• Thanks for visiting the Kaleidescape Owners' Forum

    This forum is for the community of Kaleidescape owners, and others interested in learning about the system, equipment, services, and the company itself.

    It is run by a group of enthusiastic Kaleidescape owners and dealers purely as a service to this community.

    This board is not affiliated in any way with Kaleidescape, Inc.
    For official technical support, product information, or customer service, please visit www.kaleidescape.com

    You can dismiss this box forever by clicking the "X" in the upper right corner of this message.
  • You are currently in "Guest" mode and not logged in with a registered account.

    The forum is free to use and most of the forum can be used by guests who are not registered....

    ... but we strongly encourage you to register for a full account. There is no cost to register for a full account.

    Benefits of registering for a full account:

    • Participate in the discussions! You must have a registered account to make posts on the forums. You will be able to start your own thread on a topic or question, or you can reply to other threads/discussions.
    • Use the "Conversation" feature (known as "private messaging" on other forums) to communicate directly with any of the other users here.
    • Access the Files area. The "resources" area of the forum contains many "Favorite Scene" and Script files that can dramatically increase the enjoyment of your Kaleidescape system. Go directly to great scenes in your favorite movies, created by other owners, and add automation to playback of your system with Scripts.
    • You won't see this annoying notice at the top of every screen!😊

    It's easy and free to register for the forum. Just click the "Register" button in the upper right corner of this page, and follow the instructions there.

    This box goes away for registered users.

Warning: Alien 3 Strato V Update

They can treat things however they want but people paid for a digital product which includes all content including extras and all of a sudden they don't have what they paid for. Kind of like buying a water melon, getting it home, putting a water melon in the refrigerator but when you open the refrigerator to eat it there is on!y a honeydew melon in there. But it's still a melon right?

Quite frankly the whole V thing is a shambles and I think because of some K employees input on this forum people are afraid to call it out for what it is. Even the well overdue conversion updates that shouldn't have been needed, but if they were should have been provided from the beginning, are showing conversion at a much slower rate than we were led to believe. K really need to communicate things better and some sort of statement would be welcome at this stage.

My rather selfish concern as a non V owner, now that I know that movies I have purchased might not be avai!ab!e to me in the future as was promised, is what happens to non V owners who purchase a V converted movie. Presumably before conversion we get all the extras then after conversion we get whatever was converted and nothing else and if and when the extras are converted we then get them? I don't know other than speculation as K haven't made it clear or even attempted to explain.

So as it stands non V owners are essentially being asked to pay the same for less once a conversion has taken place with the non-guaranteed hope that they will eventually get what was on offer before conversion. All for a product some of us never asked for and don't even want.

It is no secret that I am irked by the increasing amount of content that is not availab!e on K but is available elsewhere or available in a better quality but now I face the prospect of store content getting worse with almost every conversion and possibly undownloaded purcbases not quite being the same when downloaded as what I purchased.

As a practical example I had no idea that Alien 3 and Rocky Horror had additional cuts, because of how rubbish the UI is at displaying this sort of information, that I would have purchased if I had known but now that I know I can't purchase because of a product I don't even own. I haven't purchased anything on K in ages because either it isn't available or is only availab!e in an inferior package yet have added over a hundred discs to my collection and this sort of thing only makes it worse. Unless I want to downgrade my collection I doubt I will ever fill up my 22tb server. Certainly if I put a 30 year old Laserdisc in my player it's the same content as I purchased and will still be the same tomorrow which seemingly can't be said of K.

Apologies for the long rant folks but for the 'Ultimate Player' to be worse than Laserdisc it just grinds my gears a little. (Just to c!arify for those who were wondering I am not remotely serious about the Laserdisc references but the comparision to it was rather bizarrely started by K which imho was quite absurd even though I am running with it).
 
While on the topic of Alien, is there a reason Aliens SE is a separate purchase from the Theatrical when both are included for the same price on disc and digital elsewhere?
 
While on the topic of Alien, is there a reason Aliens SE is a separate purchase from the Theatrical when both are included for the same price on disc and digital elsewhere?
The K Store reflects what happens on other digital stores. You can buy the theatrical cut in 4K and it comes with the Special Edition in HD. If you want the Special Edition in 4K, it’s a separate purchase. This is exactly what you’ll see on Fandango at Home (Vudu), but Apple has elected to only carry a single version in 4K. (However, if you use Movies Anywhere, you may be able to unlock additional versions on Apple.*)

Yes, disc offers better solutions with multiple cuts, but this is almost always the case (things like seamless branching don’t exist in the purely digital realm). The thing to keep in mind is that for a company like K, another cut means the same amount of money and effort as an additional movie. Days of encoding and QA, server space, etc. Yet, if it’s simply an extra feature they’d make no additional money.

