NEWS: Strato K Movie Player with 8K capability and new "4K Cinematic" full-chroma & higher bitrate support

[NewHomeHelp]

To be clear, this isn't some strategic/marketing decision that K made. When a Terra is present storage is combined and available to all players based on capability. In that situation, the Strato K/V/E/M needs to be able to function as a server for other players potentially while also being used by the player itself. The legacy Strato S was capable of this. The chipsets on the new players do not support acting as a server, let alone simultaneously while playing (multiple streams).

I think K could develop functionality that would allow a player with storage to join a server environment without actually making its content available to other players. But, it's easy to think of challenges that would have to be worked through (same content on internal storage and server) and I'm sure that only becomes more complicated as the ball of twine is unraveled. I'd imagine K has already evaluated this for cost/benefit and it sits somewhere on their roadmap.

Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath. But, the issue here is chipsets and architecture not marketing or sales.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. That makes sense.

In that scenario, I would personally prefer to put that extra $1K+ toward storage I can use via a Terra server add-on vs. paying $1k+ for storage in a player that I cannot use. Hence my earlier suggestion of C². That reasoning only multiplies if you have more than one player in a household. The downside of my solution is the newer players with onboard storage are certainly holding their value better with the release of K.

 

[LoveCinema]

In that scenario, I would personally prefer to put that extra $1K+ toward storage I can use via a Terra server add-on vs. paying $1k+ for storage in a player that I cannot use. Hence my earlier suggestion of C². That reasoning only multiplies if you have more than one player in a household.

The Strato K doesn't have its price due to the cost of the components. I don't believe they're designing a product, determining cost, and applying a markup. Rather, K is starting from a price point. "We want a flagship player at price point A. Can we build device B with storage C? No? Reduce storage to D." I think that's what we're likely looking at.

In my view, Kaleidescape has a single product: The K Store. Everything else is an accessory sold to allow access to and storage of items from that store. Owning and managing a digital video store is a massive undertaking and one that companies like Microsoft and Sony have walked away from. Apple can have a premiere video store through lucrative hardware sales and tens of millions of annual transactions. K is a long way away from supporting itself through movie sales and needs to balance player and server prices to support the K Store.

People too often ask "Enterprise drives cost X, why is a Terra priced at Y?" What they need to ask is "How much does it cost to get the mezzanine files for every major blockbuster from every major studio, then have staff encode and QA it at the highest quality possible, and then securely serve and store it on users' players/servers around the world?"

 

[NewHomeHelp]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. That makes sense.

In that scenario, I would personally prefer to put that extra $1K+ toward storage I can use via a Terra server add-on vs. paying $1k+ for storage in a player that I cannot use. Hence my earlier suggestion of C². That reasoning only multiplies if you have more than one player in a household. The downside of my solution is the newer players with onboard storage are certainly holding their value better with the release of K.

Or do something similar to Strato E and release it with the 480GB storage. That unit is priced the same as C. I just prefer not to pay for something I cannot use when I could put that money toward storage I can actually use.

 

[NewHomeHelp]

The Strato K doesn't have its price due to the cost of the components. I don't believe they're designing a product, determining cost, and applying a markup. Rather, K is starting from a price point. "We want a flagship player at price point A. Can we build device B with storage C? No? Reduce storage to D." I think that's what we're likely looking at.

In my view, Kaleidescape has a single product: The K Store. Everything else is an accessory sold to allow access to and storage of items from that store. Owning and managing a digital video store is a massive undertaking and one that companies like Microsoft and Sony have walked away from. Apple can have a premiere video store through lucrative hardware sales and tens of millions of annual transactions. K is a long way away from supporting itself through movie sales and needs to balance player and server prices to support the K Store.

People too often ask "Enterprise drives cost X, why is a Terra priced at Y?" What they need to ask is "How much does it cost to get the mezzanine files for every major blockbuster from every major studio, then have staff encode and QA it at the highest quality possible, and then securely serve and store it on users' players/servers around the world?"

