📌 Considering the Kaleidescape? Find one here bit.ly/482HyhW and bit.ly/3VRsgYu 🔌 Leave a QUESTION/COMMENT! It may be featured on the next Unplugged! Watch every UNPLUGGED here bit.ly/43NnDkT 😀If you enjoyed this video, please hit the 👍 Like button! 🙏 Please stay on topic & be respectful. ‼ Channel Policies, FTC Disclosures & 🚫 are available in the description box (beneath the video’s title).
My main problem with buying physical media is that I rarely rewatch a movie. I guess that’s why people don’t buy movies and just rent online. I can’t justify paying for a physical media ( with some exceptions of course) …plus the space problem. I can’t have a wall full of cds , dvds, blu rays , vinyl. I prefer a more clean looking space since I live in a small apartment.
Interesting to learn about the Strato V. Their pricing for the servers is however just insane, like buying a Mac with more than base storage 🙂 I wonder, how does what the Strato V offer in term of quality compare to the Bravia Core streaming service from Sony? You should have free access to the Bravia Core as it comes as a bonus with their more fancy offerings like TV's, phones and more. The Bravia Core service requires something like 100 Mbps+ to let you stream at max quality and personally I have never seen anything surpass it, although not all movies on their service is that high a quality.
Technically, a disc is merely your license. While I think the studios and record labels "lost" their battles regarding the re-selling of discs by private and third-party re-sellers, such practices were originally and may still be, technically, illegal. But I see your point.
@@andrewrobinsonreviewsthe difference is my "license" with the disc allows me to watch offline, share with people, unable to edit the content based off societal changes, superior picture and sound, bonus features, etc
@@BloopsnBleeps I mean there are other options than just streaming vs physical/disc media. You can have digital copies of films and retain the same control as discs, yet have the advantage of less space used and easier backup/playback.
@@AndySomethingWhat digital copy would you have that retains as much control as a disc? Also, the audio and video quality suffer, so if you're looking for the truest form of film preservation, it would be physical
This is not true with K-scape. You actually purchase the license differently than other digital stores. If k-scape loses the license to sell, you still have the right to play the media and redownload it. I own the Strato V - it’s fantastic
Only a 75-inch or above???? Nah. Even on my 65-inch TV, the 4K disc doesn't even TOUCH a 4K stream...... both in terms of visuals and (as you mentioned) audio. Take the original BLADE RUNNER. The 4K disc resolves the grain beautifully. It looks FANTASTIC. The stream is mush.
@@StevenHemingway1 I use a 42C2 and going from a 5-10mbps stream to a 85-100mbps disc is night and day just for sharpness, clarity, and importantly colour no dithering or banding and they look like they are printed on the screen.
@@ashliehiggins Exactly. KS is the same thing. To say it's only noticeable at 75-inches is RIDICULOUS. Like I mentioned, older movies (let's take Ridley Scott's ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER) look INSANELY good on 4K disc vs the mushy stream.
@@StevenHemingway1 Kaleidescape isn't a stream, though. How large is the file on your Avengers: Endgame disc? It's under 66GB, compared to Kaleidescape's 111GB. Care to compare?
@@ballstadt Didn't say it was. Sometimes, KS is even BETTER than the disc. My point being, AR said that the difference between a stream and KS isn't noticeable below 75 inches, and I said that's not even remotely true. Seems like you didn't watch the video, so you don't know what I am commenting on.
@@StevenHemingway1 I misinterpreted your post. Too many people believe Kaleidescape is streaming. I watched the video. Your first post says "4K disc doesn't touch a stream" which, I'm still not sure what that is supposed to mean, and immediately positioned your argument as being "Kaleidescape is streaming and isn't as good as 4K disc."
Hard pass. Making storage proprietary so you have to buy it from them at a 10x markup is criminal. You can also only redownload your purchases for as long as they stay in business and keep those servers running. The concept is great, but the execution puts me off.
@@stevenmichael7770 it’s not criminal, it’s how they remain legit with the studios. What’s criminal are “beta” products like MakeMKV providing a resource for users to defeat existing copy protection on discs in order to “backup” their media with other users around the world.
I have 100% interest in what Kaleidoscope does as stated by Andrew. I have 0% interest at the current price. The device would have to be no more than $500 to get me on board.
$4000 to hold four 4k movies seems ridiculous. I built my unraid server with over 100TB for 2k, and can run plex over my wifi to tv or Nvidia Shield. Holds my whole collection. My 4k blurays often running at 130mbps. Not sure how this competes with a regular 4k blu ray player or a NAS or server running plex. This seems like off the shelf server rental for millionaires.
If Apple ever introduces a high bit-rate tier for streaming movies on their store, the Kaleidescape business will collapse. And for $4,000 you’re only getting a 1TB storage, so 10 4K files. Kaleidescape doesn’t even carry the criterion collection, which is a massive deal breaker for me.
$4,000 for the player itself isnt actually the turn off I thought it would be, but $27,000 to get only another ~100 TB? Yikes, and I thought Apple's storage pricing was insulting lol. The INSANE external storage cost combined with having the same ownership drawbacks as any other digital purchase is enough for me to stray away from this option and continue with my plans to build a plex server from ripped versions of all my discs. Really great review however, very insightful on how the whole operation works!
@gingersmedia The SSD servers are targeted for Kaleidescape's marine installation market, not for typical home installation. Kaleidescape themselves will tell you there is little or no benefit to using SSD storage for a home installation, outside of energy efficiency and operating noise level. The full-size Terra servers have greater storage capacities, and also have user-replaceable hard drives in case of failure, so there's little reason to go with the SSD servers for a home theater.
I'm here wondering about the cost of everything. I can get a 96TB media server for about 3k + connect that to Nvidia Shield Pro or something like that. I've been running 80GB+ 4k DV movies with DTS X and Atmos for a long time now. Sounds just insane how and why someone would pay that much for some company products that also limits how you can use it. Just ridiculous if you can't connect your own media server storage.
It has a 1tb SSD drive so it holds a lot more than that depending on movie size and is $3600 if you get it through some places. It holds 10-12 4k Dolby vision/HDR at one time again depending on size (60-100gb each??)and if you have gig internet the servers are great and will get you a movie in 6-12 minutes. It boils down to do you have a theater or something like it (not watching on just a 48" TV using TV speakers or sound bar) where you see the biggest difference in lossless audio on a decent surround sound IMO.
An internal hard drive with a mere 960GB available in 2024 is UTTERLY RIDICULOUS. Quality 4TB SSDs are readily available everywhere for just a few hundred bucks.
Give me a 4k discs all day long. Its mine and nobody can alter or take it away from me. I look forward to me films arriving through the door and checking out the features.
- $9,000 for a Strato V and the cheapest additional storage (8TB) - Never own anything tangible - If the business fails you have a $9,000 paperweight - AV quality compared to 4k UHD discs is a push So for an absurd 30x cost differential compared to a great 4k disc player, and all the inherent risk you take by adopting this format, the pay off is what? A run-of-the-mill UI and no wicked cool physical media collection to show off? You willingly give up ownership and pay 30x all for "convenience". That long grueling slog of opening a case and dropping a disc in a tray, oh the humanity!
I have the Strato V for my apartment theater. At first I was skeptical. I had the original box ready to repack the K-Scape to return it. After calibrating my AVR, I actually threw the packing box away. THE most noticeable difference is with the audio. Especially, Dolby Atmos. The level of detail cannot be matched by any streaming service or even UHD Blu-Ray. I will NOT be replacing this K-Scape anytime soon.
This is a complete and utter joke of a price for this. It’s actually shockingly bad. This company is just creaming it in. You can already do this on plex for free, use a shield and rip your media to a synology nas or unraid server. Costs you 100000x less and you have full control. This product is trying to replicate that and then charge rich people who are clueless about tech essentially. It’s criminal. Kind of makes me mad honestly. Imagine only including a 1tb hdd to try and upsell you to a 25 grand server nas device that’s proprietary to them. This is 100% disgusting behavior and should be called out - no one should support this company.
@ I don’t know if I should reply to this as you do you and enjoy yourself but my 48 terrabyte synology nas and plex server cost around $2500 and a shield pro is 200 bucks. Does it all. Lossless everything once your rips are on it and plex configured.