This is why you’ll see things like the Apocalypse Now Final Cut disc set have three cuts in 4K and an HD documentary. Meanwhile, Apple and Vudu have four separate digital purchases. It’s just the nature of disc vs. digital. Personally, I’m a huge fan of alternate cuts and have come around to supporting separate purchases.

*This worked for me, let me know if anyone wants details.
 
Last edited:
The K Store reflects what happens on other digital stores. You can buy the theatrical cut in 4K and it comes with the Special Edition in HD. If you want the Special Edition in 4K, it’s a separate purchase. This is exactly what you’ll see on Fandango at Home (Vudu), but Apple has elected to only carry a single version in 4K. (However, if you use Movies Anywhere, you may be able to unlock additional versions on Apple.*)

Yes, disc offers better solutions with multiple cuts, but this is almost always the case (things like seamless branching don’t exist in the purely digital realm). The thing to keep in mind is that for a company like K, another cut means the same amount of money and effort as an additional movie. Days of encoding and QA, server space, etc. Yet, if it’s simply an extra feature they’d make no additional money.

This is why you’ll see things like the Apocalypse Now Final Cut disc set have three cuts in 4K and an HD documentary. Meanwhile, Apple and Vudu have four separate digital purchases. It’s just the nature of disc vs. digital. Personally, I’m a huge fan of alternate cuts and have come around to supporting separate purchases.

*This worked for me, let me know if anyone wants details.
I would buy all the "Apocalypse Now" cuts in 4K. They are quite different and worth having. Alas, we only have the Final Cut at K. I now wonder if something like "The Exorcist" only being in the Theatrical Cut at K was a decision K made.
 
I did go back to see that Aliens SE is HD on ATV. Makes sense.

Yeah The Exorcist DC is also another must have in 4k.
 
I now wonder if something like "The Exorcist" only being in the Theatrical Cut at K was a decision K made.
Yes, this is absolutely a decision that K made. Not just to only get the Theatrical Cut but to do so in SDR only. These kinds of decisions happen all the time, though luckily the SDR-only thing has been toned down this year compared to last. K has limited resources, and makes decisions based upon projected sales of titles. This leads to things like SDR instead of HDR, HD instead of 4K, single cut instead of multiple, or simply not getting movies. We're all hoping that the Strato V provides an influx of resources that allow for expanding the K Store.
 
These decisions are what makes it hard to fully endorse K and why the movie store, to my surprise, has been its biggest shortcoming. Big budget blockbusters with dynamic audio mixes should not be the main customer focus. The last year has seen some AMAZING catalogue 4k releases. Exorcist being one of them. I understand the focus now especially with the V re-encodes, but all titles should be revisited and given 4k where it is available.
 
These decisions are what makes it hard to fully endorse K and why the movie store, to my surprise, has been its biggest shortcoming. Big budget blockbusters with dynamic audio mixes should not be the main customer focus. The last year has seen some AMAZING catalogue 4k releases. Exorcist being one of them. I understand the focus now especially with the V re-encodes, but all titles should be revisited and given 4k where it is available.
Yeah I hear ya'll but I think that we should be very clear about what ya'll are mostly talking about. This is more of a conversation about back catalog titles. In my mind, this is where K falls short. I'm not a big back catalog guy bc I'm typically a one and done movie watcher. So I only care about the newer movies that I haven't seen. And I would venture a guess that the vast majority of movie watchers, including those in the K ecosystem are one and done viewers. And K is still doing a good job of getting the best version of the newer/newish movies.

If you're coming to K hoping to build a large collection of back catalog movies in 4k or you're looking to grab every single alternate version of those movies, K is not for you. For that you should stick to collecting the discs.
 
If you're coming to K hoping to build a large collection of back catalog movies in 4k or you're looking to grab every single alternate version of those movies, K is not for you. For that you should stick to collecting the discs.
I think it's a very interesting time for K, and I'm watching as both an owner and a spectator.

The Strato V is their newest product, likely has the slimmest margin, and can certainly be targeted at the one-and-done crowd. However, most of their hardware are Terra servers designed around building up collections. How many Strato V's do they need to sell to match the profit from a single 123TB Terra Prime?

I agree that the store offerings surely aren't playing to the "collector" crowd. Perhaps they used to, there do appear to be signs of that. And, perhaps the issue is that that market isn't/wasn't providing what K needs. Maybe lots and lots of Strato V's and movie sales is a better market for them.

