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NEWS: Mike Malcom on download service for Kaleidescape

A really nice interview- thanks for sharing Josh.

Some reactions I have- just for the sake of discussion.

I think one thing that has had to be in K's favor is many customers- not all- but many- are probably in the higher income segments and these people have tended to fare better than others during these difficult economic times. I'm not trying to belittle anyone's pain and suffering, we've all felt it, but the point is its nice to be playing in a market place where people can still afford the product and that is helped along by bringing prices down. $5k for the basic system is far too much for somebut its a relative bargain to others.

Great point about being able to just watch the movie and not get bogged down with all the junk at the beginning. Thats a huge part of the experience for us- and I can tell you guys with the vault in place, in my system, when I select play movie from a BR it begins in 6-7 seconds- no matter where in my house. Thats darn impressive.

I agree Mr. Malcolm's answer about downloads and streaming- especially wanting to own the content.

Sounds like they want to expand the ownerbase with the Cinema One and then somehow bring BR to these owners in the future. Sounds good.

My 2 cents. Kaleidescape is the only server company Im aware of that lets you legitimately store your purchased content on a server and then play it back- and the vault is a very cleaver way to keep within the tighter rules setup by the BR association. Well done.
 
The issue that they may/will face is that should they bring Blu-Ray to the Cinema One they will have to find a way to NOT eat into the sale of their 3U/M500/MDV sales unless, and of course, they figure that these will serve two different market niches...
 
I think the way around that is they wont be doing that for some time. By that time all of us big mama server owners will be all loaded up with K gear and probably on to the next thing. 4k? 3D? 3D 4K? PDQ? ;)
 
JerryL said:
I think the way around that is they wont be doing that for some time. By that time all of us big mama server owners will be all loaded up with K gear and probably on to the next thing. 4k? 3D? 3D 4K? PDQ? ;)
Click to expand...

Makes sense...so, in a nut shell, the Cinema One will be "One generation behind" which today means DVD capable but not Blu-ray capable...
 
Joelc said:
Makes sense...so, in a nut shell, the Cinema One will be "One generation behind" which today means DVD capable but not Blu-ray capable...
Click to expand...


It can be looked at that way (a generation behind), but the limitation is intentional because of the limited storage capacity. It would not make sense to store BR in a 1.5Tb system, so the C1 is aimed at the DVD/CD only market.


Jim
 
cinelife said:
It can be looked at that way (a generation behind), but the limitation is intentional because of the limited storage capacity. It would not make sense to store BR in a 1.5Tb system, so the C1 is aimed at the DVD/CD only market.


Jim
Click to expand...

But for two things...

1. AS I have no experience with the C1 are the multiple drives hot swappable because to the extent that they are...

2. With the advent of 4TB+ hard drives there may / may not be a hard drive limitation...

But, then again, you are probably right...


Joel

2.
 
Joelc said:
But for two things...

1. AS I have no experience with the C1 are the multiple drives hot swappable because to the extent that they are...

2. With the advent of 4TB+ hard drives there may / may not be a hard drive limitation...

But, then again, you are probably right...


Joel

2.
Click to expand...



To be clear on the term, "Hot swap" to us means having a hot spare (blank disk) in the Server waiting to be automatically used in the event a drive fails. The C1 does not have a "hot spare." The drives however "could" be replaceable if larger drives become available for the C1 (no plans that I'm aware of, but I wouldn't necessarily be aware even if there were plans:)).

A couple of issues I see with larger drives for the C1:

1. The potential impact on 1U sales (if that matters to K) and,

2. Possibly more importantly, the affect on pricing for the C1 which is intentionally priced aggressively (for K) to reach a lower-end market. I assume larger drives (especially in the 3-4TB range) would raise the price significantly. There is of course the argument that larger drives would allow for BR functionality (your point:)) and perhaps make the C1 more appealing to the market.


Jim
 
There are already 1TB drives in the 2.5" size for the Cinema One. None of them have been approved by Kaleidescape yet but when they are, that is suddenly going to give them 75 BluRays worth of storage. That may not be much, but maybe if you look at it like 40 BluRays, 150 DVDs and 350 CDs then it sounds a little more like a viable server for people in that price point.
 
Good points Mike, and I think moving to 1TB would be a good thing, and perhaps not have the impact on 1U's that I mentioned.


Jim
 
A C1 containing 1TB drives with BR and M Class architecture would be a great one box solution which would give a reasonable amount of storage and the full K experience.

A 3U server with 4TB drives would provide enough storage for many owners with substantial BR/DVD/CD collections without having to purchase an additional server.

Having 4TB drives in the server based systems would then give the same storage ratio as at present between 2TB and 500MB drives.

I recently received some movies and TV programmes as Christmas gifts. All BR not a single DVD. I am only importing selectively until drive sizes increase. Hopefully I will not have too wait to long.
 
JDS said:
..........I am only importing selectively until drive sizes increase. Hopefully I will not have too wait to long.
Click to expand...


It certainly will be helpful, especially for those with large BR collections. I assume we will see these one day, but unfortunately I'm still not aware of any large enterprise level drive releases from the major suppliers and until they do release larger drives K has nothing to work with (test for reliability). It could be faster, but prior experience indicates 4 -6 months at a minimum after K gets these new drives. My bet is on late in the year, if this year at all.

Complicating the planning for owners, K does not discuss upcoming releases, including larger drives (the only exception being related to the BR launch, and that was somewhat "forced" given all the press that was generated).

(Hope I'm wrong!!)

Jim
 
Unfortunately I think you are correct and it will be next year before 4TB drives arrive. Luckily I have enough space for DVD and CD importing until then. I will just be selective with regard to BR imports.

According to K the IDV will hold 320 BR discs at present that's about 50% of the capacity of a full 3U server with 2TB drives. I am hoping a single IDV will be sufficient for my BR needs for several years at least. I will need the extra capacity of larger drives, but it is no great hardship to wait until they arrive.
 
JDS said:
.........According to K the IDV will hold 320 BR discs........
Click to expand...


I've seen this number quoted a couple of times in recent posts, unless I missed something (very possible), the info we dealers received indicates the IDV stores 300 BR discs. Not a big deal, assuming that 300 is the correct number, but want to be accurate either way.


Jim
 
I got the IDV capacity of 320 direct from the FAQ section of the K website as quoted below.

"The Integrated Disc Vault is a new Kaleidescape component that can hold 320 Blu-ray Discs."

I thought that 300 was the original capacity. Has it changed ?
 
JDS said:
I got the IDV capacity of 320 direct from the FAQ section of the K website as quoted below.

"The Integrated Disc Vault is a new Kaleidescape component that can hold 320 Blu-ray Discs."

I thought that 300 was the original capacity. Has it changed ?
Click to expand...


You are correct. The FAQ does indeed indicate 320, which explains why a few others have been using that number. I'll go with that. I like it better!!:D

The original info release from K to Dealers indicated 300. Given that the FAQ is usually put together at some point after a news release, I'll assume the 320 is a corrected number from 300. All good!

(Thanks for pointing that out. K regularly updates the FAQ and I obviously missed that additional info.:))


Jim
 
I was using the 320 for the same reason- its on the Mothership's FAQ.

In my case I have easily over 600 physical BR discs- but many are TV shows that were given as gifts (Lost etc). My current import strategy should keep me a tad under 300 by avoiding some lesser movies that were gifts that I dont care about and also avoiding TV series which are multi discs- perhaps with the exception of Band of Brothers.
 
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