@@andrewrobinsonreviews ripping takes time as you’d know but it’s a hobby. I’d rather do that than pay crazy amounts of money as a middle class earner. Setting up plex and a synology nas is pretty easy, a few hours for a tech professional (I am one).
As for me, long live physical media. You can't beat the Atmos or Video quality; no buffering, no dropped signals or iffy WiFi or maxing out server space.
I don't understand what the point of this product is. I could achieve the same thing with a decently powerful Plex server. As you stated in the beginning of the video, you had already converted your physical collection to digital. With good enough specs, a Plex server could easily do what this product does and you could own your content.
This is an interesting device, but at $4000 this is basically wildly out of reach for 99% of people. You could easily get a full home theater system with TV and surround sound for that price. No doubt physical discs can be a bit of a pain, but if you were to go that route instead, you could easily get yourself a 4K player and 200+ movies for the same price. Not to mention that they're yours forever and no company bankruptcy or licensing issues can take them away from you. Additionally, most of these 4Ks will come with a digital code as well allowing you to watch them on virtually any device. If you don't already have a $20,000+ home theater and more money than you know what to do with, this shouldn't even be on your radar.
Great video Andrew - best to you and Kristy. I have a 150" 2.35 screen and 4K projector, and looked that this system. I have about 1,000 discs and at least half are 4K. The average price paid for my discs is about $18 (Criterion 4K is $24, Amadeus arrives in 4k in February for $25). I can't imagine a format in the next 5-10 years that is better than a 4K 100 GB disc. To conclude, I love the idea of the Kaleidescape but the upfront costs, the walled garden issue and the increased costs of the movies makes this prohibitive for a collector, even when I have the $$. Thanks!
it is and has always been way too expensive imho. For $4k you can build your own NAS, get streaming devices for all tv's and have several options for playing the media and getting metadata from pretty comprehensive sources. Yes it takes time to rip the movies but once it's done it's done.
Great solution for obscenely wealthy people. Everyone else can do a little extra legwork and setup a home media server for less than a grand and get 99% of the experience
Uh, no. I already have a "like having physical media experience" in that I still have physical media. I never really got into the whole "look like you live in a Norwegian's house where they were too poor to buy anything" aesthetic. I like books, CDs, LP and DVDs and Blu-Rays. It is not even a hassle storing or moving them because I am not a 20-something anymore and have moved once in the last 20 years.
This was a great comprehensive and fair review. I like what they do and have considered it. I think the two deal breakers for me are: 1. There is currently not enough of quality gain over physical disc. Based on lots of user forums and reviews, most movies don't have any noticeable differences. 2. The issue of losing everything if something happens to Kaleidescape. I would hope that a luxury product like this would offer some kind of legal deal with the studios so they would honor your purchases if K was to disappear. Otherwise, you're out thousands of dollars for the hardware and your entire digital collection.
A less than 1TB internal SSD for a $4,000 media player... KScape must think we are all a bunch of saps. You can get a Zidoo or Dune player that does almost the same thing. Throw in a modest NAS storage unit and some patience in archiving your Blu-ray and 4k Blu-ray collection and you can have similar AV quality and instantaneous access to your collection for a fraction of the price.
Something I mention in the video, though, for a lot of folks, the idea of spending weeks, months, or even years maintaining their own media server is a non-starter; same as the cost of a K-Scape system is for you.
@andrewrobinsonreviews KScape is fine... if you have the money and can afford to lose your collection if, god-forbid, they go under, which they almost did a couple times. What I find outrageous and a non-starter, for me (and for many people if you read a lot of the home theater boards), is their external server prices. Their cost per TB of storage is far, far beyond any reasonable expectations. There must be a sizeable dealer markup on the hardware; more than most AV gear. Toys for the well-heeled only. Normal folk need not apply.
My concern is with losing access to what I've paid for, which is alleviated by physical media. New formats are inescapable. I've paid for music in 45, 33, cassette, disc, and digital formats, many songs albums in multiple of these. Even services that remain in business have removed access to media people have "bought", highlighting your point that technically we've really only ever paid for revocable licenses in the digital age. Given the price of their external storage, I doubt this device compatible with any other drive options. I'm also concerned that at some point they'd add on "subscription" or other recurring fees to watch or otherwise access purchased content. Thanks to you and Kristi for giving us great information on a range of audio and video options, including on subwoofers 👍🏿 Merry Holidays and Happy New Year! I hope you take off the rest of this week and enjoy a little anniversary/birthday/mental health break, you both deserve that.
In my teens and 20s, I bought all my CDs, and I now have about 500 of them. These days, I very, very rarely buy new ones because my musical tastes were formed over those 20 or so years. Most of the CDs I buy now are from charity shops for €2. I presume it’s the same for DVDs, etc. My buddy pays a monthly subscription to Roon and still listens to the same music he enjoyed in his 20s. I think, after 40 years, he’ll own nothing, and all that listening will die with him.
5:50 until the service is shutdown... I would love to have acces to high quality content, you only have to pop in a UHD blu-ray to see and hear just what you've been missing out on with streaming services but I am very, very reluctant to start buying everything in a new format again, especially if that format is digital only.
@@florisbackx1744 Kaleidescape is the only disc-quality digital product that has legitimized itself with the studios and sought agreements to be above board. Ripping discs is still a gray area in terms of copyright violation. MakeMKV is forever in donation “beta” because they know their business model is walking a fine line. Zappiti closed up shop on the run from copyright lawsuits and rebranded. How long before the others are doing the same.
I don't set the price. I made you and the audience aware, I think it's clear where 99% of people will fall, and the free market will decide whether or not they can continue to charge such prices. I repeatedly said that the extra storage cost was steep, and I even showed you a puppy to help curb the sting; what more do you want from me? I'm not going to slam a product that works as advertised (after a firmware update) just because y'all don't like the price. I gave you my opinion on the storage cost, but it's ultimately not my call to make.
He acknowledged the costs. My goodness. Why don't viewers hold themselves more accountable by realizing when something isn't for them or their pocketbooks? People's ability to jump to immediate outrage and accusations must feel good.
Strato V has to be better than 4K disc to be a real contender. Otherwise it's just an expensive streamer that only differs in that it buffers the media locally before playing. I know it's not technically a streamer, but the limited storage capacity and cost of additional storage mean you're going to have to download most content before you watch it. It also means you're at the mercy of the service maintaining the library for you to re-download, something physical media avoids. Now, give me superior quality to 4k Ultra HD and agnostic local storage and I'm highly interested. Physical media's time is limited, but until the alternative is superior to physical media in all aspect and not just more convenient, I'll stick with physical.
Imagine paying all that lettuce to have quick access to 4 downloaded movies 😅 for the price of that buy Sony tv which will clean up low bitrate streams or simply buy Blu-ray player and discs - you can play at best and no limitations.
This review completely left out the single most compelling advantage the Kaleidescape system offers: rentals. There is simply no other way to rent a movie in full lossless quality anymore. Physical media rentals are gone. Any streaming rental will have lossy audio. For anyone who frequently rents films before purchasing them, this system is unmatched. I wish this had been discussed during the review, with some coverage of rental prices vs. Apple, etc. I do not have a K system... yet, but if I were to buy it, renting is the biggest reason why I would take the leap.
@@andrewrobinsonreviews This kind of reply is why you're the best a/v reviewer out there. If you do a follow up for Friday's video, I'd love to see you talk about rentals. Also, can't wait for the 90 review to drop. Cheers.
TBH I prefer physical media, then ripping it to my NAS then using VLC via my Nvidia Shield TV, that way also if anything goes wrong I can just bust out the disk and watch it from there.
I’ve had the R_volution 8k Player for about 6 months now and it’s fantastic. I’ve been ripping my 4k, blu-ray and even dvd of old tv shows to my 16tb internal and 22tb external hdd. I have about 17tb of total shows and movies and the rvideo player makes them so easy to identify and organize. I have a mini too and hope to get the R_volution server/ripper soon. I recommend you get ahold of one and review it. You won’t be disappointed, I feel sure. The feeling of building your own “streaming” service as well as accessing your old discs out of storage boxes has been a cool part of the process and you feel like you didn’t waste all that money buying all those discs since 1998. makemkv for the win! Keep up the great work Andrew!
