I appreciate the feedback. I have been waiting for someone with just a V to AVR to JVC to give feeback on the Strato K comparison. Thank you. Helps set my mind at ease that I am probably not missing out on much by holding out!
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NEWS: Strato K Movie Player with 8K capability and new "4K Cinematic" full-chroma & higher bitrate support
- Thread starter josh
- Start date
One of my all time favorites. I have high anticipation for receiving my Strato K.
Strato S -> Strato K first impressions: 4K HDR10 vs 4K Cinematic HDR10 on a Lumagen/JVC chain
(Cross-posting this between AVS and the Kaleidescape Owners forum — apologies if you're seeing it twice.)
Wanted to share early impressions of the Strato K, and I want to be careful not to hype or oversell — just a genuine account of what I'm seeing.
Scope, so this is a clean comparison: this is Strato S playing standard 4K HDR10 versus Strato K playing 4K Cinematic HDR10 (4:4:4) - that's it. I have not evaluated the Dolby Vision Cinematic versions, since my understanding is there's a pending fix for a raised brightness floor on the DV -> HDR10 conversion, so I skipped it entirely. Sample size so far: parts of four movies, going back and forth between versions. Early days.
My chain: Strato K, added alongside my Strato S (both still in the rack, both feeding the same processor) -> Lumagen Radiance Pro 5348 -> JVC DLA-NZ8. HDR10 chain (no DV on the NZ8), Lumagen doing the tone mapping. Having both players live is what let me A/B the same titles back to back. Internet is ~90 Mbps, which matters for the download notes below.
First impressions - honestly: first two minutes of the first movie, I wasn't disappointed exactly, but I caught myself thinking "I don't see a dramatic difference - maybe I should have kept just the S." After several more movies and A/B'ing back and forth, there's definitely a difference. It's subtle, but it's real, and it compounds the more I watch.
What I actually see: colors feel a little richer, there's more detail, and I find myself more immersed. Going back, the S's standard 4K feels dull by comparison - that's the best word I have. The most striking thing: highlights. At first they were literally too bright - I squinted a few times - and my first thought was "the picture is brighter." But then I realized that if that were true, the black floor would have come up too, and it hasn't. The blacks are unchanged. It's that the highlights are more distinct. Better contrast within the image, not more light.
My theory on why: it comes down to what each player is actually sending the Lumagen. The Strato S plays standard 4K files, which are encoded at 4:2:0 - quarter-resolution color. The upsampled portion is interpolation: estimated samples, not real ones. The Strato K playing a Cinematic title sends native 4:4:4, where every color sample is real, straight from the studio master, at roughly double the bitrate. The Radiance Pro accepts that full 4:4:4 at its input stage and converts to its 4:2:2 internal format afterward - which only trims the final horizontal chroma increment (debatable whether that's even visible at seating distance). Everything else is kept, meaning the Lumagen's tone mapping and scaling are working from genuinely better raw material than the S ever gave it. That fits what I'm seeing: the improvement shows up most where the processor works hardest - highlight rendering and fine color gradation.
Magnitude: if I had to put a number on it, I'd call it a 10–15% improvement - contrast handling, tone mapping, immersion. Not transformative, not nothing. Refinement, and the kind you notice more the longer you live with it.
Annoyances, in fairness:
Two pleasant surprises:
Bottom line so far: subtle but genuine improvement, most visible in highlight rendering and color richness, consistent with better source data reaching the video processor. The S -> K jump won't drop jaws in two minutes - it wins on the accumulation.
(Cross-posting this between AVS and the Kaleidescape Owners forum — apologies if you're seeing it twice.)
Wanted to share early impressions of the Strato K, and I want to be careful not to hype or oversell — just a genuine account of what I'm seeing.
Scope, so this is a clean comparison: this is Strato S playing standard 4K HDR10 versus Strato K playing 4K Cinematic HDR10 (4:4:4) - that's it. I have not evaluated the Dolby Vision Cinematic versions, since my understanding is there's a pending fix for a raised brightness floor on the DV -> HDR10 conversion, so I skipped it entirely. Sample size so far: parts of four movies, going back and forth between versions. Early days.
My chain: Strato K, added alongside my Strato S (both still in the rack, both feeding the same processor) -> Lumagen Radiance Pro 5348 -> JVC DLA-NZ8. HDR10 chain (no DV on the NZ8), Lumagen doing the tone mapping. Having both players live is what let me A/B the same titles back to back. Internet is ~90 Mbps, which matters for the download notes below.
First impressions - honestly: first two minutes of the first movie, I wasn't disappointed exactly, but I caught myself thinking "I don't see a dramatic difference - maybe I should have kept just the S." After several more movies and A/B'ing back and forth, there's definitely a difference. It's subtle, but it's real, and it compounds the more I watch.
What I actually see: colors feel a little richer, there's more detail, and I find myself more immersed. Going back, the S's standard 4K feels dull by comparison - that's the best word I have. The most striking thing: highlights. At first they were literally too bright - I squinted a few times - and my first thought was "the picture is brighter." But then I realized that if that were true, the black floor would have come up too, and it hasn't. The blacks are unchanged. It's that the highlights are more distinct. Better contrast within the image, not more light.
