| Author |
Message |
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 12 Nov 2020, 03:40
|
|
|
| Radiance XS is over 12 years old now. You will see some units failing as any 10 plus year old electronics. You can still reach out to Lumagen support and they will sell you a replacement power supply and repair your XS for a fee if it breaks. Just keep in mind, this was a $4,500 device when new, replacement parts and repairs aren’t going to be cheap. You can buy an aftermarket power supply at your own risk or try to repair the original one. It’s a switch mode power supply, it can’t be many more than just a single capacitor in there. I would just get the replacement from Lumagen. It can’t be much worse than $60-80. |
|
 |
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 17 Nov 2020, 18:33
|
|
|
In the case of Substance I think it’s mostly about quality. According to what he’s saying, it’s sort of like SACD. They make new DSDs but not actual SACDs of most stuff now so to the content VIEWER (not collector) this millionaires-only streaming service sounds like the only choice. Download-only is also the only choice for hi res audio so I can relate. I have almost no interest in 4K though so on that level I don’t really relate.
This is an excellent way to put it. Access to more content in their highest quality form is important to me. Combination of four benefits of this digital delivery system made it a value for me to consider it. More high quality content is one of them.
Once you purchase a title in digital through the Kaleidescape store, you automatically qualify for any later upgrades. For instance, if the title gets remastered or gets an updated Dolby Atmos or DTS:X soundtrack, your digital license gives you access to these. This will save me from buying the same movie several times. (They also offer disc to digital and SD/HD to UHD upgrades if you already own the disc version)
Currently space is my main concern. I need a dedicated room for the number movies I have. It would cost me much less money to invest into Kaleidescape to reduce my movie library footprint than expand my new home budget for that one extra room.
How my family (not) likes to navigate through my content library and choose something to watch is the last but not the least important benefit for me. I am the only person who would go and pick something up from the shelf. Everyone else will go and try to find something to watch from Netflix because it simply is more convenient to browse for something watch on the TV screen. Kaleidescape system offers a cataloging function where you can catalog your DVDs and Blu-rays. Your disc content and digital content is then displayed uniformly in a very nice GUI on your TV screen. The ones you own on digital plays from the HDD immediately. When you select a title on disc only, the system tells you to insert the disc. This way I can go browse through my shelves and my family can browse on the TV screen to find something to watch. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 28 Nov 2020, 20:18
|
|
|
THX certification meant the material and/or the equipment were above a certain quality but this threshold was not very high. Manufacturers had to spend extra money and time to obtain THX certs which meant they only included this on their higher end models with higher price points. One major criticism for THX cert equipment was that they performed very poorly on music. (Because they were highly tuned for movie soundtracks and cinema style seating). People that spent the money on the higher end models wanted great sounding (musically) speakers and amplifiers. So the target customer didn’t care for it. As a matter of fact ignored THX cert equipment (especially THX speakers).
After this you started seeing statements in the magazine from high end gear manufacturers that their equipment would far exceed THX standards but they choose not to go through the THX certification. For instance, Runco LJRII was the first and only THX certified LD player (which is a modified Panasonic 900u in essence). One magazine reviewed this player along side with a Pioneer CLD-97. The 97 and the LJRII were extremely close. The 97 actually performed better than the LJR in multiple tests. Pioneer rep claimed they could have gotten the THX cert if they wanted but they didn’t want to pay THX for royalties which would mean a required increase on their MSRP.
On the video side, THX titles often had digital video noise reduction applied. This was the next best thing at the time and taken as progress. Now we know better and we are better off without it. THX certification on content was never fully explained. It perhaps required a base signal to noise ratio. The content below this ratio needed noise reduction with at the time state of the art but right now antiquated equipment.
I bough my first AV receiver in 1998 which was a Denon AVC-1D. It was the first THX certified DD/DTS capable receiver. At the time I looked at KEF, B&W, and M&K for THX certified speakers. They all sounded terrible for music. B&W and KEF had non-THX certified speakers and they sounded great for music. I ended up building a 5.1 set with non-THX Definitive Technology BP30 fronts, BP10 as rears, CLR1000 center, and a PF1500 subwoofer. I tried using the THX mode on the Denon but never liked the sound. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 13 Dec 2020, 21:28
|
|
|
| I am sorry but VHS is real junk and totally unwatchable in this day and age. We are not here discussing our attachment to nostalgia but access to (new) content in its best possible representation. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 14 Dec 2020, 00:32
|
|
|
| I cancelled my US release order and ordered the Japanese release. It looks like the Japanese release has everything the US/UK release have plus HDR and Japanese 2ch LPCM soundtracks. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 07 Jan 2021, 01:16
|
|
|
| I started using a better set of glasses. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 08 Jan 2021, 17:07
|
|
|
| My current car is a 2014 model with 108k miles. I am much closer to my work now. My annual mileage went from 20k to 6k miles. It’s a diesel too. It’s nice to fill it up once a month or less. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 10 Jan 2021, 18:56
|
|
|
Short answer, because I already have them.