6:39 Did Andrew just say no consumer grade Format comes close? Even Physical media? WTH? I thought my Panasonic UHD player with 4K UHD disks are top of food chain for picture and sound. That can’t be true?
@andrewrobinsonreviews "in some instances" "it can be a higher bitrate" yet in the video you say - nothing even comes close. There is a big gap between those 2 statments Andrew. Even if the bitrates are higher as you say i can guarantee that most 4K bluray files will be at the very least "very close" and quite honestly probably indistinguishable.
While I understand the convenience, I do wonder, why do you want the closest experience to physical media, when you do/ can own the physical media? And aside from the monstrous 5-27 grand you may have to spend, what about the fact that you actually NEVER own the movie? When you said you can always have access to your purchases, able to watch it whenever you like, as many times as you like, does that mean, forever? Even when they have problems with any studio that won't allow them to broadcast the movies anymore? Or.. what about when you have stopped paying them your subscription? Or.. what if the provider happens to get out of the business? Would you still be able to have access to your previous purchases? Watching the video, I understand that the only difference it has: This one is NOT streaming. But other than that, it sounds pretty similar to the other providers. Based on my past experience, it is always risky to rely on any digital provider/ platforms - Esp. when you love movies so much.. Before you know it, your film library is gone, for good
While these solutions are great for low maintenance functionality I find it super hard to justify with how cheap storage is now and how inexpensive a lifetime pass to Plex is. I built a 43TB server for less than the base price of that 8TB kaleidescape device. I would also argue the interface is just as good if not better. I think these are more pay for initial convenience devices like you said or people that are not as technically savvy and need a simple plug and play.
LOL, I find the 4K disks best for sound and having the 7.2.4 in my man cave that works the best. The Clutter cuts my first reflection point, just a humorous note.
Thanks for the review! In my opinion the cost of entry is still too much of a luxury price point. Considering it cost $4000 and you need a high end 77" or 85" TV, to notice a difference, and you only have storage space for four movies before you drop another $5000 on the smallest extended storage option. I think I'll stick with my $500 4K Bluray player with physical media. There are just too many check boxes in the "not worth it" column for the majority of movie enthusiasts.
This product is clearly aimed at the 1% where the cost is essentially irrelevant, the prices they are charging for the hardware is completely nonsensical. Even taking the price out of the equation for the technology, UI, this isn't leading anywhere aside from being the checking the "legal" check box. From what I can of the UI Plex and Emby offer a better experience than Kaleidescape (those other two hardware based players look like a joke). There is always the question of legality with braking the encryption on physical discs but there really isn't a good alternative to ripping your own physical media because this certainly isn't it. Our law makers have bigger issues to tackle but what really needs to happen is the ability for us to download and own DRM free copies of movies or at least have the license be perpetually transferable so there is no risk of sinking thousands of dollars into a proprietary platform and losing access to content you "own".
A 4k blu ray player is much cheaper and better in my opinion. I don't mind taking a few seconds to put a disc in a tray and I like owning my media. This thing requires you to hope they never go out of business or all of your movies just go away. The price and the fact that I am tied down to this company to play my movies make this a hard pass.
For my absolute favorite movies or show content, I will always make sure to have a physical copy. Just look at MAX removing so much beloved content from their platform. And, moving forward let's always show a puppy after high price tag reveals 😉Who's a good price tag...
It's not about if, it's about when long-term disruptions limit access to your virtual media. The cloud, cell service, streaming, and all your data is incredibly vulnerable and targeted everyday, it won't be long before physical media becomes popular again. Stock up while it's cheap, and avoid the cloud (If that is even possible).
An additional thought, by buying the occasional movie on disc and having watched it a couple of times, i'm a very popular Uncle as i give the discs to my Nephew.
It's just beyond ridiculous how companies treat storage / memory as gold. Like consumers can't look up the price of hard drives or NVME drives etc. A NAS with 4 TB would cost $750 but if you want that amount of storage solution from Kaleidoscope you'd better rob a bank
I went the Plex route with a 20tb unRaid server years ago and spent a TON of hours ripping disks. Still have all the physical media. I don't find myself going back to it as often as I use to and frankly not as happy with the Plex interface as I once was. Played around with Jellyfin and does seem to check the boxes I'm looking for.
I will continue to purchase physical media until the day comes where it is not available anymore. Also, I have been going through my collection this year replacing the DVD versions with the 4k versions.
Excellent video, I appreciated the alternatives with dune. I personally adopted Plex years and years ago and I’m on my 4th or 5th iteration of my plex server. I currently have a 60tb nas with a Mac Studio capable of streaming multiple 4k streams simultaneously, and my total investment is around $5000, but the time investment is so high that to do it all over again I would probably consider something like the strato. The thing that turns me off on switching the most is the inability to import existing things that I own, this means that I end up losing a large percentage of my library or end up maintaining 2 systems, for that reason I’m out. One other thing to bring up is the need for multiple kscape if you have multiple tvs, with plex I’m able to go from the living room to the bedroom or the office and watch the same thing I was just watching on something as simple as a Roku.
This seems like bad value per dollar, especially when something like Plex offers the same sort of functionality in-home, while also allowing you to have your own “personal Netflix” to stream while away. That’s an enormous advantage in my book. For some people though, convenience or not having to do any setup work is worth a lot, I suppose. Based on price and limitations, this seems like something that would be best for those with a high-end dedicated theater they had someone else set up.
Love the quality of movies on the Kaleidescape, but I have three reasons why it's a NO for me: 1) Too expensive; 2) No Wi-Fi is a dealbreaker; 3) I watch a lot of movies that I don't necessarily want to watch again, so streaming works best for me. And for the movies that I love dearly and want to always have on hand, it's cheaper to purchase 4K Blu-Ray discs.
Just get a home server with 4 to 8 HDs. Then purchase secondhand 4K Blu-rays where you can and new 4K Blu-rays. Rip them all to the server as you go along and sell back the ripped 4K, Blu-rays to get some of that money back. This will save you a small fortune over the kaleidoscope system. Even if you’re unable to set up the server or rip the disks yourself even paying someone to do, it will still save you a small fortune over the Kaleidoscope system. I have approximately 1000 movies stored using this method.
@@andrewrobinsonreviews Well when you ripped media and bypassed DRM you already have crossed that part.This has always been a grey area as backing up discs is fine but not bypassing DRM but I'd hope most don't flip the disc for the morality of playing media you actually own is better and physical media is better supported from a sales point before it vanishes in that case but to each their own.
@andrewrobinsonreviews UK legislation Under UK Copyright Law, end users can make ‘personal copies for private use’ of content they ‘lawfully acquired on a permanent basis’. This means that it is lawful to make copies of materials you have purchased, received as a gift or downloaded from legal sources. However, it is not permitted to copy content borrowed from a friend, rented or unlawfully obtained. Also, the copies made under this copyright exception cannot be used for commercial purposes. With the expression ‘private use’, the law explicitly allows format-shifting (e.g. converting audio files from CDs into MP3 format) and making back-up copies. You can also store your personal copies in the cloud without infringing copyright, as long as the storage service is accessible only by you. Unlike in other EU Member States, under the UK private copying exception it is still illegal to share personal copies with family or friends. However, by limiting the exception to these narrow uses, the UK government has tried to avoid the creation of a complex system of fair compensation as implemented in many EU countries. UK Copyright Law also allows time-shifting of broadcasts. This means you can record a TV or radio broadcast for viewing or listening at a more convenient time.
The Strato sounds wonderful, but I love both the long-term benefits of always owning the discs that I’ve purchased and the convenience of not having to handle those discs more than once. For those who might care, the Shield is much better than the Apple 4K TV. I’ve heard some good things about the Zidoo UHD 8000, but one thing bothers me-Zidoo is a Chinese company. Given the present and future tensions between the governments of the U.S. and China, I wonder whether the government of China might force Zidoo to exploit weaknesses in the Android operating system to hack our home networks.