Again, interesting times.
 
If the vast majority are one and done movie watchers then there wouldn’t be a demand for storage. Get a V, watch the movie and on to the next.

I’d love to know how it’s decided as to what movies sell. The store curators need to keep their finger on the pulse of the 4k physical release buyers and those of us that buy storage. We want classics and special editions at their highest quality available and we will pay to buy both the movie and the storage to keep them at our fingertips.
 
If the vast majority are one and done movie watchers then there wouldn’t be a demand for storage. Get a V, watch the movie and on to the next.

I’d love to know how it’s decided as to what movies sell. The store curators need to keep their finger on the pulse of the 4k physical release buyers and those of us that buy storage. We want classics and special editions at their highest quality available and we will pay to buy both the movie and the storage to keep them at our fingertips.
I only have a Strato V at the moment and most of my movies on a NAS and I can say I’ve only watched the majority of them once, not because I don’t want to watch them more but because there simply isn’t enough time to!

The only reason I personally want a Terra is because I’m very much used to being able to see everything available and browse at a whim before playing. You can do it with just a V but you then have to use the app which I don’t like having to go into apps to do things as it’s just an extra step. Still better than having to look through a load of disc cases and mess about with that but not ideal IMO, plus you miss out on the full poster wall. That being said it’s just because I’m conditioned to being used to having everything visible and I’m trying to adjust.

The other big reason which isn’t a factor for me as I’m in the UK with 1Gb speeds and unlimited use is that most people don’t have fibre quick enough to make it almost seamless and especially in NA/CA you guys have pretty aggressive data caps which makes the Terra even more attractive.

Maybe my view is skewed because I had 2.5 years of downtime between room builds and refused to watch any movies on a TV, meaning I now have around 300 films to watch from new films to older 4K rebuys and catching up even watching 3 films a week is nigh on impossible when I keep buying new ones (already 44 on Kscape in 2 months!) so rewatching hasn’t even entered the equation yet unless I have people over and there is something specific they want to watch.
 
Maybe my view is skewed because I had 2.5 years of downtime between room builds and refused to watch any movies on a TV, meaning I now have around 300 films to watch from new films to older 4K rebuys and catching up even watching 3 films a week is nigh on impossible when I keep buying new ones (already 44 on Kscape in 2 months!) so rewatching hasn’t even entered the equation yet unless I have people over and there is something specific they want to watch.
My situation is simular. From Aug 2020 to Jan 2022, I didn't watch a singular movie bc I was in the process of having a new home built. So I'm trying to catch up on the newer movies, which is what all of my movie watching is devoted to. On top of that, I only watch one movie per week, typically on Saturday nights if I'm not visiting friends or out of town on a trip.
 
If the vast majority are one and done movie watchers then there wouldn’t be a demand for storage. Get a V, watch the movie and on to the next.

I’d love to know how it’s decided as to what movies sell. The store curators need to keep their finger on the pulse of the 4k physical release buyers and those of us that buy storage. We want classics and special editions at their highest quality available and we will pay to buy both the movie and the storage to keep them at our fingertips.
I think this is the key here. And K customers were one-and-done, we would not need anything more than a 6TB drive. And yet, most of us keep getting more storage at very premium prices. I'd say most of us are indeed collectors.

The other thing is that even if you are a one-and-done viewer, that doesn't mean you don't watch a 4K release of an old movie. A 4K remaster of an old title is basically a new movie to me and I WILL watch it.
 
I'd say most of us are indeed collectors.
I can only speak for myself, but I certainly fit this definition.

If I get the primary titles that I want, then I'll buy secondary and tertiary titles around them, and download them all. When I run out of space, I'll buy more storage. If I don't get the primary titles that I want, or not enough of them, then I'll just buy select titles from what I'm presented.

If K adjusted their title selection by roughly 10% it would yield an increase in my spending of roughly 1,000%. That's not hyperbole. Maybe the market is shifting, K is all about new titles, and I pick up several a month. Or, K focuses on 4K old and new, grabs the occasional Director's Cut, fills in some HD holes, and I double/triple my monthly purchases and pick up another Terra.

I'm trying to be zen and accept either. I love K. And as I believe @thrillcat pointed out in my cranky-pants thread, the K most able to fulfill any of our desires is a successful one. So, that's what I'm hoping for above all.
 
If you're coming to K hoping to build a large collection of back catalog movies in 4k or you're looking to grab every single alternate version of those movies, K is not for you. For that you should stick to collecting the discs.
Which can, arguably, still be done on K... for now. It will be a very dark day when the shoe finally drops on Premiere support.
 
Back
Top