Long answer, I bought them inexpensively when they were somewhat relevant in the early to mid 2000s. I bought most of my more expensive discs and imports in the very early 2010s when my income grew. These were almost always “not on any other format” or “NTSC-locked” content like concerts and TV series. I don’t think I bought more than a dozen LDs in the past 8 or 9 years. I rarely watch them in the last 5 years. Now I moved to the southern LA where room is precious. I will likely unload more than half of my LDs in the next year.
If I have never bought LDs in the first place and now newly going into it, I would probably buy a CLD-97 or alike player and the Star Wars box set only. And if my income didn’t grow enough to allow some silly spendings, I would never buy the expensive titles (although mine aren’t as expensive as the late titles). But hey, that’s me. I have been there, done that, I am satisfied, now I can move on. After all, it’s your money and whatever makes you happy.
I agree with your opinion and disagree therussian on the PQ. For me to watch an LD, I must stay away from watching TV for a few days and forget what modern UHD and HD looks like. Yeah, its comparable to DVD(if you have a good setup) but who watches DVDs nowadays anyway? |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 20 Jan 2021, 19:20
|
|
|
Be ready.
Now that Obama is re - elected (chosen lmfao) petrol will be back to nearly $5.00 a gallon.
Mark my words, will not be long to wait....
Disclaimer : really hope I am wrong, very much feel it will not be long though !
Hang tough everybody, the $**t is going to get Knappy
Cheers to the membership
We’ll get along better if you keep your election disinformation campaign to zero. I know you have issues but reality IS reality no matter what you’ve personally been diagnosed with. Climate change, COVID-19 and Obama’s birth certificate are all real.
I nearly flagged this post but decided to be more open about how insane/stupid/irresponsible you’re being. Nothing could be more obvious to me in 2021 than when our fiends say insane b******t we need to engage them on it instead of just chickening out in the name of politeness. There was as clean of an election as this shithole country has ever seen. The only major abnormality was the sore loser and the totoletarian tactics he used to try to stay in “power” (while rarely doing anything but holding rallies). I could just block you or flag you anonymously but I genuinely don’t want you in prison for attacking a country you claim to love. I don’t want you to join the Proud Boys or any other hilarious/tragic organizations.
Aside from election nonsense completely, I have no problem with $5 a gallon gas. Trucks are stupid and driving 20 hours a week because you chose to live in BFE is your problem.
I created this conversation originally to discuss alternatives to physical media. It turned into many other things since then, including CRTs, pirating copyright content, cars and now gas prices. Nevertheless, I am enjoying the information and opinion exchange here no matter on topic or not. I would like it to continue with respect and understanding. I am with signo on this. Let’s keep the politics and election out of this. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 21 Jan 2021, 04:23
|
|
|
Be ready.
Now that Obama is re - elected (chosen lmfao) petrol will be back to nearly $5.00 a gallon.
Mark my words, will not be long to wait....
Disclaimer : really hope I am wrong, very much feel it will not be long though !
Hang tough everybody, the $**t is going to get Knappy
Cheers to the membership
We’ll get along better if you keep your election disinformation campaign to zero. I know you have issues but reality IS reality no matter what you’ve personally been diagnosed with. Climate change, COVID-19 and Obama’s birth certificate are all real.
I nearly flagged this post but decided to be more open about how insane/stupid/irresponsible you’re being. Nothing could be more obvious to me in 2021 than when our fiends say insane b******t we need to engage them on it instead of just chickening out in the name of politeness. There was as clean of an election as this shithole country has ever seen. The only major abnormality was the sore loser and the totoletarian tactics he used to try to stay in “power” (while rarely doing anything but holding rallies). I could just block you or flag you anonymously but I genuinely don’t want you in prison for attacking a country you claim to love. I don’t want you to join the Proud Boys or any other hilarious/tragic organizations.
Aside from election nonsense completely, I have no problem with $5 a gallon gas. Trucks are stupid and driving 20 hours a week because you chose to live in BFE is your problem.
Ah more inferring....
Its ok, it will pass.... just breathe and take your medication......
For the records, I am a free thinking moderate libratarian. Not republican or democrat .
Query : WHAT DID SOCIALISTS USE BEFORE CANDLES ?
Answer : ELECTRICITY.....
Flag away brother - censorship is the new free speech....
Hey substance, I will oblige your request and check my opinion.