For a client, I just had to set up a new kaleidoscape server & player, and add an old server & player. Not fun. Besides, the cost of a 24TB server would buy thousands upon thousands of Blurays. A server this size would only hold hundreds of movies from kaleidoscape. And you don't get the xtras/bts The ui is not great at all. Very pedestrian. Doing a query is cumbersome. BUT if you have the means, don't care too much about the UI, go for it. Personally I'd buy physical BDs with ducats i save on the server
Makes sense that kaleidoscape would be better than all streaming options. However I didn't understand your comment that k-scape was superior to even discs. You made that statement but only compared video/audio with k-scape and other *streaming* sources. No. This absolutely does not put the nail in physical media. I only buy the great movies (dune, quiet place, superhero stuff, etc.). I stream everything else. I also rarely watch a movie twice. So the cost of the k-scape and its ability to hold only a few 4k movies, just doesn't make any sense for me. Yes, I might have to wait for the movie to be released on disc, but its still new to me...
I like that you acknowledge the elephant in the room (pricing) and address that this player may not be for everyone. I personally will probably never get one of these because I’m way into deep with my own personal media server but I still appreciate the review as I like checking out new tech even if it’s not for me.
The Kscape is a luxury item that is used by the hollywood elites such as ben affleck, martin scorsese just to name a few. For me personally, I loved my zidoo uhd 3000 because all the films I want in 4k are available exclusively at the boutique labels due to licensing agreements with studios.
My issue with it is the exorbitant fee for what is essentially a commodity item, storage. I feel like you should be able to buy a nas or some other off the shelf storage. Edit: Also I generally can barely afford streaming and pick and choose which ones we have at any given time. Occasionally, I will buy a 4k disc on sale or maybe even brand new. This thing is just too far out there for me.
Although I’ve been interested in Kaleidescape for a while something puts me off. If the company goes under then the minute you need to redownload your collection you’re out of luck. Their servers won’t exist anymore. Let’s hope your Strato V lasts with the 10 movies it holds.
Hi Andrew and Kristi! Huge fan. Would love to hear more of your thoughts on the Zidoo UHD8000 or Z3000. I put together a theater room with a Yamaha A8A and 7.1 Klipsch RP speakers based largely on your recommendations and I’m LOVING IT. I’m really disappointed though that my AppleTV can’t play the “Real” high end audio codecs of my 1,000 plus ripped (legally) movie files via plex. I’ve seen many other reviewers praise the Zidoo but I really don’t trust them. I’m torn between the Zidoo and a Shield. Would love more of your thoughts. Looking forward to this week’s Unplugged!
@@sirtng my only concern with the Shield is it’s an older product and with my luck, as soon as I buy it, they’ll release a new, more awesome Shield version 2.
Hard pass on the Strato. Way overpriced, overrated, and if you have a PC, 4K UHD burner, you can copy all your 4K UHD Blu-ray’s on to a SSD drive. I use 4 4TB SSD’s in RAID config., cost me less than $1200 total. I use MakeMKV software, and I get bit perfect processing with all the codecs, even with the 100gb movies. Only drawback is the time it takes to copy each 4K UHD Blu-ray, even using USB 3.0 is time consuming. The only way I can see this being of real value is to someone who doesn’t want to fuss with burning Blu-ray’s, and has the money to waste, then by all means, go for it. But there are definitely better options if you have the patience…
@@andrewrobinsonreviews The only question I have regarding Keleidescape Strato V is what happens to your monetary investment if/when the inevitable happens: Keleidescape goes out of business. Two reorganizations already? Like you both, I invested time and $$ in discs and infrastructure to run a movie server with 13x 18TB HDD’s (and counting) in RAID 6 using MakeMKV. Yes, it’s expensive, and slower than NVMe, but the Read/Write speeds from the RAID card are very good. AV8802A and B&W Cinema S2 LCR backbone. The only chink in the armor is the 2019 Vizio PX75 Quantum X. Will 2025 be the year I upgrade to OLED? P.S. T-sips looked good, yesterday - hard for this Aggie to say!
@ Yes, of course that’s what you do. You also have the means to justify spending that much. Just giving a better perspective on alternatives for someone who may already own a PC or laptop, and doesn’t want to spend as much…
I love the concept. Still a little too expensive as I just don’t watch movies that often to warrant the investment. Would love to see Apple provide a download option for UHD quality movie viewing. For now I only buy discs for absolute favorite movies for best quality and stream most everything else.
Plex + NAS is the way. While a NAS is an investment on hardware, it's your data and it can't be turned off. Overall cheaper, but you have to put in some work for the setup. Nvidia Shield supports Dolby V/A and DTS-MA also.
I suspect this will be a bit too expensive for most people. Streaming really continues to look like the better option. Great idea to review this option.
Your review is the best argument I've seen to not purchase a disc of every movie I really love. If Kaleidescape would allow you to download those top-quality movies and save them to your own NAS, I could see jumping into the future. But those storage prices... I need that puppy video again. *dons tinfoil hat* And someday you know they will shut down and you'll have to buy your digital movies all over again.
The cost is a huge deterrent. I am quite happy with an older PC running Plex and ripping discs. All in about £500.00. easy and cheap to update or add more storage too.
Wonderful review and greatly appreciated. My Zidoo is being delivered this week and while I may or may not use it for movies, I am excited to put all music on a this new platform. I’ll probably get around to movies later.
All the performance deficiencies tied to compression, and streaming is why I purchased the final season of Game of Thrones on 4K disc…so the epic dark battle scenes could be watched without blur and grainy textures. Sounds like this hard drive system achieves the same quality as 4K disc (or close to it). Very impressive. I recall seeing an older system from them at a HiFi shop in Toronto back in 2019. Very impressive. Great video!!!
📌 Considering the Kaleidescape? Find one here bit.ly/482HyhW and bit.ly/3VRsgYu
🔌 Leave a QUESTION/COMMENT! It may be featured on the next Unplugged! Watch every UNPLUGGED here bit.ly/43NnDkT
😀If you enjoyed this video, please hit the 👍 Like button! 🙏 Please stay on topic & be respectful.
‼ Channel Policies, FTC Disclosures & 🚫 are available in the description box (beneath the video’s title).
My main problem with buying physical media is that I rarely rewatch a movie. I guess that’s why people don’t buy movies and just rent online. I can’t justify paying for a physical media ( with some exceptions of course)
…plus the space problem. I can’t have a wall full of cds , dvds, blu rays , vinyl. I prefer a more clean looking space since I live in a small apartment.
@@gkal7217 nice thing about kscape, you can also rent for less (and then buy at a discount if you really want to own it)
Interesting to learn about the Strato V. Their pricing for the servers is however just insane, like buying a Mac with more than base storage 🙂
I wonder, how does what the Strato V offer in term of quality compare to the Bravia Core streaming service from Sony?
You should have free access to the Bravia Core as it comes as a bonus with their more fancy offerings like TV's, phones and more. The Bravia Core service requires something like 100 Mbps+ to let you stream at max quality and personally I have never seen anything surpass it, although not all movies on their service is that high a quality.
I'll never give up physical media. Unless you have the disc, you're renting the rights to watch your content and it can be removed or edited
Technically, a disc is merely your license. While I think the studios and record labels "lost" their battles regarding the re-selling of discs by private and third-party re-sellers, such practices were originally and may still be, technically, illegal. But I see your point.
@@andrewrobinsonreviewsthe difference is my "license" with the disc allows me to watch offline, share with people, unable to edit the content based off societal changes, superior picture and sound, bonus features, etc
@@BloopsnBleeps I mean there are other options than just streaming vs physical/disc media. You can have digital copies of films and retain the same control as discs, yet have the advantage of less space used and easier backup/playback.
@@AndySomethingWhat digital copy would you have that retains as much control as a disc? Also, the audio and video quality suffer, so if you're looking for the truest form of film preservation, it would be physical
This is not true with K-scape. You actually purchase the license differently than other digital stores. If k-scape loses the license to sell, you still have the right to play the media and redownload it. I own the Strato V - it’s fantastic
Only a 75-inch or above???? Nah. Even on my 65-inch TV, the 4K disc doesn't even TOUCH a 4K stream...... both in terms of visuals and (as you mentioned) audio.
Take the original BLADE RUNNER. The 4K disc resolves the grain beautifully. It looks FANTASTIC. The stream is mush.
