What additional components are required to play discs via a Strato S?

[MXT]

Hello all,

I'm a new owner of a 6TB Strato S and I also have an M700 on indefinite loan, which I'm using to convert some of my existing DVD and BD collection to digital copies. I've tried searching the forum for the answer to my question, but I've not found it so far. I think that many members have more general knowledge of past generation hardware and it's probably "obvious" to you all, but not to me.

Anyway, I believe it might be possible to play discs via my Strato S if I add the right additional hardware, such as a Co-Star switch, and a...? I'm looking for the simplest option for a single-zone setup.

Thanks!

MXT

 

[MXT]

I just realized my question may be ambiguous, as there could be two possible solutions. 1) Play discs directly via the optical drive in the M700. 2) Import discs to local storage on some component and play from there. I'm referring to option 1, simply as a convenient alternative to playing those discs from my existing Blu-ray player, if the additional investment in hardware is not too great. Thanks!

 

[Ksalno]

If you want to play DVDs, you either need to do a disc to digital conversation or keep the M700 forever (until it fails, which it will). If you don’t do disc to digital for the BluRays, the M700 will rip them to the Strato (I think, I have a Premier 1U Kserver 1500 that they get ripped to), but you need to keep the BluRay disc physically in the Vault in order to fulfill the DRM between Kscape and the studios. Since everything will get played by the Strato, I don’t think you need anything else.

 

[andy]

Hey MXT,

With your current configuration (Strato + M700), you can only play DVD discs that are cataloged and located in the vault. Any Blu-ray discs you insert will be cataloged (in order to get disc-to-digital offers), but none of those Blu-ray discs can be played from the Strato. In fact, only the DVD titles will appear in your on-screen Strato interface (since it only displays what it can play). If you want to view the cataloged Blu-ray titles got to the browser interface (the IP address of your Strato).

To play Blu-ray discs from an optical drive, you would also likely want an Alto and a Co-star switch. You could get away with just an Alto, but then you’d have to switch between your Alto and Strato inputs which is kind of clunky and splits your on-screen library up. Using the Co-star is a much more elegant solution.

Your real challenge may be finding an Alto since those are not available new any longer. Personally, I use my M700 to play the 100 or so DVDs that are not available on the Store and have upgraded most of my Blu-ray discs to Store downloads. Depending on the size of your disc library, this may work for you as well.

Andy


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[MXT]

Regarding the Alto: Can I copy DVDs and BDs to its internal storage and playback from there, or is the internal storage only used for downloaded store content, and the optical drive is only used for playback and cataloging? In other words, with the Alto could I eliminate the M700 completely (assuming there is enough storage on the Alto for the remaining discs that I don't or can't convert to digital copies)?

Also, I did not realize I could play DVDs directly with the hardware I already have. Very interesting.

Thanks!

 

[andy]

Alto is part of the Encore line (not sure K still uses this term) which does not allow for the import of content. You can only catalog and play discs from the optical drive in an Alto

Premiere line products allow for imports, but you need a “grandfathered” server to import DVDs.


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[MXT]

Let me just summarize the above to make sure I've got it right.

With the combination of Strato S, Alto, M700, and Co-Star, I can do the following:

1) Play DVDs and BDs via M700 -> Alto -> Co-Star -> Strato.
2) Play DVDs only via M700 -> Strato.
3) Catalog discs via either M700 (in bulk) or Alto (one at a time).
4) Download and play 4K/HD/SD store content on the Strato.

But what about:

5) Download HD/SD content to the Alto and play it back via Co-Star -> Strato. (This would allow me to save some space on the Strato.)

This is all assuming I can even find an Alto in the Marketplace of course.

Thanks!

 

[andy]

You can certainly download SD/HD to the Alto.


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[Ksalno]

Just a note that due to the DRM agreement that Kscape signed with the studios, you can not directly play a BD in any Kscape device. You need to import it to a server, which can be a Kserver (Premier line), an Alto (Encore line), or a Terra/Strato S (current line). If you don't do the D2D for the BluRay, you also need to leave the disc in the M700 vault to be able to authenticate it but playback is from a server hard drive, not from the disc itself.

 

[Transepoch]

Just a note that due to the DRM agreement that Kscape signed with the studios, you can not directly play a BD in any Kscape device. You need to import it to a server, which can be a Kserver (Premier line), an Alto (Encore line), or a Terra/Strato S (current line). If you don't do the D2D for the BluRay, you also need to leave the disc in the M700 vault to be able to authenticate it but playback is from a server hard drive, not from the disc itself.

That would certainly be contrary to what we have been told in the past.

 

[MXT]

You can certainly download SD/HD to the Alto.


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Thank you Andy, this is all very helpful information.

 

[MXT]

Just a note that due to the DRM agreement that Kscape signed with the studios, you can not directly play a BD in any Kscape device. You need to import it to a server, which can be a Kserver (Premier line), an Alto (Encore line), or a Terra/Strato S (current line). If you don't do the D2D for the BluRay, you also need to leave the disc in the M700 vault to be able to authenticate it but playback is from a server hard drive, not from the disc itself.

