accessing the old stuff. Chances are you were accessing the old stuff less and less often anyway...
Because eventually, I know K will find a way to get all the episode compilations and the movie of Beavis and Butthead in to the store... they will not rest until that happens because they have to. Their survival as a company depends on it.
K has definitely done something that will either make or break it as a company. The 4K standard is likely the final standard that anyone will care about buying. We have lossless audio and Atmos, what more is there? 8K? What kind of an anal-retentive nerd would want 8K?...
So the problem that K now faces is the inevitable competition from EVERYONE else. Literally everyone- Apple, Amazon, Netflix, anyone who wants to sell a movie through the internet will be coming on if 4K is going to be a downloadable product. So they have to differentiate by interface, experience, etc. They have to be that extra 5% that a true enthusiast with money to spend will care about. Personally, the experience of switching between movies without a delay with DVD quality was enough for me to get on board. But with 4K it will be different- there is no disk-swapping inconvenience that K has overcome that they can market as a benefit. So that's where the store's completeness really makes or breaks this new Encore system- you can't sell "everything but James Bond" or "90% of what is out there" when you have a $200 Apple TV nipping at your heels.
In fact, what would actually be really cool is if K went nuclear on getting a complete movie store- all titles all the time. Think about it- if K could position themselves as having the best store in terms of both completeness and quality, its a win for everyone. Obscure titles, foreign titles, cartoons along with the latest titles. Setup in such a way that a salesperson can sell "The Kaleidescape store is the most complete, most extensive media store available- better than the shelves at Best buy, better than iTunes- simply the best.
The way I see it, K has not only introduced the Encore systems, but they have doubled-down on the strength of their store. They have forced themselves to expand it to the point where everything is available in their store. They are positioning themselves to be the top-end movie player system that no longer imports disks- so they better have top-end content. And if they do have every title, then we don't need our premiere systems... and that includes Beavis and Butthead. (You listening K?)