I think perhaps you’re misunderstanding me. I am not complaining about the cost of their hard drives. I have seen that argument many, many times and no reason to rehash it. I have multiple Terra servers I have already purchased and multiple players in my household. I don’t want to pay money for storage I cannot utilize is my point which is what you are doing with K and V. Kaleidescape has already established at least a $1k price difference between Strato V and Strato E with the main difference being on board HDD space. Strato E and C are the same exact cost so maybe Strato C versions with no on board storage are obsolete at this point from a development perspective and that makes sense to me. Offering a Strato K with 480GB for $1K less, as they have previously done, is appealing to someone like myself because then I am not paying extra for storage I know I cannot utilize. Plus, I also retain more of a resale value because it does have on board storage like @todo mentioned. That’s the point I am trying to get at. The purchase of the additional Terra servers I have made over time have helped support the overall company like you describe.

 

[shak]

The Strato K doesn't have its price due to the cost of the components. I don't believe they're designing a product, determining cost, and applying a markup. Rather, K is starting from a price point. "We want a flagship player at price point A. Can we build device B with storage C? No? Reduce storage to D." I think that's what we're likely looking at.

In my view, Kaleidescape has a single product: The K Store. Everything else is an accessory sold to allow access to and storage of items from that store. Owning and managing a digital video store is a massive undertaking and one that companies like Microsoft and Sony have walked away from. Apple can have a premiere video store through lucrative hardware sales and tens of millions of annual transactions. K is a long way away from supporting itself through movie sales and needs to balance player and server prices to support the K Store.

People too often ask "Enterprise drives cost X, why is a Terra priced at Y?" What they need to ask is "How much does it cost to get the mezzanine files for every major blockbuster from every major studio, then have staff encode and QA it at the highest quality possible, and then securely serve and store it on users' players/servers around the world?"

Exactly. I think maintaining the server alone is huge cost. Some of the cinematic movies have 6-8 versions and each movies takes > 1TB server space plus paying for all the bandwidth utilization at really fast speeds. And store has 10k+ movies and TV shows.

 

[Broncowrangler]

With 480gb you’re just gonna get 2-3 C’matic titles, especially if you download something like return of the king- extended edition (228gb). Lol.

I don’t know if it’s possible, but just thinking outside the box; can the player be provisioned with multiple accounts? One account for the player+server and the other for the standalone player (with the onboard storage). This way you can still access all of your storage but you need to run through some hoops.

Or maybe it’s an outlandish proposition.. Lol.

 

[WALLHALLA]

Projection of number of titles by Xmas.

At the current rate:

June 16: 200 titles
August 5: 232 titles
Increase: 32 titles in 50 days = 0.64 titles/day

August 5 → Christmas Day: 142 days
Projected additions: 142 × 0.64 ≈ 91 titles

Christmas Day 2026: approximately 323 4K CINEMATIC titles.

 

[mkozlows]

Kaleidescape has already established at least a $1k price difference between Strato V and Strato E with the main difference being on board HDD space.

The case is probably a bigger contributor to the price difference (to the extent that it's driven by anything material, rather than just arbitrary price point positions).

 

[DieZwei]

I think it was Western Digital that, back in Feb or so, said all the drives they were going to make for the next 18 months were already purchased.

I would think if there´s so much clear demand over the next couple of years, it should be able for manufacturers to ramp up production to fulfill this demand. Let it be storage, but also chips.

 

[Furnace Inferno]

I would think if there´s so much clear demand over the next couple of years, it should be able for manufacturers to ramp up production to fulfill this demand. Let it be storage, but also chips.

I’m sure I just read they are all wanting to or are already locking in long term contracts at current prices to keep them high negating any future production increases dropping prices. They have no real desire to do anything which lowers them and I wouldn’t expect them to drop back to where they were ever again.

It’s also not like when they refresh every 3-5 years any of those parts from the big A.I data centres get sold back into the market either, they usually have contracts to say they can’t and soldered RAM modules which can’t be used other than on the rack. They just pump them all through a shredder because it’s quicker/easier than wiping them and guarantees the security of the data which then generates a shit load of e-waste that could have been repurposed but instead uses even more energy getting shredded, a lot of the metals get recycled and the rest just dumped in a landfill.