@@StevenHemingway1 I use a 42C2 and going from a 5-10mbps stream to a 85-100mbps disc is night and day just for sharpness, clarity, and importantly colour no dithering or banding and they look like they are printed on the screen.
@@ashliehiggins Exactly. KS is the same thing. To say it's only noticeable at 75-inches is RIDICULOUS. Like I mentioned, older movies (let's take Ridley Scott's ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER) look INSANELY good on 4K disc vs the mushy stream.
@@StevenHemingway1 Kaleidescape isn't a stream, though. How large is the file on your Avengers: Endgame disc? It's under 66GB, compared to Kaleidescape's 111GB. Care to compare?
@@ballstadt Didn't say it was. Sometimes, KS is even BETTER than the disc. My point being, AR said that the difference between a stream and KS isn't noticeable below 75 inches, and I said that's not even remotely true. Seems like you didn't watch the video, so you don't know what I am commenting on.
@@StevenHemingway1 I misinterpreted your post. Too many people believe Kaleidescape is streaming. I watched the video. Your first post says "4K disc doesn't touch a stream" which, I'm still not sure what that is supposed to mean, and immediately positioned your argument as being "Kaleidescape is streaming and isn't as good as 4K disc."
Hard pass. Making storage proprietary so you have to buy it from them at a 10x markup is criminal. You can also only redownload your purchases for as long as they stay in business and keep those servers running. The concept is great, but the execution puts me off.
@@stevenmichael7770 it’s not criminal, it’s how they remain legit with the studios. What’s criminal are “beta” products like MakeMKV providing a resource for users to defeat existing copy protection on discs in order to “backup” their media with other users around the world.
What's criminal is cracking copy protection to "backup" your media.
I have no doubt the quality is top notch. But in my opinion, physical media is still king in the way of price and “really” owning the movie.
I have 100% interest in what Kaleidoscope does as stated by Andrew. I have 0% interest at the current price. The device would have to be no more than $500 to get me on board.
$4000 to hold four 4k movies seems ridiculous. I built my unraid server with over 100TB for 2k, and can run plex over my wifi to tv or Nvidia Shield. Holds my whole collection. My 4k blurays often running at 130mbps.
Not sure how this competes with a regular 4k blu ray player or a NAS or server running plex. This seems like off the shelf server rental for millionaires.
A good disc player and 4k DVDs are still much cheaper and not really less convenient.
If Apple ever introduces a high bit-rate tier for streaming movies on their store, the Kaleidescape business will collapse. And for $4,000 you’re only getting a 1TB storage, so 10 4K files. Kaleidescape doesn’t even carry the criterion collection, which is a massive deal breaker for me.
$4,000 for the player itself isnt actually the turn off I thought it would be, but $27,000 to get only another ~100 TB? Yikes, and I thought Apple's storage pricing was insulting lol. The INSANE external storage cost combined with having the same ownership drawbacks as any other digital purchase is enough for me to stray away from this option and continue with my plans to build a plex server from ripped versions of all my discs. Really great review however, very insightful on how the whole operation works!
@gingersmedia The SSD servers are targeted for Kaleidescape's marine installation market, not for typical home installation. Kaleidescape themselves will tell you there is little or no benefit to using SSD storage for a home installation, outside of energy efficiency and operating noise level. The full-size Terra servers have greater storage capacities, and also have user-replaceable hard drives in case of failure, so there's little reason to go with the SSD servers for a home theater.
I'm here wondering about the cost of everything. I can get a 96TB media server for about 3k + connect that to Nvidia Shield Pro or something like that. I've been running 80GB+ 4k DV movies with DTS X and Atmos for a long time now. Sounds just insane how and why someone would pay that much for some company products that also limits how you can use it. Just ridiculous if you can't connect your own media server storage.
This, just this..
Exactly. I do the same except with Xbox Series X instead of Shield. Atmos or DTSX sound sublime through the HT-A9
$5000 and only holds 4 movies at a time? No thanks. I'll stick with physical media and streaming.
That’s not exactly what I said or how much the Strato V can hold.
Why would you need to watch four movies at the same time? You can still own as many as you want. Just download four at a time.
It has a 1tb SSD drive so it holds a lot more than that depending on movie size and is $3600 if you get it through some places. It holds 10-12 4k Dolby vision/HDR at one time again depending on size (60-100gb each??)and if you have gig internet the servers are great and will get you a movie in 6-12 minutes. It boils down to do you have a theater or something like it (not watching on just a 48" TV using TV speakers or sound bar) where you see the biggest difference in lossless audio on a decent surround sound IMO.
An internal hard drive with a mere 960GB available in 2024 is UTTERLY RIDICULOUS. Quality 4TB SSDs are readily available everywhere for just a few hundred bucks.
You're paying for more than the hardware. They're more than a hardware vendor.
Give me a 4k discs all day long. Its mine and nobody can alter or take it away from me. I look forward to me films arriving through the door and checking out the features.
I love my 84 TB PLEX server all 4k movies.
I'm a Blu-ray collector and love it
If it’s not better than my oppo 205, I’m out. Physical media is always king and I have the king of players
- $9,000 for a Strato V and the cheapest additional storage (8TB)
- Never own anything tangible
- If the business fails you have a $9,000 paperweight
- AV quality compared to 4k UHD discs is a push
So for an absurd 30x cost differential compared to a great 4k disc player, and all the inherent risk you take by adopting this format, the pay off is what?
A run-of-the-mill UI and no wicked cool physical media collection to show off?
You willingly give up ownership and pay 30x all for "convenience". That long grueling slog of opening a case and dropping a disc in a tray, oh the humanity!
I have the Strato V for my apartment theater. At first I was skeptical. I had the original box ready to repack the K-Scape to return it. After calibrating my AVR, I actually threw the packing box away. THE most noticeable difference is with the audio. Especially, Dolby Atmos. The level of detail cannot be matched by any streaming service or even UHD Blu-Ray. I will NOT be replacing this K-Scape anytime soon.
Appreciate you sharing your own experience.
I’ll stick with my 4K Blu Rays. Love ‘em.
This is a complete and utter joke of a price for this. It’s actually shockingly bad. This company is just creaming it in.
You can already do this on plex for free, use a shield and rip your media to a synology nas or unraid server. Costs you 100000x less and you have full control.
This product is trying to replicate that and then charge rich people who are clueless about tech essentially. It’s criminal.
Kind of makes me mad honestly. Imagine only including a 1tb hdd to try and upsell you to a 25 grand server nas device that’s proprietary to them. This is 100% disgusting behavior and should be called out - no one should support this company.
So I shouldn't have bought the storage? I think it was 8500 for more ssd storage but all my movies fit for now
@ I don’t know if I should reply to this as you do you and enjoy yourself but my 48 terrabyte synology nas and plex server cost around $2500 and a shield pro is 200 bucks. Does it all. Lossless everything once your rips are on it and plex configured.
@Snook and how long did each rip and configuration take?
Oh, the rage is so sweet! Inject it right into my veins! 😂Snook, if this is all you have to be mad about...must be nice.
@@andrewrobinsonreviews ripping takes time as you’d know but it’s a hobby. I’d rather do that than pay crazy amounts of money as a middle class earner.
Setting up plex and a synology nas is pretty easy, a few hours for a tech professional (I am one).
As for me, long live physical media. You can't beat the Atmos or Video quality; no buffering, no dropped signals or iffy WiFi or maxing out server space.
The puppy was a nice touch. I needed that. lol
I’ll stick to the 4k discs.
Same here.
I don't understand what the point of this product is. I could achieve the same thing with a decently powerful Plex server. As you stated in the beginning of the video, you had already converted your physical collection to digital. With good enough specs, a Plex server could easily do what this product does and you could own your content.
All decent points, but not everyone wants to rip every disc in their collection and keep doing that every time a new movie comes out.
"Photo of a puppy..... yall calm down!!" 😂lol
The fact you can't connect a NAS or External Drive is a complete deal breaker
Long Live Physical Media! Remember your video about how much fun it is to interact with vynals? That's exactly how I feel about movie discs.
This is an interesting device, but at $4000 this is basically wildly out of reach for 99% of people. You could easily get a full home theater system with TV and surround sound for that price.
