Strato V: UI resolution limited to 1080, not 4k!

[DieZwei]

Therefore my last statement holds true- they could have used the 8 year old chip and added internal storage to accomplish the goal of a lower entry into the ecosystem and then also had the V for those who use televisions. DV on projectors is not a thing with the exception of the Formovie and I have to believe most of us are using long throw projectors that don’t support DV.

I think you´re wrong with the assumption that the majority of K-installs are with a projector.
TVs have grown pretty big (both in size and adoption rate) over the last couple of years and i think adding DV is a smart move as it is a well-requested feature. I think the disappointment would have been much bigger if a new model wouldn´t have DV-support.
And since built-in storage was also often requested, they added both to the new player.
I think if they would have just added storage to the Strato C (which in fact was already available as the Strato and the Strato S), then a lot of people would have complained about the lack of advancements.

 

[steelman1991]

They could have done both or bit the bullet and spent a little more to get the correct chip. And Steelman- I love the quality of the movies and the ecosystem. That’s why I’m vocal about it. If it wasn’t for me I would have returned it. I’m now forced to exchange the V for a C and add a server which I didn’t want to do until later on.

You really haven't read what's been written, so I'll point you in the right direction

Post in thread 'Strato V: UI resolution limited to 1080, not 4k!'

Aug 20, 2024

OK, just wanted to check, because CinemaScape can definitely degrade the appearance of the cover images in 10.18.

Rusty is correct -- the UI is rendered at 1080p internally before being scaled up to be output at 2160p. This is a hardware limitation of the new chip upon which this player was built. As mentioned in another thread, all product design involves a process of selecting the components that best fit the needs of the product. In the case of Strato V, this was the chip that gave us excellent CPU performance, Dolby Vision, the ability to have a player that could be either standalone...

• MikeKobb

• 

If there had been a better more suitable chip I'm sure they would have procured it.

 

[StanfieldNC]

$150 devices do this with ease. Kscape should have known their market.

I don't think anyone is attacking you. I would venture to say your tact has come off abrasive and incendiary.

Apple is a $3 trillion dollar company. They make their own chips and due to their scale and scope, can make it happen. I'm sure that is huge factor on why they can do it.

Roku, is $11billion. Their UI is 1080p upscale.

My understanding is all android devices are 1080p also.

Kaleidescape is dwarfed by both any of those companies. I believe they know their market. While I agree that going from a 4k UI to 1080p UI, in a bubble, is a regression. Most users accept this tradeoff and trust the roadmap that has been laid out.

You're definitely entitled to your opinion. I've been there. I know I've purchased products where something was a non-negotiable error that didn't sit well with me, that others wouldn't even notice.

While I understand your disappointment with the video wall. Are you at least enjoying the movies and lossless audio? You're not watching any movies in 1080p are you?

 

[steelman1991]

I have read it. I don’t believe it fully. Margins could have been slightly sacrificed to do this or they could have charged more. This is 8 year old tech with the addition of DV

That's twice today you've taken to say that you don't believe employees of Kaleidescape, because it doesn't suit your narrative. Perhaps time to consider your position with statements of that nature.

 

[steelman1991]

It doesn’t make sense for the many reasons that I’ve stated. Do you blindly accept everything you hear at face value or do you apply logic and question things?

I've been around these parts long enough to accept the employees reasoning on behalf of the Kaleidescape company - I've no reason not too. Good luck with your crusade.

 

[rafaelsmith]

I never knew people were this much into UIs and poster walls.

 

[LoveCinema]

It doesn’t make sense for the many reasons that I’ve stated. Do you blindly accept everything you hear at face value or do you apply logic and question things?

It's very clear that your home theater would be better served by a Strato C (or S). You spent more money than you needed to, and ended up with a lesser result. And, this was due to a known limitation that was insufficiently publicized. There is some blame to be had on K's part. Regardless, you're left with frustration and (for you) a lesser home theater solution. Seriously, I hear you and I get it. That completely sucks, and should be acknowledged. I would certainly reach out to K and your K dealer and see if there's anything that can be done to improve your situation.

Regarding the forum and these posts, I think people are struggling with the notion that K somehow had better choices readily at their disposal and didn't make them in order to save a few bucks. I think that can be dispelled if you look at what's happening with HD compatibility on the V.

K is burning thousands of man hours and burdening their content team for months on end to address a separate chip limitation. How much is that costing them? How much of the profit from new and expanded sales are being chewed up? They're frustrating new owners by not having sought after HD titles available, and annoying veteran owners by not delivering new 4K titles because the team is busy.