However regarding my opinion about gas prices - I did type - hoped I was wrong.
Cheers
Thanks man. I didn’t mean to direct that at you or signo. I felt the conversation was heading that way. If you have a long commute like I did in the past, you definitely feel it on your wallet when gas prices go up drastically. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 24 Jan 2021, 08:36
|
|
|
| I don’t understand the hype about the RF demodulators and ac-3. I mean we held onto our LD players because they offered uncompressed PCM over lossy AC-3 on DVD. Not much so here but on the rest of the net there is a massive craze over RF demodulators and the ancient AV receivers with RF inputs. AC-3 legit sounds so thin and soulless on a half way decent system that there are maybe a handful titles on LD that I would stand for it’s better effects separation. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 01 Feb 2021, 03:10
|
|
|
Watched the second episode. The intro wasn’t improved from the previous episode, it looked awful. Picture improved significantly once the actual episode begun after the intro. Even the CGI segments after this point looked very good. This is definitely a new HD master, DVDs don’t have this kind of detail. The contrast and colors are improved as well but slightly. I hope at one point they release these on Blu-ray. HBO Max streaming is as good as any streaming can get but a little less compression noise is always welcome and hopefully lossless audio too. I also feel much more comfortable if I own my very favorite content on discs.
You won’t see me advocate LDs over newer HD formats often but this time I am split and leaning towards the LD versions. The gap between the HD versions and the LDs isn’t huge. LDs win with the lossless audio and the video is good enough. This would be even an easier decision if all episodes were available on LD. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 01 Feb 2021, 03:22
|
|
|
| I watched the little things on HBO Max. It wasn’t a great movie. The last 5 mins had 2 really entertaining but small twists. I did enjoy the last few minutes because of that. You have to watch the entire movie to understand these twists so I don’t know. I guess it’s a good watch if you don’t have anything else to do. The films resembles Seven but not on par. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 07 Feb 2021, 03:08
|
|
|
In your budget the best LD player would be Philips CDV-488. It is a single sided machine with respectable picture but Philips TDA1541a S2 double crown Dac chips on the audio side makes it a very interesting player. It is not a very common player and it should be relatively cheap. I know Kurtis owns one and he should be able tell more about it.
Pioneer HLD-X9 and X0 has the burr brown PCM1702 which are derived from PCM63. You will see these two in the best multibit DACs every made lists. They were very expensive to make and after one minor revision (PCM1704) TI/burr brown stopped making multibit Dacs. There are other LD players with lesser quality mutlibit DACs (CLD-95/97 is one of them). I wouldn’t call them audiophile level but still very good. Some of these players also have a separate power supply for the audio circuitry which is probably more important than the DAC chip itself (even if use Toslink or Coax). |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 10 Feb 2021, 04:29
|
|
|
| Do duo + any radiance series. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 10 Feb 2021, 16:49
|
|
|
| Yes Duo has significantly better deinterlacing than HDQ. Set the output to 480p so scaling is in Radiance. Check with the manuals but any Radiance should be able to adjust its output timing. CMS is needed if you pro calibration meters and calibration software. It is partially science and partially an art. So if you aren’t familiar with the process, you should hire a proven professional which can cost $1000+ for a projector. I would probably stay away from the Marquee. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 11 Feb 2021, 06:35
|
|
|
Who has the longest LD tool chain? What is your display and have you ever seen in person another system that you can compare it to? Does your AVR have enough audio buffer to compensate?
This may be a fun topic to start, would this be like the LD centipede rather than human centipede???
I have heard ld player -> eval board -> Algolith mosquito-> dvdo duo -> lumagen. Although this should not have a visible deterioration to the video, it will definitely hurt the audio. Each device will add jitter and electrical noise into the i2s audio stream. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 25 Feb 2021, 14:54
|
|
|
| I ordered a Kaleidescape Strato this week. This is their digital downloads only and a current 4K capable model. Their 4K exclusives are over 400 now and growing fast. I will continue to buy discs from boutique labels like Criterions, Arrow, Shout, Kino and alike but all barebones releases, Hollywood junk, and TV series will be digital. I will eventually add one of their discontinued disc based models to start converting my existing collection to digital. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 27 Feb 2021, 02:34
|
|
|
| OK I have the Kaleidescape Strato running now. I bought it for the 4K exclusives but I am seeing some other nice surprises. I just downloaded Titan A.E. in HD with DTS-HD MA 5.1. It looks and sound great. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 27 Mar 2021, 16:49
|
|
|
The player is selling for about what it cost new. Don’t let the immense depreciation of LD over the years make you forget that this stuff was always expensive. An X-0 was...what, $5500 new? I can’t remember.
