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New Year 2019 Top 3 Requests

TrackZ

Well-known member
Here's hoping K has a bright 2019 ahead of them (and us). To foster some dialog and feedback, what are the top 3 things you would like to see from K in 2019.

Mine are:

1. Movies Anywhere.
2. MGM movies in the store (Bond is in 4k on iTunes...)
3. Anime in the store (disc quality content from Studio Ghibli, Gkids, Funimation, and others)
 
1. Full immersive audio for those titles that have it on disc. Not buying any more hardware or software until this is resolved.
2. MA
3. More content and better pricing
 
1) fix the damn TV series UI - consolidate all seasons into one title, like iTunes, Amazon, Netflix and pretty much every TV UI that has ever existed. I use Kaleidescape less and less as my percentage of TV watching has increased because of this horrible UI choice.

2) Stream from Kaleidescape server (premier or strato) to iPad, in home at a minimum, but ideally out-of-home as well. (yeah, i know this isn't going to happen, but we can dream.)

3) HDMI CEC support - why can't I use the iPad to pick a movie and the system turns on and switches TV and Controller to proper inputs? AppleTV does this well... as soon as I airplay something from my iPhone, everything turns on and inputs are selected properly to display the content.
 
Mine are:

1. Movies Anywhere.
2. MGM movies in the store (Bond is in 4k on iTunes...)
3. Anime in the store (disc quality content from Studio Ghibli, Gkids, Funimation, and others)

I'd agree with your list. The other day, my kid asked to watch Ponyo, and I've also been wanting to introduce him to My Neighbor Totoro among others. Since they're not available on there or to stream ANYWHERE, I had to dig up the discs and blow the dust of them. Haha. I own a bunch of Ghibli stuff, but would happily double-dip if they brought them to the K store. Probably tough since Disney owns the rights now, BUT it may also make it easier since it seems that Kaleidescape already seems to have a pretty good relationship with Disney overall.

Also agreed that a lack of Bond is pretty big. Would love to see MGM come into the fold!

We've seen the K store progress a LOT over the last few years, so I'm confident that 2019 will be a great year for all of us as they continue to gain traction.
 
I'd agree with your list. The other day, my kid asked to watch Ponyo, and I've also been wanting to introduce him to My Neighbor Totoro among others. Since they're not available on there or to stream ANYWHERE, I had to dig up the discs and blow the dust of them. Haha. I own a bunch of Ghibli stuff, but would happily double-dip if they brought them to the K store. Probably tough since Disney owns the rights now, BUT it may also make it easier since it seems that Kaleidescape already seems to have a pretty good relationship with Disney overall.

Also agreed that a lack of Bond is pretty big. Would love to see MGM come into the fold!

We've seen the K store progress a LOT over the last few years, so I'm confident that 2019 will be a great year for all of us as they continue to gain traction.


Yeah, it's crazy the Ghibli movies are not available anywhere digitally. Although, publishing rights changed from Disney to Gkids last year. Gkids has been re-issuing new Blu-rays for most of them. I'd love the full stack of Gkids films to be on K. They have a few (via Universal), but only a handful.
 
Yeah, it's crazy the Ghibli movies are not available anywhere digitally. Although, publishing rights changed from Disney to Gkids last year. Gkids has been re-issuing new Blu-rays for most of them. I'd love the full stack of Gkids films to be on K. They have a few (via Universal), but only a handful.

Well, I'll be. I had no idea! https://kotaku.com/gkids-takes-over-u-s-studio-ghibli-distribution-from-d-1797730952

Well, in that case, hopefully Gkids will be easy enough for Kaleidescape to acquire the rights from!
 
1: The ability to add more than one title to a cover (i.e boxsets / double disc episodes/ CD's).

2: Get off your rear and at least update unrecognised Blu-Rays as you have the blue banner it means we can't do this ourselves!

3: Stop ignoring these requests! I am reluctant to upgrade to your 4K system if you allow your original customers to be left with a substandard system like you seem to have done.
 
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As to your #3, they are not ignoring owner's requests. Every comment is noted, and those that have merit are evaluated based on timing, assets, and priorities. That's the way K has always functioned, doubt it will change.