It's a rather large cluster, and I have to imagine K did everything they possibly could to avoid it. The idea that somehow a better chip was just sitting there for selection, but cost a few dollars more, doesn't pass the smell test.

What does pass the test? Chipmakers limiting features to manage costs. Across the industry we're seeing new devices missing features from older devices. Do I think that someone, somewhere decided that a 4K GUI wasn't worth the cost of support? Certainly. I just think they worked at a chip manufacturer, and not at K.

Some of the frustration of buying a Strato V instead of a Strato C (or S) may lie at the feet of K. Please reach out to your dealer. The frustration of Strato V limitations likely lie at the feet of chipmakers. I believe K stands beside you in this frustration, not against you.

 

[rafaelsmith]

There are many other examples of newer chipsets for various products being less capable than previous for several features.

On many fronts the newer so called entry level JVC projectors are less capable than the previous gen....no HDMI 2.1, no 3d, no CMD, etc.

 

[Techthusiasm]

IMO, the front end of K on-screen is really important to the experience. It needs to operate with awesome features and look spectacular. It should have the cleanest, sharpest movie covers around. Engineering trade-offs aside, I have long felt the presentation is not where it could be, and the V even less so. You can get incredibly high resolution sharp movie posters off tmdb for Plex servers, Infuse, and the like. This shouldn't even be a talking point. It's certainly not even remotely any kind of deal-breaker though.

 

[rafaelsmith]

IMO, the front end of K on-screen is really important to the experience. It needs to operate with awesome features and look spectacular. It should have the cleanest, sharpest movie covers around. Engineering trade-offs aside, I have long felt the presentation is not where it could be, and the V even less so. You can get incredibly high resolution sharp movie posters off tmdb for Plex servers, Infuse, and the like. This shouldn't even be a talking point. It's certainly not even remotely any kind of deal-breaker though.

I still think things can be improved with the current V. I mean I have Zidoo, Kodi and Plex clients that render UI in 1080p that have much much better looking posters than the V does.

 

[DieZwei]

I still think things can be improved with the current V. I mean I have Zidoo, Kodi and Plex clients that render UI in 1080p that have much much better looking posters than the V does.

That sounds to be like a reasonable and pragmatic approach as the chipset won´t change, but the symptoms can be mitigated.

 

[FenceMan]

I’ve had a month or so to let this all sink in. I’ve been attacked on this forum for my thoughts. The Strato V should display native 4k cover art. This is a colossal mistake. I don’t buy the chip trade off story as it couldn’t be that much more to render in 4k. $150 devices do this with ease. Kscape should have known their market. The small subset of people who even know about Kscape want 4k images. Especially if we invest in their grossly overpriced servers. This seems like either a massive oversight or pure greed. I’m frustrated. I now have the dilemma of downgrading to a C and then adding a server just to get the nice 4k cover art. I have to go to a player that is much older to make this happen. Shame on Kscape for making such a poor decision. Those are my thoughts, I know a lot of others agree. This is a bad look and I hope Kscape owns up to this terrible decision and makes the decision to fix it. The only reason they can get away with it is because they are the only game in town.

Please don’t attack me for this post I’m just relaying my feelings as a consumer.

No doubt you are correct just seems we are stuck.

Now not being able to watch things I want on the V can be fixed and I wish they would get on it

In New Orleans with my wife and talking about Interview with a Vampire and think hmm I'll buy this so we can watch when we get home and.....nope again stuck explaining to my wife how limited this $4000 box is.

 

[shak]

Adding my view as new user of K and Strato V. I can see where some of the frustration or disappointment is coming from.

K is heavily marketed (look at Cedia interviews and youtubers/dealer videos) as the best thing ever for home theater enthusiasts which provides best overall experience and audio/video quality. This is true for about 50% of time. UI is just one of the issues. There are also exceptionally high number of very popular movies that don't have dts x titles (bourne, F&F, Jurassic park etc). Missing hdr on titles like Lawrence of Arabia. Missing studios and late 4K releases. Incompatible HD titles on V and slow progress on DV additions.

So if you are spending 4000 on just a player, you expect best experience (premium price = premium experience). I knew some of the gaps coming in but for a new user it is not easy to find all this upfront. While K is a good player, with all these limitations, I keep swapping between blu-rays and streaming to get best possible experience.

 

[JohnJ]

I am beginning to feel like I am the only K user that VERY RARELY uses the Cover Art screen. My goto OSD is the Collections Menu.

I may have to go back and try using it again.

John

 

[StanfieldNC]

I am beginning to feel like I am the only K user that VERY RARELY uses the Cover Art screen. My goto OSD is the Collections Menu.