800k Yen price tag and limited to 1500 units only. I think at the time it was around $8,000. Now it’s probably more like $12-16k adjusted to inflation.
X9 was the interesting one. I remember around 2000-2002 people were importing brand new X9 in box from the Chinese movie club or Nicholas Santini for $2,000 shipped. At the time, the flagship in the US, the CLD-99 still retailed $2,200 plus taxes in the US so the imported brand new X9 for $2,000 all fees included(and no tax) was no brainer. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 04 Apr 2021, 03:29
|
|
|
| I bought the Kaleidescape download a couple of weeks ago. Since Kscape store has bit perfect Blu-ray copies to download, there must have been Blu-ray release planned but for some reason never got released on disc. This was one of my favorite films in the early 2000s but this time around it didn’t have the same effect on me. Nevertheless it’s a good film with some rewatch value. It was worthwhile for me to pay $15 for the only bit perfect HD version with lossless DTS HD MA 5.1 audio. I would probably pay a little more to the LD because the cover is cool. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 04 Apr 2021, 05:28
|
|
|
| Your marantz likely has better processing than this key digital. I wouldn’t even bother with DVDO. I would use the money in a better player as well. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 07 Apr 2021, 17:57
|
|
|
forper wrote: Ok. Why not? You could have RAD and 3 other titles instead.
He has them running in quad balanced configuration. Double opposite sine waves cancel out all video noise. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 13 Apr 2021, 19:17
|
|
|
| I believe The Wrath of Khan is coming to 4K UHD Blu-ray eventually. For now, it's only here. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| substance |
|
Posted: 14 Apr 2021, 02:07
|
|
|
So how big is your HDD and can you transfer the files you bought to larger storage later as your collection expands? Do you need Kaleidascape to stay in business your whole life to retain/playback the content? ie do you REALLY OWN these films?
It’s a completely closed system. In a way, it needs to be this way in order to stay %100 legal. In the past, they allowed ripping your own discs into storage but had a big lawsuit which made them almost bankrupt. Now you need to purchase the digital license or you need to hold on to the disc copy (more on this later).
I have their Strato server/player which has a 6TB storage. It has no disc drives. You can move downloads to only other Kaleidescape units but nothing else. You can not add your own storage. You can not upgrade the internal storage. The only way to expand capacity is adding more Kaleidescape units. I have a Kaleidescape Premiere 3U server with 14x6TB (2 of them are for Raid parity drives so 72TB usable storage) to expand storage.
You can buy movies only from their dedicated online store which they call Kaleidescape Store. They have over 20,000 titles to chose from. Some boutique studios like Shout, Kino and Studiocanal are also within their online store. Digital license pricing is similar to disc pricing around $10-35 but mostly $10-20. You can also rent for $8 which seems to be fixed for all titles, I have never rented yet. There are sales frequently.
If you already have the disc in hand, you need a Kaleidescape unit with a disc drive to play it. I have 2 of their DV700 disc servers, each can hold 320 discs. Once you insert discs, it imports those to Premiere 3U server. From this point and on, you are playing them from the storage but they need to remain the in the disc server for checking ownership. Playing from the server, instead of the disc allows playing all your movies on up to 15 different zones simultaneously. The movie starts instantaneously. I have so many discs. Kaleidescape software skips all the previous and warnings automatically. You select the film you want to watch on the OSD and the film starts immediately. I play to add 2 to 4 more DV700 disc servers in the future.
If you don’t want to keep discs, once you insert discs into a Kaleidescape unit, you can go to their store and buy the digital license at a significant discount. They call this disc to digital upgrade. The pricing differs per studio. Disney gives a $3 discount only but all other studies charge $2-3 per upgrade, and $5 if you are upgrading your Blu-ray to 4K. Once you own the digital license, that gets you all the later versions. For example, if there is a new remastered version, you get that for free. No more double dipping.
Once your movies are downloaded to the storage. You own them and the closed system allows them to be played without internet connection. So if the company goes down, you keep your movies as long as you keep your hardware. The server has 2 parity drives and can work up to 2 hdd fails. You can buy replacement drives from Kaleidescape as more spares. This way you can maintain them for many years.
You have unlimited downloads for digital licenses. So technically, you don’t need any additional servers to add storage. You can just get a Strato and when you run out of room, delete some moves (you can download them later again). So it’s like unlimited cloud storage. Streaming is not allowed. Movies play only after complete downloads. Movies are bit perfect copies so the download files are large. Strato downloads a Blu-ray in about 40 mins and 4K movie in 70 mins. Premiere 3U server is much quicker because of its Raid. If the company goes down and you don’t have your movies downloaded, I guess then you lose them. |
|
|
|
Thanks list