No doubt physical discs can be a bit of a pain, but if you were to go that route instead, you could easily get yourself a 4K player and 200+ movies for the same price. Not to mention that they're yours forever and no company bankruptcy or licensing issues can take them away from you. Additionally, most of these 4Ks will come with a digital code as well allowing you to watch them on virtually any device.
If you don't already have a $20,000+ home theater and more money than you know what to do with, this shouldn't even be on your radar.
Great video Andrew - best to you and Kristy. I have a 150" 2.35 screen and 4K projector, and looked that this system. I have about 1,000 discs and at least half are 4K. The average price paid for my discs is about $18 (Criterion 4K is $24, Amadeus arrives in 4k in February for $25). I can't imagine a format in the next 5-10 years that is better than a 4K 100 GB disc. To conclude, I love the idea of the Kaleidescape but the upfront costs, the walled garden issue and the increased costs of the movies makes this prohibitive for a collector, even when I have the $$. Thanks!
it is and has always been way too expensive imho. For $4k you can build your own NAS, get streaming devices for all tv's and have several options for playing the media and getting metadata from pretty comprehensive sources. Yes it takes time to rip the movies but once it's done it's done.
This
Physical media all the way! We would love to see a review of the Magnetar UDP800 or UDP900.
Ditto.
Doesn't Plex media server do the same thing?
Great solution for obscenely wealthy people. Everyone else can do a little extra legwork and setup a home media server for less than a grand and get 99% of the experience
Uh, no. I already have a "like having physical media experience" in that I still have physical media. I never really got into the whole "look like you live in a Norwegian's house where they were too poor to buy anything" aesthetic. I like books, CDs, LP and DVDs and Blu-Rays. It is not even a hassle storing or moving them because I am not a 20-something anymore and have moved once in the last 20 years.
This was a great comprehensive and fair review. I like what they do and have considered it. I think the two deal breakers for me are:
1. There is currently not enough of quality gain over physical disc. Based on lots of user forums and reviews, most movies don't have any noticeable differences.
2. The issue of losing everything if something happens to Kaleidescape. I would hope that a luxury product like this would offer some kind of legal deal with the studios so they would honor your purchases if K was to disappear. Otherwise, you're out thousands of dollars for the hardware and your entire digital collection.
A less than 1TB internal SSD for a $4,000 media player... KScape must think we are all a bunch of saps.
You can get a Zidoo or Dune player that does almost the same thing. Throw in a modest NAS storage unit and some patience in archiving your Blu-ray and 4k Blu-ray collection and you can have similar AV quality and instantaneous access to your collection for a fraction of the price.
Something I mention in the video, though, for a lot of folks, the idea of spending weeks, months, or even years maintaining their own media server is a non-starter; same as the cost of a K-Scape system is for you.
@andrewrobinsonreviews KScape is fine... if you have the money and can afford to lose your collection if, god-forbid, they go under, which they almost did a couple times. What I find outrageous and a non-starter, for me (and for many people if you read a lot of the home theater boards), is their external server prices. Their cost per TB of storage is far, far beyond any reasonable expectations. There must be a sizeable dealer markup on the hardware; more than most AV gear.
Toys for the well-heeled only. Normal folk need not apply.
My concern is with losing access to what I've paid for, which is alleviated by physical media. New formats are inescapable. I've paid for music in 45, 33, cassette, disc, and digital formats, many songs albums in multiple of these.
Even services that remain in business have removed access to media people have "bought", highlighting your point that technically we've really only ever paid for revocable licenses in the digital age.
Given the price of their external storage, I doubt this device compatible with any other drive options. I'm also concerned that at some point they'd add on "subscription" or other recurring fees to watch or otherwise access purchased content.
Thanks to you and Kristi for giving us great information on a range of audio and video options, including on subwoofers 👍🏿
Merry Holidays and Happy New Year! I hope you take off the rest of this week and enjoy a little anniversary/birthday/mental health break, you both deserve that.
If Apple ever did lossless audio, they would win.
“Here’s a photo of a puppy so you can all calm down.” 😂😂😂
In my teens and 20s, I bought all my CDs, and I now have about 500 of them. These days, I very, very rarely buy new ones because my musical tastes were formed over those 20 or so years. Most of the CDs I buy now are from charity shops for €2. I presume it’s the same for DVDs, etc.
My buddy pays a monthly subscription to Roon and still listens to the same music he enjoyed in his 20s. I think, after 40 years, he’ll own nothing, and all that listening will die with him.
What ever the best quality is, give me......PHYSICAL it is!
5:50 until the service is shutdown... I would love to have acces to high quality content, you only have to pop in a UHD blu-ray to see and hear just what you've been missing out on with streaming services but I am very, very reluctant to start buying everything in a new format again, especially if that format is digital only.
@@florisbackx1744 Kaleidescape is the only disc-quality digital product that has legitimized itself with the studios and sought agreements to be above board. Ripping discs is still a gray area in terms of copyright violation. MakeMKV is forever in donation “beta” because they know their business model is walking a fine line. Zappiti closed up shop on the run from copyright lawsuits and rebranded. How long before the others are doing the same.
I'll stick with my physical media ripped to my home Plex Media server.
It's not even close.
For $4,000 they can keep it.
Come on andrew !!! 4k extra for storage is insane its just external storage. Why are reviewers afraid of holding this company accountable for this?
I don't set the price. I made you and the audience aware, I think it's clear where 99% of people will fall, and the free market will decide whether or not they can continue to charge such prices. I repeatedly said that the extra storage cost was steep, and I even showed you a puppy to help curb the sting; what more do you want from me? I'm not going to slam a product that works as advertised (after a firmware update) just because y'all don't like the price. I gave you my opinion on the storage cost, but it's ultimately not my call to make.
He acknowledged the costs. My goodness. Why don't viewers hold themselves more accountable by realizing when something isn't for them or their pocketbooks? People's ability to jump to immediate outrage and accusations must feel good.
@@andrewrobinsonreviews thanks for the review...please don't get disheartened by the comments. The K'Scape is always quite a divisive product.
Strato V has to be better than 4K disc to be a real contender. Otherwise it's just an expensive streamer that only differs in that it buffers the media locally before playing. I know it's not technically a streamer, but the limited storage capacity and cost of additional storage mean you're going to have to download most content before you watch it. It also means you're at the mercy of the service maintaining the library for you to re-download, something physical media avoids.
Now, give me superior quality to 4k Ultra HD and agnostic local storage and I'm highly interested. Physical media's time is limited, but until the alternative is superior to physical media in all aspect and not just more convenient, I'll stick with physical.
Imagine paying all that lettuce to have quick access to 4 downloaded movies 😅 for the price of that buy Sony tv which will clean up low bitrate streams or simply buy Blu-ray player and discs - you can play at best and no limitations.
Sunday Breakfast with Andrew & Kristi! The best part of Sunday’s! Thank you for another one!
So glad to be a part of your day. Thanks for watching!
:)
This review completely left out the single most compelling advantage the Kaleidescape system offers: rentals. There is simply no other way to rent a movie in full lossless quality anymore. Physical media rentals are gone. Any streaming rental will have lossy audio. For anyone who frequently rents films before purchasing them, this system is unmatched. I wish this had been discussed during the review, with some coverage of rental prices vs. Apple, etc. I do not have a K system... yet, but if I were to buy it, renting is the biggest reason why I would take the leap.
Very good point, yes, full-quality rentals is an upside and apologies for not making a bigger deal of that fact. Good catch!
@@andrewrobinsonreviews This kind of reply is why you're the best a/v reviewer out there. If you do a follow up for Friday's video, I'd love to see you talk about rentals. Also, can't wait for the 90 review to drop. Cheers.
You can still rent 4k blu ray discs in the UK
I have a few hundred movies ripped and several hundred more on Apple. Unless I hit the lottery I can not see this being worth the money.
TBH I prefer physical media, then ripping it to my NAS then using VLC via my Nvidia Shield TV, that way also if anything goes wrong I can just bust out the disk and watch it from there.
I’ve had the R_volution 8k Player for about 6 months now and it’s fantastic. I’ve been ripping my 4k, blu-ray and even dvd of old tv shows to my 16tb internal and 22tb external hdd. I have about 17tb of total shows and movies and the rvideo player makes them so easy to identify and organize. I have a mini too and hope to get the R_volution server/ripper soon.
