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New kOS release supports disc cataloging on Strato

MikeKobb

Well-known member
◥ ◣ Kaleidescape, Inc.
Greetings all!

We’ve begun rolling out kOS 10.14.0 to all Strato, Terra, and Alto systems, with some exciting new functionality.

I know that a number of people here will be very happy to hear that we have made disc-to-digital much easier by adding the ability to catalog DVD and Blu-ray discs on Strato using a supported external USB optical drive! It’s a very simple process, and we have a short Knowledge Base Article detailing the exact steps, but the short version is:
  • Buy one of the supported drives
  • Plug it into the USB port on the back of the Strato
  • When it’s connected, the Strato will be in “disc cataloging mode”, with some special front-panel behavior.
  • Stick a disc in the drive.
  • Wait until it is automatically ejected.
  • Repeat.
It’s really that simple. You can monitor the process by watching the browser interface.

We know that the disc-to-digital process has been a pain point for customers and dealers on Strato-only systems, and we sincerely appreciate the efforts that some of our dealers have gone through to make Alto systems available to customers to catalog discs. Jim Goodrich in particular went far above and beyond the call of duty on this.

With this new feature, it should be dramatically easier for new Kaleidescape customers to get their disc library converted over to digital downloads.

There is a list of supported drives in the article. Note that the optical drive can only be used for cataloging discs. It does not support playback or any other functionality.

In addition to the optical drive support, 10.14.0 also includes:
  • Refinements to audio track selection logic
  • HDMI robustness improvements
  • The option to purchase Season Passes through the onscreen movie store
  • Bug fixes
 
Overall, this is a very nice feature and change to the platform. Folks chasing down old hardware just to catalog has been a frustration. Kudos!

It would have been very nice, of course, to see 4K cataloging, but extending the existing capability like this is better than the alternative. I'm glad I never sprung for an expensive used Alto again. I came close a few times.

Can you comment on pricing for the offers?

I have noticed what looks like more standardized and higher pricing on digital offers ($14.99 -> $13.42 and $19.99 -> $15.38/$14.60). Has the pricing model for offers and the deep discounts established some time ago changed in preparation for this new redemption feature?
 
"HDMI robustness improvements" is good too. I have found the K hardware to be finicky at times connecting to different displays and when operating through types of splitters or shared connections. I hope this cleans that up.
 
Since no Kaleidescape component ever supported 4K discs, adding the ability to catalog them would have required substantially more engineering effort to implement across both kOS and our headend services, and we wanted to get this feature released.

HDMI is honestly a game of whack-a-mole, because it's not just about making sure your own product conforms to the spec, it's also about working around the idiosyncrasies of other products, sometimes in cooperation with the companies that make them.

No changes I'm aware of related to Disc to Digital pricing. However, this pricing is very complex for a number of reasons. Some studios offer substantial discounts to owners of physical copies. Some don't. Older titles are often more discounted than new ones. Speaking generally however, we offer the best pricing that we possibly can for Disc to Digital.
 
Greetings all!

We’ve begun rolling out kOS 10.4.0 to all Strato, Terra, and Alto systems, with some exciting new functionality.

I know that a number of people here will be very happy to hear that we have made disc-to-digital much easier by adding the ability to catalog DVD and Blu-ray discs on Strato using a supported external USB optical drive! It’s a very simple process, and we have a short Knowledge Base Article detailing the exact steps, but the short version is:
  • Buy one of the supported drives
  • Plug it into the USB port on the back of the Strato
  • When it’s connected, the Strato will be in “disc cataloging mode”, with some special front-panel behavior.
  • Stick a disc in the drive.
  • Wait until it is automatically ejected.
  • Repeat.
It’s really that simple. You can monitor the process by watching the browser interface.

We know that the disc-to-digital process has been a pain point for customers and dealers on Strato-only systems, and we sincerely appreciate the efforts that some of our dealers have gone through to make Alto systems available to customers to catalog discs. Jim Goodrich in particular went far above and beyond the call of duty on this.

With this new feature, it should be dramatically easier for new Kaleidescape customers to get their disc library converted over to digital downloads.

There is a list of supported drives in the article. Note that the optical drive can only be used for cataloging discs. It does not support playback or any other functionality.

In addition to the optical drive support, 10.4.0 also includes:
  • Refinements to audio track selection logic
  • HDMI robustness improvements
  • The option to purchase Season Passes through the onscreen movie store
  • Bug fixes
Mike do you mean kOS 10.14? I’m very excited about this new feature.
 
Love this @MikeKobb! Not that I'm complaining with how the feature behaves today (very happy with it!), but any chance this feature could be enhanced in the future, to have the drive plugged into the Terra (and maybe even allowed to be left plugged in to it?) instead of a Strato? Or are there additional complexities involved with that since the Terra isn't a player itself?
 
Yeah, I think the challenge there is that there's already support in the player software stack for doing things like reading from optical drives, whereas that is not present at all on the servers.
 
Of course none of my external drives are supported. Ordered a new one to be here tomorrow. I wonder how much the cost of those four models will go up once this news is more widely released.
 
Excellent news Mike!!

The original post mentions alto is in scope but the knowledge base only mentions Strato/ Strato C. Is this new feature compatible with Alto players as well ?
 
Excellent news Mike!!

The original post mentions alto is in scope but the knowledge base only mentions Strato/ Strato C. Is this new feature compatible with Alto players as well ?
Great question. I have an Alto but the drive is a pain in the butt to catalog with. Usually takes 3 or 4 tries of loading the disc to get it to read if at all.
 
Excellent news Mike!!

The original post mentions alto is in scope but the knowledge base only mentions Strato/ Strato C. Is this new feature compatible with Alto players as well ?
Sorry for the confusion. 10.14.0 is released to all of those systems because they are all on the same software architecture. External drives are only supported on Strato players, since Alto already has its own optical drive.
 
Sorry for the confusion. 10.14.0 is released to all of those systems because they are all on the same software architecture. External drives are only supported on Strato players, since Alto already has its own optical drive.
Thanks for clarifying. As @David23 mentioned, alto drives can be temperamental, so shame it’s not compatible. Nevertheless, this release is a huge step forward for d2d.
 
Nice job on the video! Appreciate the positive words.

One thing I'd like to clarify -- the software rollout will, as usual, take a little time to reach all users. It's typically a two-week process. There will be additional customer announcements once all systems have updated, but we wanted to let folks here know as soon as we could because (a) we know many folks here have wanted this, and (b) we know you watch software versions with eagle eyes and would ask what was in it anyway. 😉
 
This is great news! Going to order one of the external drives tonight, How do we get the system to update to the new software. Mine still says 10.13..
 
See my update just above, but let me expand a little bit. With all kOS software updates, we do a "rolling release" rather than updating everybody all at once. This keeps the load on the update servers within reason and also ensures that if there are any issues found we can pause the update and address them without affecting all users. The usual period from start to end is about two weeks, so we'd expect everybody to have it by March 6. The process is automatic and there's really anything you can do to try to get it sooner.
 
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