Many of us have begged for the ability to play our 3D movies (some of us have hundreds) but to no avail, just not a priority. (Perhaps because the Store is the focus, not sure.)


Jim
 
One more comment, it's a bit rude to suggest they need to "get off" their rears (IMO). There isn't a more dedicated, caring, hard working group of people than those working at Kaleidescape, and certainly no better Support section (thanks Rusty!) anywhere in this industry. No one is sitting around playing computer games when they should be working on your priorities, they are working on the companies priorities, which may eventually include yours.

This comment is based on me being around this industry a very long time, and having dealt with dozens of high-end companies over the years, in addition to being a K owner almost from the beginning, and owning a company that added the Kaleidescape line about 15 years ago. I know the company, and the people well, there are no finer folks in any business.

Under the leadership of a dedicated, incredibly hard-working CEO, that never gave up, this company is once again doing very well. Kudos to him and all of those at Kaleidescape that made this possible, we wouldn't be where we are today without their dedication. Of course thanks is also do to all of you, the Kaleidescape owners that continue to support this company. There may be alternatives, but there's only one Kaleidescape.

That said, I certainly understand why some folks are frustrated while waiting for something that's important to them, and I hope those issues get resolved soon.


Jim
 
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Whilst I agree, K is still brilliant and I totally understand things had to change from the way it used to be and have no issue with doing the work of inputting data myself.

Having spent many hours/days/months etc. doing the work that K used to do, I totally understand that it's not something they can continue to do at the level they were doing it. I would be happy with doing this all myself if given the ability to do so.

When it comes to double CD's boxsets and Blu-rays this is not even an option.
The ability to add multiple discs to one cover and do the work myself, sounds simple enough to implement. It seems however to have fallen on deaf ears, taking note is not the same as listening.

With Blu-Rays we are left with the enter barcode function that still claims it'll "show up here in a few business days." This is where I'm wondering what exactly they're doing. Again all I expect it the artwork as it's not something we can add with the blue banner ourselves.

I am rather annoyed that K appear to have completely abandoned the the original system and its customers that gave them the opportunity to move the company in the direction they're going. So if it sounds a bit rude, I apologise but to be honest, it is a reflection of how I feel they have left the original system.

I'm not asking for miracles and I don't expect them to deal with the workload as they used to do, just to patch up the hole and give us the ability to use the system we bought as intended.

If they showed they care about their customers by implementing something that gave back at least some the original function and abilities there once was, it would certainly put my faith back in them, whether it be software or subscription based.

As things stand, I'm reluctant to upgrade to their next system as it seems risky. What exactly will happen to that when something else comes along will they abandon that too?

To me, it seems a shame that K are without doubt still the best system of its kind and is still brilliant but they seem to lack interest in taking back that truly outstanding crown they used to have for the sake of a few tweaks.

I do really hope they will sort this out soon as I honestly take no pleasure in feeling this way about a great company that make a fantastic product which I truly love. I'm sure this will all be 'noted' but will anything be done about it?
 
I understand your frustration when CD’s and BR discs don’t import correctly. This happens to me periodically. On CD’s I enter all of the information myself including cover art and track listing where needed. The one thing I can’t do is combine discs from a box set together in one entry. These I put in a separate collection to keep track of and once I have collected enough I reach out to K to see if I can send them in to get them bookmarked.

I do the same thing with BR discs that I have loaded and they are not bookmarked. I enter the UPC code and sometimes the cover art gets added but not the bookmarks so that I can “Play Movie” or mark scenes. Again, these I save up and periodically reach out to K to see if I can send them in to get bookmarked.

So far K has been really helpful in doing this for me. I have to be patient since they always tell me that it may take a while to get to it. Sometimes it can take a few months to get around to doing this and send them back but I am just glad that they still support this activity so I am very patient. I just hope that they continue to do this. I am prepared for them to say in the future they don’t have the resources to do this and am pleased that to-date they have been very supportive!

I will say that all of the titles I send in are mainstream titles (most of the BR’s are concerts) and not foreign imports. You could argue that the CD’s that I send in are no longer mainstream but so far so good (knock on wood).