I recommend you get ahold of one and review it. You won’t be disappointed, I feel sure.
The feeling of building your own “streaming” service as well as accessing your old discs out of storage boxes has been a cool part of the process and you feel like you didn’t waste all that money buying all those discs since 1998. makemkv for the win!
Keep up the great work Andrew!
...ummmm... Plex, anyone?
6:39 Did Andrew just say no consumer grade Format comes close? Even Physical media? WTH? I thought my Panasonic UHD player with 4K UHD disks are top of food chain for picture and sound. That can’t be true?
In some instances, when comparing even ultra HD Blu-ray K-Scape downloads can be higher bit rate.
@ Can you let us know what movies?
@@weekileaks23 Avengers: Endgame is a 3 hour movie on a 66GB disc. The Kaleidescape download is 111GB.
@andrewrobinsonreviews "in some instances" "it can be a higher bitrate" yet in the video you say - nothing even comes close. There is a big gap between those 2 statments Andrew. Even if the bitrates are higher as you say i can guarantee that most 4K bluray files will be at the very least "very close" and quite honestly probably indistinguishable.
@@andrewrobinsonreviews “some” and “can” - these two words are doing a LOT of heavy lifting.
While I understand the convenience, I do wonder, why do you want the closest experience to physical media, when you do/ can own the physical media?
And aside from the monstrous 5-27 grand you may have to spend, what about the fact that you actually NEVER own the movie?
When you said you can always have access to your purchases, able to watch it whenever you like, as many times as you like,
does that mean, forever? Even when they have problems with any studio that won't allow them to broadcast the movies anymore?
Or.. what about when you have stopped paying them your subscription?
Or.. what if the provider happens to get out of the business? Would you still be able to have access to your previous purchases?
Watching the video, I understand that the only difference it has: This one is NOT streaming.
But other than that, it sounds pretty similar to the other providers.
Based on my past experience, it is always risky to rely on any digital provider/ platforms - Esp. when you love movies so much..
Before you know it, your film library is gone, for good
Good points!
While these solutions are great for low maintenance functionality I find it super hard to justify with how cheap storage is now and how inexpensive a lifetime pass to Plex is. I built a 43TB server for less than the base price of that 8TB kaleidescape device. I would also argue the interface is just as good if not better. I think these are more pay for initial convenience devices like you said or people that are not as technically savvy and need a simple plug and play.
LOL, I find the 4K disks best for sound and having the 7.2.4 in my man cave that works the best. The Clutter cuts my first reflection point, just a humorous note.
Haha ok that was funny 😅
Thanks for the review! In my opinion the cost of entry is still too much of a luxury price point. Considering it cost $4000 and you need a high end 77" or 85" TV, to notice a difference, and you only have storage space for four movies before you drop another $5000 on the smallest extended storage option. I think I'll stick with my $500 4K Bluray player with physical media. There are just too many check boxes in the "not worth it" column for the majority of movie enthusiasts.
I do not trust my movie collection to anyone’s proprietary platform after the whole Sony store debacle.🎉
This product is clearly aimed at the 1% where the cost is essentially irrelevant, the prices they are charging for the hardware is completely nonsensical. Even taking the price out of the equation for the technology, UI, this isn't leading anywhere aside from being the checking the "legal" check box.
From what I can of the UI Plex and Emby offer a better experience than Kaleidescape (those other two hardware based players look like a joke). There is always the question of legality with braking the encryption on physical discs but there really isn't a good alternative to ripping your own physical media because this certainly isn't it.
Our law makers have bigger issues to tackle but what really needs to happen is the ability for us to download and own DRM free copies of movies or at least have the license be perpetually transferable so there is no risk of sinking thousands of dollars into a proprietary platform and losing access to content you "own".
Yeah, I’ll pass. I’ve had enough of music I “owned” on iTunes disappear to ever fall, for that one again.
I’ll never give up physical media
Same here!
A 4k blu ray player is much cheaper and better in my opinion. I don't mind taking a few seconds to put a disc in a tray and I like owning my media.
This thing requires you to hope they never go out of business or all of your movies just go away.
The price and the fact that I am tied down to this company to play my movies make this a hard pass.
Exactly - My son learned this with his playstation purchases I will always buy Disc as long as possible
Luv'd the 'here's a picture of a puppy' bit...Great Product! Great review!
Glad you enjoyed that moment. Thank you for watching!
For my absolute favorite movies or show content, I will always make sure to have a physical copy. Just look at MAX removing so much beloved content from their platform. And, moving forward let's always show a puppy after high price tag reveals 😉Who's a good price tag...
You got to tamp down the “it’s not exactly to my ultra-specific edge case” grumpy people. It’s a good idea.
“Carl” and “puppy pics”… solid.
Glad you liked that addition.
It's not about if, it's about when long-term disruptions limit access to your virtual media. The cloud, cell service, streaming, and all your data is incredibly vulnerable and targeted everyday, it won't be long before physical media becomes popular again. Stock up while it's cheap, and avoid the cloud (If that is even possible).
An additional thought, by buying the occasional movie on disc and having watched it a couple of times, i'm a very popular Uncle as i give the discs to my Nephew.
It's just beyond ridiculous how companies treat storage / memory as gold. Like consumers can't look up the price of hard drives or NVME drives etc.
A NAS with 4 TB would cost $750 but if you want that amount of storage solution from Kaleidoscope you'd better rob a bank
An uber high end toy for people with way too much money.
I went the Plex route with a 20tb unRaid server years ago and spent a TON of hours ripping disks. Still have all the physical media. I don't find myself going back to it as often as I use to and frankly not as happy with the Plex interface as I once was. Played around with Jellyfin and does seem to check the boxes I'm looking for.
Jellyfin or Emby are a lot better than Plex.
I will continue to purchase physical media until the day comes where it is not available anymore. Also, I have been going through my collection this year replacing the DVD versions with the 4k versions.
Same here!
Excellent video, I appreciated the alternatives with dune. I personally adopted Plex years and years ago and I’m on my 4th or 5th iteration of my plex server. I currently have a 60tb nas with a Mac Studio capable of streaming multiple 4k streams simultaneously, and my total investment is around $5000, but the time investment is so high that to do it all over again I would probably consider something like the strato.
The thing that turns me off on switching the most is the inability to import existing things that I own, this means that I end up losing a large percentage of my library or end up maintaining 2 systems, for that reason I’m out.
One other thing to bring up is the need for multiple kscape if you have multiple tvs, with plex I’m able to go from the living room to the bedroom or the office and watch the same thing I was just watching on something as simple as a Roku.
If they can ever get the price of the product down to
This seems like bad value per dollar, especially when something like Plex offers the same sort of functionality in-home, while also allowing you to have your own “personal Netflix” to stream while away. That’s an enormous advantage in my book.
For some people though, convenience or not having to do any setup work is worth a lot, I suppose. Based on price and limitations, this seems like something that would be best for those with a high-end dedicated theater they had someone else set up.
Friends don’t let friends use Plex. Emby is a better program if you don’t mind a walled garden. Jellyfin is FOSS and what you should be using.
Love the quality of movies on the Kaleidescape, but I have three reasons why it's a NO for me: 1) Too expensive; 2) No Wi-Fi is a dealbreaker; 3) I watch a lot of movies that I don't necessarily want to watch again, so streaming works best for me. And for the movies that I love dearly and want to always have on hand, it's cheaper to purchase 4K Blu-Ray discs.
Just get a home server with 4 to 8 HDs. Then purchase secondhand 4K Blu-rays where you can and new 4K Blu-rays. Rip them all to the server as you go along and sell back the ripped 4K, Blu-rays to get some of that money back. This will save you a small fortune over the kaleidoscope system. Even if you’re unable to set up the server or rip the disks yourself even paying someone to do, it will still save you a small fortune over the Kaleidoscope system. I have approximately 1000 movies stored using this method.
Just be aware that your method, while valid, isn't exactly 100% legal. Kaleidescape is.
@@andrewrobinsonreviews Well when you ripped media and bypassed DRM you already have crossed that part.This has always been a grey area as backing up discs is fine but not bypassing DRM but I'd hope most don't flip the disc for the morality of playing media you actually own is better and physical media is better supported from a sales point before it vanishes in that case but to each their own.
