Premiere System Question

[BenNat]

I went with the Premiere system, due to a large collection of DVD and BR, but the pricing seems in favor of the Alto system. Why is it adding additional hard drive space is so expensive when compared to the Alto. As I understand it adding an additional Alto will increase your capacity by 100 BR with the addition of another BR player vs. twice the price of the premiere hard drive space with no additional player and only 50 BR (150 total). I'm a noob, so maybe my vendor explained it incorrectly or gave me bad prices, but I'm hoping for some expert opinions. If correct it seems Premiere owners are being priced gouged for the simple advantage of having a limitless system.

 

[House72]

I would think its just not limitless. I have an alto but atleast can see few advantages:

- RAID.This is not available in Alto.
- Alto - You max out at four zones.
- Alto - As of today no Vault. This means if you have movies from studios not on K Store, you still need access to Blu Ray's for playback.

I am sure there may be few other advantages.

Cheers

Raj

 

[cinelife]

You will not likely reach an answer that is acceptable considering you are judging a single component against a group of components, and more importantly, you are impliedly using an "apples to apples" comparison.

The Alto was designed to be used almost exclusively with the K Store (I say almost because it will also act as a BR/DVD Player). In addition to what has been stated above, the Premiere line has much more flexibility in supporting multiple displays within a home, and as pointed out, storage capability is almost unlimited. It also works with physical discs, so not tied to the limited Store content (although the Store is growing). The user interface also provides additional functions not found in the Alto, albeit not a significant difference).

That said, I think the main reason for the price differences is simple capitalistic pressures. They created a unique user interface that brought something to a specific market. That market, for the most part, consisted of financially well-healed individuals willing to pay the price K was asking to obtain a simple method for storing and accessing their movie and music collections. K priced at levels the target market would accept, as we tend to do in business. The only folks questioning the pricing were those that couldn't afford to pay what K asking, or for personal reasons decided their util value system would not accept the cost.

The pricing you see today for a Premier system, while less expensive than the early days, still places a high value on the IP created when the company was formed, and as long as there is a market willing to pay the asking price for that IP, the pricing structure will likely remain the same.





Jim

 

[House72]

You will not likely reach an answer that is acceptable considering you are judging a single component against a group of components, and more importantly, you are impliedly using an "apples to apples" comparison.

The Alto was designed to be used almost exclusively with the K Store (I say almost because it will also act as a BR/DVD Player). In addition to what has been stated above, the Premiere line has much more flexibility in supporting multiple displays within a home, and as pointed out, storage capability is almost unlimited. It also works with physical discs, so not tied to the limited Store content (although the Store is growing). The user interface also provides additional functions not found in the Alto, albeit not a significant difference).

That said, I think the main reason for the price differences is simple capitalistic pressures. They created a unique user interface that brought something to a specific market. That market, for the most part, consisted of financially well-healed individuals willing to pay the price K was asking to obtain a simple method for storing and accessing their movie and music collections. K priced at levels the target market would accept, as we tend to do in business. The only folks questioning the pricing were those that couldn't afford to pay what K asking, or for personal reasons decided their util value system would not accept the cost.

The pricing you see today for a Premier system, while less expensive than the early days, still places a high value on the IP created when the company was formed, and as long as there is a market willing to pay the asking price for that IP, the pricing structure will likely remain the same.





Jim

I also know people complain about Alto pricing. To me its simple, they are the only game in town to do this with in legal boundaries. There is no competition. If we have a legal competition come in, may be the prices will come down a bit. In fact even with out that Kscape is bringing products at different price levels to encourage user adoption.

Cheers

Raj

 

[JohnJ]

I went with the Premiere system, due to a large collection of DVD and BR, but the pricing seems in favor of the Alto system. Why is it adding additional hard drive space is so expensive when compared to the Alto. As I understand it adding an additional Alto will increase your capacity by 100 BR with the addition of another BR player vs. twice the price of the premiere hard drive space with no additional player and only 50 BR (150 total). I'm a noob, so maybe my vendor explained it incorrectly or gave me bad prices, but I'm hoping for some expert opinions. If correct it seems Premiere owners are being priced gouged for the simple advantage of having a limitless system.