My theory on why: it comes down to what each player is actually sending the Lumagen. The Strato S plays standard 4K files, which are encoded at 4:2:0 - quarter-resolution color. The upsampled portion is interpolation: estimated samples, not real ones. The Strato K playing a Cinematic title sends native 4:4:4, where every color sample is real, straight from the studio master, at roughly double the bitrate. The Radiance Pro accepts that full 4:4:4 at its input stage and converts to its 4:2:2 internal format afterward - which only trims the final horizontal chroma increment (debatable whether that's even visible at seating distance). Everything else is kept, meaning the Lumagen's tone mapping and scaling are working from genuinely better raw material than the S ever gave it. That fits what I'm seeing: the improvement shows up most where the processor works hardest - highlight rendering and fine color gradation.
Magnitude: if I had to put a number on it, I'd call it a 10–15% improvement - contrast handling, tone mapping, immersion. Not transformative, not nothing. Refinement, and the kind you notice more the longer you live with it.
Annoyances, in fairness:
- Occasional HDMI dropouts. With the S, maybe one ~5-second dropout every couple of movies; yesterday on the K I got four in about five minutes. I'm currently using the included AudioQuest cable on the K (8K-rated, and I'm nowhere near its bandwidth at 4K/24), so I may swap back to the Tributaries cable the S has been running on and see if it settles. Still investigating - mentioning it for completeness, not blaming the player.
- No physical remote. I know most people here use a control system or don't mind the phone app, but at this price point I'd have happily taken a $12 plastic remote in the box.
Two pleasant surprises:
- You can download and watch simultaneously. The S made you pause downloads to play; the K doesn't care.
- Download behavior on the network is dramatically better, and I can't explain it. Both players set to unlimited download speed, same switch. When the S pulled down an ~80 GB movie (about 1h50m on my connection), it saturated my whole network - browsing and YouTube became painful. The K, pulling bigger Cinematic files (~150 GB, about 3 hours), barely registers - the internet feels almost normal while it's downloading. Whatever they changed in how it schedules traffic, I'll take it.
Bottom line so far: subtle but genuine improvement, most visible in highlight rendering and color richness, consistent with better source data reaching the video processor. The S -> K jump won't drop jaws in two minutes - it wins on the accumulation.
Thank you for your feedback! I too have a Strato S and I am transitioning to a Strato K. Mine is still on order. Your assessment has been very helpful! In my case, I am using a MadVR Envy MK2 and a Sony VPL-XW6100ES (Bravia 8) projector.
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2024
- Messages
- 1,038
It takes me around 20-25 mins for most larger cinematic files. Hope you are not connected through WiFi.
He is on a 90mbps connection
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2024
- Messages
- 1,038
Missed that part. My bad.
@J.Green , I am just catching up on early messages on this thread and read a response that you had sent to another member. I have a follow-up question for you just to make sure that I understand what you have stated!
I currently have a Strato V and obviously I do not have any 4K Cinematic movies downloaded to my Compact Terra Servers. If I purchase a Strato K and move my Strato V to another room, it seems from your previous response that I will need both the 4K Cinematic and non-4K Cinematic versions of every movies downloaded to my Compact Terra Server. So if my understanding is correct, I will be using disc space on the Compact Terra server to store both versions of the movie, which in turn means that I will have less space for future movies that I may want to purchase. Is this understanding of mine correct?
Thanks for your help.
MadScientist
That is correct, @MadScientist
Anybody with Wifi 5, 6 or 7 (any Wifi from the past 10 years) can easily download at speeds over 1 Gbps. Wifi 6 can do 9.6 Gbps and Wifi 7 has a theoretical max of 48 Gbps.
This does not effect me nor will it if I ever get a Strato K since I do not have any Terra storage but this seems like a rather significant/expensive hit for folks with mixed player setups?
Thats why I ran for the hills and sold my Strato V as soon as I found out about the Starto K and bought one.
Having different K players VE/K in the same home with Terra Servers is a total No No... for storage efficiency
LOL now I feel even better only sticking with standalone player
I have the K and the E. I will run the K on the server and the E standalone. The E is in a secondary room and can just be download on demand. Any future player I buy will be K or K-compatible.
Yeah the K has introduced a storage/title management issue with mixed systems. One way of handling it is keeping the V in standalone mode in your secondary room and downloading titles on the fly therefore preserving storage for your primary viewing room with the K. If you don't currently have a K-system in your secondary room I would assume you don't watch as often there.
Thanks all for your responses. This definitely makes it a much more costly proposition than just getting a new Strato. If the servers were less expensive, then I would consider it but this information doubles the cost for me and that is out of my budget.
MadScientist
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2023
- Messages
- 2,462
Actually, the Strato V introduced this issue with the addition of Dolby Vision files which can't be played by a Strato, Strato X, Strato S, or Strato C. With the expansion of players to include the Strato E and Strato M, people using legacy Strato players had to make a decision to store double files (halving their storage) or move to an all-new player environment. This situation has now been repeated with the Strato K, providing three different generations of players with their own unique formats (legacy Strato players can play HD files the two newer generations can't).
Thanks @cardsdoc , this is a good solution for sure. But I have a follow-up question. If I wanted to watch a non-4K Cinematic version of a movie on the Strato V that I own in 4K Cinematic for my Strato K, would I have to purchase the movie again? That would seem to negate the idea of having two different units in the house.
MadScientist
No, if you purchase the 4K Cinematic version, you can download any 4K (or HD or SD) version of the movie. 4K Cinematic is, in this sense, just a variant of 4K. Costs the same, confers the same ownership. Similarly, any 4K movies you own already can be downloaded in 4K Cinematic (when that version exists) for no additional cost.