@andrewrobinsonreviews
UK legislation
Under UK Copyright Law, end users can make ‘personal copies for private use’ of content they ‘lawfully acquired on a permanent basis’. This means that it is lawful to make copies of materials you have purchased, received as a gift or downloaded from legal sources. However, it is not permitted to copy content borrowed from a friend, rented or unlawfully obtained. Also, the copies made under this copyright exception cannot be used for commercial purposes.
With the expression ‘private use’, the law explicitly allows format-shifting (e.g. converting audio files from CDs into MP3 format) and making back-up copies. You can also store your personal copies in the cloud without infringing copyright, as long as the storage service is accessible only by you.
Unlike in other EU Member States, under the UK private copying exception it is still illegal to share personal copies with family or friends. However, by limiting the exception to these narrow uses, the UK government has tried to avoid the creation of a complex system of fair compensation as implemented in many EU countries.
UK Copyright Law also allows time-shifting of broadcasts. This means you can record a TV or radio broadcast for viewing or listening at a more convenient time.
The Strato sounds wonderful, but I love both the long-term benefits of always owning the discs that I’ve purchased and the convenience of not having to handle those discs more than once. For those who might care, the Shield is much better than the Apple 4K TV. I’ve heard some good things about the Zidoo UHD 8000, but one thing bothers me-Zidoo is a Chinese company. Given the present and future tensions between the governments of the U.S. and China, I wonder whether the government of China might force Zidoo to exploit weaknesses in the Android operating system to hack our home networks.
I love my KODI+NAS, which in comparrison costs nothing and has much more features and flexibility BUT I admit it is a lot of work.
For a client, I just had to set up a new kaleidoscape server & player, and add an old server & player. Not fun.
Besides, the cost of a 24TB server would buy thousands upon thousands of Blurays. A server this size would only hold hundreds of movies from kaleidoscape. And you don't get the xtras/bts
The ui is not great at all. Very pedestrian. Doing a query is cumbersome.
BUT if you have the means, don't care too much about the UI, go for it.
Personally I'd buy physical BDs with ducats i save on the server
Makes sense that kaleidoscape would be better than all streaming options. However I didn't understand your comment that k-scape was superior to even discs. You made that statement but only compared video/audio with k-scape and other *streaming* sources. No. This absolutely does not put the nail in physical media. I only buy the great movies (dune, quiet place, superhero stuff, etc.). I stream everything else. I also rarely watch a movie twice. So the cost of the k-scape and its ability to hold only a few 4k movies, just doesn't make any sense for me. Yes, I might have to wait for the movie to be released on disc, but its still new to me...
If it was half the price. I would keep my physical media collection and Panasonic 820 player, but would move to it for all future media.
I like that you acknowledge the elephant in the room (pricing) and address that this player may not be for everyone. I personally will probably never get one of these because I’m way into deep with my own personal media server but I still appreciate the review as I like checking out new tech even if it’s not for me.
The Kscape is a luxury item that is used by the hollywood elites such as ben affleck, martin scorsese just to name a few.
For me personally, I loved my zidoo uhd 3000 because all the films I want in 4k are available exclusively at the boutique labels due to licensing agreements with studios.
My issue with it is the exorbitant fee for what is essentially a commodity item, storage. I feel like you should be able to buy a nas or some other off the shelf storage.
Edit:
Also I generally can barely afford streaming and pick and choose which ones we have at any given time. Occasionally, I will buy a 4k disc on sale or maybe even brand new. This thing is just too far out there for me.
Although I’ve been interested in Kaleidescape for a while something puts me off. If the company goes under then the minute you need to redownload your collection you’re out of luck. Their servers won’t exist anymore. Let’s hope your Strato V lasts with the 10 movies it holds.
Hi Andrew and Kristi! Huge fan. Would love to hear more of your thoughts on the Zidoo UHD8000 or Z3000. I put together a theater room with a Yamaha A8A and 7.1 Klipsch RP speakers based largely on your recommendations and I’m LOVING IT. I’m really disappointed though that my AppleTV can’t play the “Real” high end audio codecs of my 1,000 plus ripped (legally) movie files via plex. I’ve seen many other reviewers praise the Zidoo but I really don’t trust them. I’m torn between the Zidoo and a Shield. Would love more of your thoughts. Looking forward to this week’s Unplugged!
Had the same issue with plex on Apple TV, the only solution I found is the nvidia shield if you want full audio codec support
@@sirtng my only concern with the Shield is it’s an older product and with my luck, as soon as I buy it, they’ll release a new, more awesome Shield version 2.
Hard pass on the Strato. Way overpriced, overrated, and if you have a PC, 4K UHD burner, you can copy all your 4K UHD Blu-ray’s on to a SSD drive. I use 4 4TB SSD’s in RAID config., cost me less than $1200 total. I use MakeMKV software, and I get bit perfect processing with all the codecs, even with the 100gb movies. Only drawback is the time it takes to copy each 4K UHD Blu-ray, even using USB 3.0 is time consuming.
The only way I can see this being of real value is to someone who doesn’t want to fuss with burning Blu-ray’s, and has the money to waste, then by all means, go for it.
But there are definitely better options if you have the patience…
While I'm not a hard pass, I agree with everything you said, and it's what I do, too.
@@andrewrobinsonreviews The only question I have regarding Keleidescape Strato V is what happens to your monetary investment if/when the inevitable happens: Keleidescape goes out of business. Two reorganizations already?
Like you both, I invested time and $$ in discs and infrastructure to run a movie server with 13x 18TB HDD’s (and counting) in RAID 6 using MakeMKV. Yes, it’s expensive, and slower than NVMe, but the Read/Write speeds from the RAID card are very good. AV8802A and B&W Cinema S2 LCR backbone. The only chink in the armor is the 2019 Vizio PX75 Quantum X. Will 2025 be the year I upgrade to OLED? P.S. T-sips looked good, yesterday - hard for this Aggie to say!
@ Yes, of course that’s what you do. You also have the means to justify spending that much.
Just giving a better perspective on alternatives for someone who may already own a PC or laptop, and doesn’t want to spend as much…
Did you A/B Fury on the Strato V and Sony Pictures Core Purestream? If so, was there much difference?
Omg those speakers look amazing …. They might be the only speaker that might allow 😂
I love the concept. Still a little too expensive as I just don’t watch movies that often to warrant the investment. Would love to see Apple provide a download option for UHD quality movie viewing. For now I only buy discs for absolute favorite movies for best quality and stream most everything else.
Plex + NAS is the way. While a NAS is an investment on hardware, it's your data and it can't be turned off. Overall cheaper, but you have to put in some work for the setup. Nvidia Shield supports Dolby V/A and DTS-MA also.
Plex even has a great interface, and can add music to your library. Much better option for sure.
I suspect this will be a bit too expensive for most people. Streaming really continues to look like the better option. Great idea to review this option.
so this will make a difference compared to plex and jellyfin in the audio and video?
Your review is the best argument I've seen to not purchase a disc of every movie I really love. If Kaleidescape would allow you to download those top-quality movies and save them to your own NAS, I could see jumping into the future. But those storage prices... I need that puppy video again. *dons tinfoil hat* And someday you know they will shut down and you'll have to buy your digital movies all over again.
The cost is a huge deterrent. I am quite happy with an older PC running Plex and ripping discs. All in about £500.00. easy and cheap to update or add more storage too.
...Here's a photo of a puppy... LOL Dammit! I definitely needed that after coughing up on the $27K server storage price point.
Yeah, $27K is a lot. I have a hard time justifying that one.
Wonderful review and greatly appreciated. My Zidoo is being delivered this week and while I may or may not use it for movies, I am excited to put all music on a this new platform. I’ll probably get around to movies later.
Interesting but I’m not sure it will be adopted in its current offering, vs 4k players.
All the performance deficiencies tied to compression, and streaming is why I purchased the final season of Game of Thrones on 4K disc…so the epic dark battle scenes could be watched without blur and grainy textures. Sounds like this hard drive system achieves the same quality as 4K disc (or close to it). Very impressive. I recall seeing an older system from them at a HiFi shop in Toronto back in 2019. Very impressive. Great video!!!