A lot of the things which will be impacted aren’t necessities but I’m curious about the impact in critical areas like schools which are increasingly digitised, will the loan contract become unaffordable for them? And I can’t imagine it’s as easy as just going back to paper and books if they no longer have them.

 

[DieZwei]

I’m sure I just read they are all wanting to or are already locking in long term contracts at current prices to keep them high negating any future production increases dropping prices. They have no real desire to do anything which lowers them and I wouldn’t expect them to drop back to where they were ever again.

After all, I think there´s still competition. And if a competitor is able to produce and sell 100% more units for a 50% lower price, then I´d think that would still be a good (if not better) deal for them.

On the other hand: the question is if all those planned data centers will actually really be build.
I think there´s still a possibility that this whole bubble collapes:

 

[Ripley28]

I will say, coming from a Strato C with a 22TB Terra server, that it is a nice peace of mind to know that when my server inevitably fails, the K will not also be a paperweight until a new server arrives. Guess it’s all a matter of perspective!

 

[Nathan28]

My K player will be here and I’ll be installing it this evening.. I’ve been demoing scenes
Like crazy this week because I installed my two new pb 17 ultra subs… I did learn…
Hulk 2008 and Interstellar… UHD looks and sounds better than the Strato V versions.
Interstellar PQ is the same… just lose IMAX… but the Dts track hits harder on disk than Strato v. Not much.. but it’s there.
Hulk 2008… the disc destroys the K offering..
The DTS X destroys the Atmos mix on K. It’s more powerful, more dynamic range…the Atmos mix on K is smooth and you have to turn it up significantly to even get it near the Dts x disc. The UHD disc of the Hulk is a hdr light cannon.. this is gone on the K version as well. The picture is bright on disc and muted on K.

 

[steelman1991]

The Incredible Hulk was mousefied when it moved from a Universal title. Not a fair comparison IMO

 

[Golfx]

As an audio only observation from a K owner I was fearful when I saw Hans Zimmer: live in Prague was updated to a cinematic version. I use that movie to demo my sound system in particular the subwoofers. Songs “aurora” and “mombasa” in particular. Aurora for infrabass measured 7hz at the beginning and Mombasa for midbass kick. The new cinematic version did not lose any of my desired details and sounded excellent.

 

[DrNeal]

Did you notice any improvement or changes in video quality?

 

[todo]

After all, I think there´s still competition. And if a competitor is able to produce and sell 100% more units for a 50% lower price, then I´d think that would still be a good (if not better) deal for them.

On the other hand: the question is if all those planned data centers will actually really be build.
I think there´s still a possibility that this whole bubble collapes:
View attachment 11246

Strato K the gift that keeps giving - 175 Cinematics in my library without a single dollar spent on like 160 previously owned movies - and I will be hitting a DELETE button on 175 UHD 4K Rips in my NAS as Strato K is the ONLY way to go if you there is a movie in Cinematic.
No telling how many Terrabytes of Hard Drive that will yield from my NAS ... I am loving it..

 

[Golfx]

Did you notice any improvement or changes in video quality?

Sorry I wasn’t looking. I commented earlier about noticing improvements on other movies.

 

[Broncowrangler]

Strato K the gift that keeps giving - 175 Cinematics in my library without a single dollar spent on like 160 previously owned movies - and I will be hitting a DELETE button on 175 UHD 4K Rips in my NAS as Strato K is the ONLY way to go if you there is a movie in Cinematic.
No telling how many Terrabytes of Hard Drive that will yield from my NAS ... I am loving it..

I have 205 C’matic titles in my collection, however I will be keeping some rips in my Nas intact (along with some 4k discs) since there are quite a few examples on K which are missing HDR (Crouching tiger Hidden Dragon, Bam Stoker’s Dracula, District 9 etc.) or an immersive mix (atmos/ Dts:X).
Hopefully they get updated in the future with the full complement, so I could jettison them from my NAS and media shelves.

 

[kscape360]

What is this delete you are talking about? The correct approach is to just add more hard drives. I think I’m nearing 400 TB on my NAS.