I am not sure where your numbers are coming from on the bolded part.

2 Alto will hold ~200 BR quality movies
1 1U server (4 x 4TB) will hold ~325 BR movies (the equivalent of 1 drive is used for RAID).

John

 

[HiFiGuy1]

I think House nailed the essentials. A four zone, 400 BD Alto system would go for $9980. A one zone, 325 BD Premiere system would go for $14,000. The Premiere offers K's RAID, which I believe is a big benefit.

*** Next part is PURE CONJECTURE ***
The future Alto storage device may also have RAID. Maybe doubling the initial storage of an Alto would add $1500? So maybe a $4k one zone system that can do 200 BD, or maybe a $5500 system that can do 300 BD?

The interesting thing to consider, since the Store accounts can support five systems per client, is that Alto is really expandable more than it seems, at least regarding the zone capability. If I had a need for an eight zone playback system, I could put together two four-zone Alto systems on the same Store account, and although I would only be able to store a total of approximately 400 unique BDs or 2400 unique DVDs, they would both always be up to date and match each other, which would be nice, and the total for that 8-zone system would be just under $20k.

I think with time, the Vault is coming, and at any rate, certainly there will be more studios in the future, lessening the actual need for a vault more with each studio.

Food for thought, anyway.

 

[House72]

I think even Alto apart from 4 zones also is supposed to get extra hard drive option from K. Lack of RAID is a big risk and it would be pain in the wrong place if Hard Disk fails. Downloading couple of hundred movies again is a big deal. That is the risk I took going in. With premier system this is not an issue.

 

[BenNat]

Thanks all for the detailed responses. I certainly considered the RAID aspect as a essential component of the Premiere system. It also appears I eityer misunderstood or was misled reference capacity of the Alto. Again, I appreciate the education.

 

[Mr.Poindexter]

With the Premier line, you are also getting a more robust system that will support many more zones. I know not all the users have lots of zones, but I am running 6 in my house right now and that isn't really possible with the entry level systems.

 

[djb_rh]

And I'd add here...hard drives die. It's inevitable. I suppose if you have nearly all downloads *and* you have a HUGE Internet pipe to download again, then it's no big deal. But I don't think that's the case for MOST people. And note that if your Alto hard drive(s) die, you are stuck waiting until the replacement shows up and until your movies download again.

I think in the 10+ years I've had my K system I've had three drives die. Every time K knew before I did and my dealer contacted me to let me know a replacement was on the way (or that warranty was out and I had to buy one, but that could happen immediately). Drive shows up the next day, I pop it in, and service was NEVER interrupted. RAID is so wonderful that way.

That's pretty huge, though whether it's worth thousands$$$ is certainly up to the end user.


--Donnie

 

[HiFiGuy1]

Thanks all for the detailed responses. I certainly considered the RAID aspect as a essential component of the Premiere system. It also appears I eityer misunderstood or was misled reference capacity of the Alto. Again, I appreciate the education.

Ben,
Please don't misunderstand my or other responses, because most of us, myself included, DO have Premiere systems. Mine is a single zone of A+V and four zones of audio only. I think you made an excellent choice, and expect that you'll be happy with the decision for many years to come.

I think the RAID is under-rated in importance sometimes. It has saved my bacon once, and at least one of my clients' once. I did have one server with a multiple simultaneous drive failure that ended up unrecoverable, but that's rare like hen's teeth, and with the Store now on line, really less of an issue anyway. In the markets I serve(d), we haven't been prolific with K, but I have been an enthusiastic dealer for over a decade.

Alto and it's successors may be the future of K, especially as they try to broaden their market share, but I think the Premiere line concept and technology has a long future in one form or another. Maybe one day they'll merge, and be the best of both worlds. The egalitarian AV enthusiast in me, for one, would love to see that, because it would bring a superlative product within reach of the masses.