I may have to go back and try using it again.

John

I'm probably 50/50. I like the sort screen. So I can find a movie that fits the amount of time I have to watch (or can stay awake)

 

[cinelife]

Thank you for confirming. This forum is toxic with people combating and defaming

Time to take it down a couple of notches, there's no need to disparage the Forum because you elected to use language that other Members found to be offensive and responded, in particular questioning the integrity of the K employees that post here. Let me be clear here, you have the absolute right to be disappointed if the V did not meet your expectation, and to post comments related to that disappointment. What we don't want on the Forum is personal attacks, and basically calling a K employee a liar falls into that category. Please keep those comments to yourself.

There's no reason to leave the Forum, you are still welcome here, as are your comments (minus the perceived personal attacks). We've communicated privately, so I know you're a good person, just frustrated that the V did not provide the performance you are looking for regarding the way the Covers are presented. You can post on that subject anytime, and I'd ask other Members that are offended by the repetitive postings to just ignore the posts, don't respond if it bothers them, and just focus on the constructive comments in the thread.

I've quoted your post above, but my comments apply to everyone posting. Personal attacks from anyone, to anyone, disrupt the thread, and ultimately have no value. Let's get back to a civil exchange of ideas and comments.

Jim

 

[Golfx]

Been a K user for almost two years. I like the total immersion of audio and video that results. This is an absolute non issue for me. Reading this post it elevates a sorting screen way beyond its importance. I do not watch or listen to the sorting screen.

 

[Furnace Inferno]

I hope you aren’t talking about me because I was trying to do you a favour with actual known information about available media chips and what they can and can’t do and how just because something is new doesn’t mean it supports everything the old one did. What drives that are the big players which right now are not disc players anymore but media players, Firesticks, Chromecast, etc. who have little interest in native 4K UI’s. Ultimately it’s the chip makers who are the ones who decide what they include on the silicon based on what the market demands are and have limited circuit space to do that so some things get cut for new things to be added. Unfortunately most chips are very specialised bits of hardware that can’t be reprogrammed to work completely differently like an FPGA, you can do some things in software instead but it runs significantly worse and in most cases not well enough to provide a smooth experience.

Prime example my GPU in my PC a few years ago didn’t support decoding of one of the UHD compression formats (can’t remember if it was h265 or not) but it was the best GPU of its gen and the software decoding would stutter heavily. The next gen, the literally slowest GPU which had the hardware to support it ran butter smooth but for rendering games my GPU would crush it.

Anyway I don’t know why I bother, if you want to insist they are lying so be it, it really has no impact on me but you haven’t provided any valid reasoning and what that means is backed up with any evidence.

It’s unfortunate you aren’t happy with it and I wish you the best in resolving the situation to your satisfaction.

 

[cinelife]

If you read what I’m saying and the nonsense replies, specifically from one person you will agree with me. I’m clearly not the only person who feels this way. My points are valid and real. And yes, I do believe that the Kscape employees are not telling the entire truth. That’s my opinion and have made many valid points to back it up.

I deleted your other posts, and NO, I don't agree with you, and apparently most others don't either. Your attacks on the integrity of the K employees posting here are, frankly, ridiculous, and will NOT BE TOLERATED any longer. I can't post what I really think without violating the policies I was trying nicely to get you to conform to, without success. Let me be very clear, you can think whatever you want to about K, this Forum, and our other members, BUT, this is your last chance to back off your continuing insults, or you will be banned.

I will continue to delete any message you post that continues this line of distraction. You are also wrong that we don't allow negative comments, there are many such comments on this Forum. The difference is other Members post in a manner that points out a problem without sarcasm, and without insulting the folks that post here. You either do the same, or leave the Forum.

Jim

 

[kragan]

I haven't yet purchased a V to replace any of my Strato C's, but after reading through some of this thread, it has me thinking about whether certain cover art image resolutions (or other image properties) could negatively affect the displayed movie art when upscaled to 4k from 1080p. I have a paired Encore/Premiere system with a number of blurays that I've added custom movie cover art. In general, I've tried to find the highest resolution cover art possible, but I don't have any expertise in graphics rendering, so maybe there's more to it. Beyond the guideline of higher image resolution is better, is anyone aware of other factors to ensure the best display on the K cover wall view?

Additionally, I'm not suggesting manual customization/intervention to work around this issue with the V, but asking out of curiosity on potentially improving something I'm already doing for some of the movies I have in my system. And I do plan to migrate to the V in the future, so if there's any adjustments I should be considering for custom movie art ahead of time, then I can plan accordingly.