Jim,
I cannot agree with your post more. I love Kaleidescape, and for me this is one of my most loved "luxury items." Call it OCD, call it whatever, but the idea that I do not have to stream a movie, and the movie I am watching is the highest quality picture with the best sound simply means that when I buy a movie from the store I feel secure about my ownership.
I understand a lot of people "value-shop" for digital movies from other sources. Personally, I don't understand the need to save 20 bucks over the convenience and time-saving act of simply buying a movie through the Kaleidescape store and not having to "dick-around" with anything else- I know I now own the movie, it will download, if my system is full I can delete something and it will download later, etc. etc... No third- party UV rights to worry about, nothing else to deal with.
Kaleidescape is a pretty unique company- I think there are very, very few companies that are as loved by their enthusiast customers as much as K is. Porsche? Rolex? We are a fanatical and passionate group. So it is from that spirit that the following opinion comes, in case anyone is offended:
Don't be cheap. Seriously- saving five bucks on a digital download?? Really?? K customers should have better things to do. The cost of a movie should largely be a throw-away cost. It's a meal at Chili's- it's the cost of a new phone case. I have wondered for a long time why K allows the download of movies people have not paid for. Unless I am wrong, they could allow the purchase of a title to be included in a customer's UV account but withhold the ability to download it if it was not purchased on the store, but they have chosen not to do that (again I may be wrong.) I buy all of my movies on the K store. I held off on the BBC nature shows on Blu-ray because I was waiting for them to appear on K. The loss of UV doesn't mean anything to me. And I think a lot of the people who complain about the lack of movies anywhere are people who do not actually own a K system...
In terms of buying movies through the K store to support K- this to me is a no-brainer. K is a niche product, it is incomprehensibly-expensive for most people, and therefore K as a company really relies on its customers' support to invent the market. There are no products that compete with K- there are streaming devices, there are ways someone can produce a product that may come close to doing what K does without the interface, convenience or quality, but K has created and exists as the sole occupant of the luxury high-end media server market.
We need to support it any way we can. We should be buying our movies from the K store, not complaining about movie prices. If you cannot afford it... go build a plex server or use an Apple TV. Don't complain here.
Just my 2 cents...