• 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 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.

Zappati NAS and movie players

Calm-One

Well-known member
I just ran across an "interesting to me" newsfeed article about a alledgedly shipping commercial product that seems to be a 4K equivalent to a legacy KScape Premier earlier today.

Would love to have a KScape version of this due to a growing collection of 4K movies stacking up, but...

Has anyone had a demo or acquired this vendor's products and if so any feedback?

I hope this isn't a future boat anchor like the AMX Max or Escient Vision DVD competitor.

Ref: https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/video-player/zappiti-nas-rip-4k-hdr/amp/
 
I would suggest expecting Kaleidescape to get re-involved in anything disc related with regards to ripping to server or playback at this point. They have clearly stated their focus and future lies in digital distribution and the digital store.

That said, I can write you a book on the caveats and pros and many cons of going with a solution based on ripping disc contents for your media library.

The thing I will recommend you would consider if you are thinking of this is the future lifespan and cycle of physical media. We already have 350+ more titles in the Kaleidescape store in 4k that are not scheduled for disc release. This gap will continue to grow. People don't think that a disc ripping solution assumes they will have discs to rip and be able to rip in an ongoing, long term fashion. I would not bank on that.

All it takes is another revision to AACS making those discs unbreakable or a loss of the copy protection breaking tools again, and your ripping solution is broken.

I can also say I tried a Zappiti Pro player myself for a while. My experience is it was slow and kludgey. An Android box with disjointed settings and configuration, and I wasn't very impressed.
 
I hope this isn't a future boat anchor like the AMX Max or Escient Vision DVD competitor.
I actually have one of the few Escient Visions that ever made it into the wild... Boxed up in original packaging and complete with all the included "review titles." Anyone want to start the bidding....? ;-)
 
I would suggest expecting Kaleidescape to get re-involved in anything disc related with regards to ripping to server or playback at this point. They have clearly stated their focus and future lies in digital distribution and the digital store.

I meant to say "I would NOT suggest expecting...".
 
I actually have one of the few Escient Visions that ever made it into the wild... Boxed up in original packaging and complete with all the included "review titles." Anyone want to start the bidding....? ;-)
Had one of these before I went Kaleidescape... disk got corrupted and I lost all my content.
 
Any product that currently offers the ability to create a persistent copy of a 4K disc to a server is open to legal action, and frankly although there is a market for these products, it is likely a small market at this point and will likely get smaller as the industry continues to move away from discs, all discs.

Jim
 
There’s a handy article here that outlines copyright law by country and region -

 
Any product that currently offers the ability to create a persistent copy of a 4K disc to a server is open to legal action, and frankly although there is a market for these products, it is likely a small market at this point and will likely get smaller as the industry continues to move away from discs, all discs.

Jim

It's a dead end path for your media library, for sure. I wish more people would see the light on this.
 
There’s a handy article here that outlines copyright law by country and region -


Thanks for posting that article (I'll believe anything that author says!:giggle:)

That's generally correct. Given current law, I think the most important takeaway is that IP law, while mostly settled, lacks clarity in some areas, and a lack of clarity leads to litigation. So far, the results have generally not been good for those sued by content owners.

On a separate note, they don't have to win in court to beat you, they beat you when they file. (These cases normally settle, with each side paying their own attorney's fees. They likely have "in-house" counsel or a contract firm, while you're writing some big checks.....all the way up to settlement.)

Jim
 
  • Like
Reactions: HCS
It's a dead end path for your media library, for sure. I wish more people would see the light on this.
Sure, I see the light, but I use my Kaleidescape system to listen to music concerts and I am very happy with where the 'dead end path' and my current set of music concert discs has taken me. There are virtually no music concerts in 4K - and in any case the lighting conditions hardly justify the higher resolution. I live in Australia and cannot access the Kaleidescape online store. I really enjoy listening to my system, using the video-bookmarking to work through favorite tracks, with a Trinnov Altitude putting out sound through Cary monoblock amps at near reference levels and a good glass of red wine or two! Unfortunately Kaleidescape will stop selling Premiere systems at the end of the month. I am seriously considering trading up from a 1U system that works perfectly to a new 1U+ server that offers no additional features. I stumbled on the Zappiti option today and see that it may be a real alternative. For less than the cost of a 1U+ server I can get a 4K player and NAS on a system that has a development life going forward - at least until the lawyers get involved. However, looking at the legal advice posted by stamatopo, in Australia I can copy as many of my own discs as I like! Any impressions on the system and how it works?
 
Sure, I see the light, but I use my Kaleidescape system to listen to music concerts and I am very happy with where the 'dead end path' and my current set of music concert discs has taken me. There are virtually no music concerts in 4K - and in any case the lighting conditions hardly justify the higher resolution. I live in Australia and cannot access the Kaleidescape online store. I really enjoy listening to my system, using the video-bookmarking to work through favorite tracks, with a Trinnov Altitude putting out sound through Cary monoblock amps at near reference levels and a good glass of red wine or two! Unfortunately Kaleidescape will stop selling Premiere systems at the end of the month. I am seriously considering trading up from a 1U system that works perfectly to a new 1U+ server that offers no additional features. I stumbled on the Zappiti option today and see that it may be a real alternative. For less than the cost of a 1U+ server I can get a 4K player and NAS on a system that has a development life going forward - at least until the lawyers get involved. However, looking at the legal advice posted by stamatopo, in Australia I can copy as many of my own discs as I like! Any impressions on the system and how it works?

My comment was focused on movies, particularly, than other types of content. I'm not sure about the state of media on concerts.
 
The biggest problem with the digital delivery of movies and Kaleidescape is that it is a closed system. That is, I can only watch my content on with a Kaleidescape player, I can only watch content I purchase through the Kaleidescape store (now that Ultraviolet is dead), and I have no recourse if Kaleidescape goes bankrupt again.

Other movie collection sites (Vudu, Movies Anywhere, etc.) also expose us to risk in losing access to purchased digital content if they go under. While I appreciate that the future is in digital content, we really need some sort of solution that allows us to own the rights to the digital content we bought when moving from one provider to another. The movie industry has little to no motivation to provide such a solution because forcing us to repurchase rights to the same content is good for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Kaleidescape system but I think they should partner with another provider (e.g., Movies Anywhere) to allow more freedom in using our digital content on across both Kaleidescape and other devices.
 
The biggest problem with the digital delivery of movies and Kaleidescape is that it is a closed system. That is, I can only watch my content on with a Kaleidescape player, I can only watch content I purchase through the Kaleidescape store (now that Ultraviolet is dead), and I have no recourse if Kaleidescape goes bankrupt again.

Other movie collection sites (Vudu, Movies Anywhere, etc.) also expose us to risk in losing access to purchased digital content if they go under. While I appreciate that the future is in digital content, we really need some sort of solution that allows us to own the rights to the digital content we bought when moving from one provider to another. The movie industry has little to no motivation to provide such a solution because forcing us to repurchase rights to the same content is good for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Kaleidescape system but I think they should partner with another provider (e.g., Movies Anywhere) to allow more freedom in using our digital content on across both Kaleidescape and other devices.


You're certainly not alone in that thinking!

One comment (probably the lawyer in me) related to K's shutdown several years ago. They did not "go bankrupt," and although the doors closed for a couple of weeks, it was more a restructuring of the company, not a formal bankruptcy filing. They made the changes, and went back to work.

Jim
 
Well... The reality is that they announced they were going out of business and closed their doors. The fact that they found new backing and reopened a few weeks later was by no means a planned event.
 
There is much more to that story.....but I'll not post in a public forum.

Jim
 
Back
Top