I like to think that when I send in disc to be marked I am not only helping myself but all the others with the same disc that after I send my discs in to be marked will magically show up as marked in all the other systems that have them.

I understand your frustration with this issue as I have to navigate this myself. I would suppress reaching out to K and see if they will help. I would just recommend the following (which is how I manage my requests):

1. On CD, I only request on box sets that I really want. All single CD’s I enter all the information myself and move on. I am preppared to Love with this issue on CD’s if K finally says no on these.
2. On BR’s, I only do ones that need bookmarks to be able to mark scenes, etc. On ones that don’t have encryption I go ahead and add cover art and mark a “Play Movie” scene and I am good to go.
3. I don’t request sending in discs more often than once a year just so I don’t ware out my welcome.
4. I am prepared to wait months for these discs to get bookmarked and sent back (it usually doesn’t take this long but I’d it did I am still very grateful for this service. )

Also, as regards 4K, you won’t have this problem with an Encore system. All the titles are downloaded from the store so they all are bookmarked!

Good luck!

John

P.S. I have to say that Kaleidescape has the best customer service that I have ever run across. I agree with Jim that they are always listening to the customer. I do give suggestions on improvements every now and then and they listen and tell me that it is not at the top of their priority list. However, there have been a couple of times when something I had requested finally shows up!
 
Thanks for the reply, I'm aware of the loan program however I don't live in the US and the price is $10 per disc for processing.
For a boxset containing 20+ discs this becomes more expensive than the discs themselves to send in and get processed. While it is great this is still an option, it's just not a viable one if you're outside the US and there could be a much simpler solution to this by allowing us to have the ability to combine discs under one cover and put artwork with the blue banner on it.
Even if it were a send barcode+ feature that was subscription based. I would happily pay a little every month to know the unrecognised discs will eventually be processed but this can't cost more than the discs themselves.
 
Understood, thanks for sharing!:)

I know others have voiced similar feelings in this regard (Premiere support), and given the cost of these products, especially for those that "joined the club" back in the day at significant cost, it can be frustrating.

A few months back I gave some thought to the anger and frustration I was seeing and hearing from some Premiere owners. I found their comments a little "over the top" considering we were talking about a piece of electronic gear, so I spent some time considering why we allow ourselves to get to that level of frustration. Like most folks that hang around the AV world regularly, I'd seen all kinds of high-end products come and go, some with long lives, some with very short lived. I'd owned many of these, and certainly lost my share of value as companies withdrew from the market, or changed products so drastically that what I'd just bought 18 months earlier was now obsolete, or worse yet, closed the company. I was always "bothered" by these changes, but never felt compelled to voice that to anyone. I just looked at it as a combination of changing business interests, or the natural advancement we see in technology just about every year. In other words, I was bothered, but quickly moved on to the next new thing.

So why does it feel different with Kaleidescape? I think it's because of the following (just my opinion).

1. We pay a lot for these systems.

2. Unlike most AV products, Kaleidescape systems are very interactive.

3. We tend to identify more with interactive things because of our direct involvement in the process. (All of my other AV gear is "setup and forget," i.e. Projectors, screens, audio processors, video processors, speakers, etc.,)

4. The "collecting" aspect. We collect movies, that's what we're really doing when we own these systems. Collectors don't want anyone, or anything, interfering in their collections. For many of us, we've put YEARS into building our libraries, and the thought that something could come along and end that ability, or worse yet, not support our continuing access to these libraries, is not acceptable.

5. Others with a interest. For many of us, our families are just as involved with K as we are, they've got their own content in those libraries, and guess who gets the heat when the system is down.

For these, and other reasons, Kaleidescape has a different level of involvement in our lives, and it's very noticeable when something is wrong in the system. So now we face the certainty (yes, it will happen) that someday discs will be gone, and at some point, like it or not, our Premiere systems will be outdated. K obviously knows this, and with limited resources the strategic plan was modified to account for this transition. Unfortunately, that means as priorities shifted, some items are still sitting on the table, waiting to be resolved.


Jim
 
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