In my limited experience so far, I cannot see any way to import a disc from the M700 directly to the Strato S. But I can confirm that I can play DVDs only (not BDs) from the M700 optical drive via the Strato S. Neat trick.

 

[andy]

You cannot import any discs to ANY Encore line products (Alto, Strato, Terra)… you can only download Store content to these devices (w/Alto only supporting SD/HD downloads and playback). Playback of cataloged DVDs and Blu-rays is supported on the Encore line but ONLY with the configurations previously discussed in this thread.

Andy


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[cinelife]

Just a note that due to the DRM agreement that Kscape signed with the studios, you can not directly play a BD in any Kscape device. You need to import it to a server, which can be a Kserver (Premier line), an Alto (Encore line), or a Terra/Strato S (current line). If you don't do the D2D for the BluRay, you also need to leave the disc in the M700 vault to be able to authenticate it but playback is from a server hard drive, not from the disc itself.

Almost correct. You can playback a physical Blu-ray disc from the optical drive of an Alto, which is considered part of what was referred to as the "Encore" system (K has since dropped that term and now uses "Strato and Terra"), and you can also playback a physical BR disc from the optical drive in an M500, and IIRC the Cinema One (2nd Gen) as well.

Jim

 

[cinelife]

In my limited experience so far, I cannot see any way to import a disc from the M700 directly to the Strato S. But I can confirm that I can play DVDs only (not BDs) from the M700 optical drive via the Strato S. Neat trick.

Correct, and if you had an Alto instead of a Strato connected, you could play back BR as well. The Strato is restricted to DVD only.

Jim

 

[Substance]

You can try reading this. It is a very long threat but covers almost all aspects of building a system that can play anything from DVDs to 4K downloads.

If you are a movie monster like me, Kscape is an addictive hobby. I started with a humble 6TB Strato and now have 72TB in Terra and another 72TB in Premiere. My entire journey is in this below thread that I started a little less than a year ago.

Suggest me a system

New to the forum. I have a very large physical media collection. Several hundred DVDs, three thousand or so Blu-rays and close to four hundred 4K UHD Blu-rays. Also, several dozens of region 2/ region B DVDs and Blu-rays. Can you recommend me a system to accommodate most of these? I have the...

www.kscapeowners.com

 

[MXT]

You can try reading this. It is a very long threat but covers almost all aspects of building a system that can play anything from DVDs to 4K downloads.

If you are a movie monster like me, Kscape is an addictive hobby. I started with a humble 6TB Strato and now have 72TB in Terra and another 72TB in Premiere. My entire journey is in this below thread that I started a little less than a year ago.

Suggest me a system

New to the forum. I have a very large physical media collection. Several hundred DVDs, three thousand or so Blu-rays and close to four hundred 4K UHD Blu-rays. Also, several dozens of region 2/ region B DVDs and Blu-rays. Can you recommend me a system to accommodate most of these? I have the...

www.kscapeowners.com

Amazing thread! If I had read it first, maybe I would not have posted my own question since you basically answered everything.

The big difference for me is that I'm operating at such a small scale compared to you and others here on the forum. No projector, no Lumagen, merely 100s of discs vs 1000s. This Strato S is really pushing the limits of financial responsibility for me, but the convenience and quality is really addicting so far.

My plan for now has been to watch the extremely helpful "Movies on Sale" thread and tactically "upgrade" my discs that way, or else take advantage of D2D offers if I'm impatient. But for my BDs that only have an HD version on the K store, I started wondering if there was another way. On the other hand, I could probably upgrade all such discs to HD digital copies for less than the price of an Alto and Co-Star. Then I'm only left with discs that aren't available at all in the K store, and a few region B discs, which I could just play from my standalone player.

I will of course run out of space sooner rather than later, but I've already accepted that I'll have to delete movies that are unlikely to be watched soon and re-download them when necessary. :/

Thanks again to everyone for the help.

MXT

 

[Substance]

I must admit my collection got out of hand. I have been buying movies since the mid 90s in the laserdiscs era. After spending 10s of thousands (if not more) in my physical media collection over the years, it was a hard sell to get into Kaleidescape and its very expensive eco system. My justifications were, one, I have a room full of discs, moving into a one room larger home cost way more than the most expensive Kaleidescape system, two, with Kaleidescape I have my cake and I can eat it, as in, it was so difficult to manage so many thousands of discs, I was lazy to bother to grab a movie from boxes or shelves. Nevertheless, Kaleidescape still pushed the limits of my finances. It was a challenge to afford it all. For this, I must thank Jim from Cinelife. He informed me about the promotions and trade-in deals at the time. Kaleidescape equipment has high resale value. It won’t be difficult to scale up later if you feel you need more storage and capabilities. Looking forward to hearing your experiences.

On a separate note, I have a Control4( C4) system for control and using the Chowmain’s Kaleidescape driver. When browsing for a movie on my C4 tablet (or iPhone/iPad C4 app), Kaleidescape server driver shows all of my library including the titles, not downloaded to my servers and sitting in the digital offers (cataloged titles to be converted from disc to digital). For those who has C4 and keeps movies on the Kscape cloud, this could be a work around to browse the entire collection (The other option is the Kscape web app).