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Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical media
https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6534		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  substance [ 02 Sep 2016, 18:41 ]
Post subject:  Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical media
For those who never heard, kaleidescape or however it's written correctly really closed its doors a few days ago. Kaleidescape offered digital downloads of films without any compression in audio and video. You could buy or rent a film in dvd, bd and uhd formats and they would be bit to bit identical to their physical disc versions(even include extras). You had to buy their special media players and servers. A typical media player like strato was $4500, it could hold 50 uhd films or 150 blurays in its 6tb hdd. You could buy multiple statos for multiroom and multiply storage capacities. You could also buy their servers (which are really nas) starting at 6tb and upto 24tb. These were also several thousand dollars. A typical media player + server setup cost was about $10,000. I have seen homes with excess of $60,000 invested multiple media players and servers.

The point? No physical discs anywhere in your home so no space wasted. Instant access to any film with an amazing gui. Well, kiss all that good bye now. The company closed its doors and unless some other company acquires it, all the deca (10) thousands invested in the hardware and thousands invested in purchased movies (each movie is like $15) are all history now.

I told my wife about this sad story(sad for kaleidescape owners) and she said good thing we have everything on physical copies. Yeah I don't care if ld or dvd and one day bluray fotmat dies, ky discs are always owned by me and will stay with me!
Author:  xtempo [ 02 Sep 2016, 21:36 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
didn't they have a server in the end you had to have sitting in the drive for copy protection reasons? I think there was a lawsuit against them by the MPAA. its a shame its gone now while not having any personal experience with it, I'm sadden about the loss of jobs more so than the device stand point. Keeping the media is the best way not to lose anything though I would like to have backups of LDs that haven't been released on any other format.
Author:  substance [ 02 Sep 2016, 22:22 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
xtempo wrote:
didn't they have a server in the end you had to have sitting in the drive for copy protection reasons? I think there was a lawsuit against them by the MPAA. its a shame its gone now while not having any personal experience with it, I'm sadden about the loss of jobs more so than the device stand point. Keeping the media is the best way not to lose anything though I would like to have backups of LDs that haven't been released on any other format.


Well they couldn't survive because of the copy protection dictated by the studios. They had to pay really high fees and keep the hardware cost super high. There was another company called escient with similar functionality(but cheaper), they closed doors a few years ago.

From my understanding, here is the priority list of the studios
1-cost
2-copy protection
3-bandwidth (related to cost, not issue on physical discs)
4-quality (often sacrificed on streams and for extras so they fit on one disc)

I don't believe vudu would survive either if it didn't allow uv codes from bluray discs.
Author:  signofzeta [ 03 Sep 2016, 02:11 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
I love copy protection. It's always cracked, often quickly, and it only affects legit users. Pirate downloads run smooth as butter...like LD. No FBI ads threatening you with jail, no waiting 2 minutes for a menu, no trailers. The legit version just tortures you with so much s**t that you can run to your computer and jack it off the Bay before the dumb BR player gets you to the point where you can hit "Play".
Author:  nissling [ 03 Sep 2016, 08:17 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
Signofzeta, how old is your Blu-Ray player? My Pioneer BDP-450K is quite fast no matter which disc I try but my old Sony BDP-S350 is a completely different story. That's one slow player for sure and I don't think I could stand to use it primary today for a number of reasons...
Author:  tasuke [ 03 Sep 2016, 18:26 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
my first "serious" BRDP was a SONY BDP-S300. well made and chock full of high quality internal components, but slower than molasses, and not a PIONEER either.

more recently, it was replaced by a PIONEER BDP-05FD loaded with the most recent firmware.
it may not be instantaneous in loading, but it is WAY faster than the S300, plays everything and plays it well, and is a PIONEER to boot;
Author:  audioboyz1973 [ 04 Sep 2016, 07:25 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
signofzeta wrote:
I love copy protection. It's always cracked, often quickly, and it only affects legit users. Pirate downloads run smooth as butter...like LD. No FBI ads threatening you with jail, no waiting 2 minutes for a menu, no trailers. The legit version just tortures you with so much s**t that you can run to your computer and jack it off the Bay before the dumb BR player gets you to the point where you can hit "Play".


On top of that in Australia they gouged us like crazy on software prices for years (PC stuff too). And now they wonder why Australia became the illegal downloading capital of the world - getting their just deserts as far as I'm concerned!

tasuke wrote:
my first "serious" BRDP was a SONY BDP-S300. well made and chock full of high quality internal components, but slower than molasses


lol, this is my first and so far only blu-ray player. Nothing wrong with it other than those infernally slow loading times!
Author:  samaron [ 04 Sep 2016, 11:19 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
signofzeta wrote:
I love copy protection. It's always cracked, often quickly, and it only affects legit users. Pirate downloads run smooth as butter...like LD. No FBI ads threatening you with jail, no waiting 2 minutes for a menu, no trailers. The legit version just tortures you with so much s**t that you can run to your computer and jack it off the Bay before the dumb BR player gets you to the point where you can hit "Play".

Best one were the one Sony (I think?) came with like 10-15 years ago. Used millions to develop. Took like two days after release and a 16-year old German kid found that you could use a permanent marker on the edge of the disc to mask it. Violà, no copy protection!

The worst part with blu-ray is the "Thank you for buying this movie" crap that pops up on some discs. More than once I've had the urge to take the disc out and throw it away. Just let me watch the movie, don't give me annoying (non-skippable) junk like that... More than once I've actually made copies of blu-rays just to remove that awful junk.
Author:  forper [ 05 Sep 2016, 00:42 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
It brings out the hatred in me. When anti piracy messages play on a DVD you just BOUGHT BRAND NEW. I own the copy of the movie now, do you understand that DVD? LD understands.

Having said that I just got the Universal AU DVD issue of Casino and it goes straight into the movie, no BS and a nice transfer. Will seek out more Universal releases.
Author:  nissling [ 05 Sep 2016, 04:21 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
You get the exact same warnings on Laserdiscs, or at least pretty much everyone I've seen so far. The difference is that you can always skip it.
Author:  forper [ 05 Sep 2016, 11:49 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
nissling wrote:
You get the exact same warnings on Laserdiscs, or at least pretty much everyone I've seen so far. The difference is that you can always skip it.


Uh no, I've yet to see a 3 minute video asking me if I wouldn't steal a car then why would I steal a movie at the beginning of any LD. Plenty of retail DVDs and BDs in Australia have it though.
Author:  nissling [ 05 Sep 2016, 15:08 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
I meant FBI Warnings and such. Either way I'm not sure what it's like on Australian DVDs or Blu-Rays but in Europe at every instance enough to select an obscure language at startup to avoid it. Usually Arabic is the first option and it will give you no unskippable ads or such. I haven't seen that anti-piracy propaganda that you're talking about on any DVD or Blu-Ray released post 2006 or something.
Author:  moon-child-1982 [ 07 Sep 2016, 06:24 ]
Post subject:  Re: Kaleidescape helped me out on my journey in physical med
Is that not the reason why we all collect Laserdiscs :ugeek:

My Star Trek collection in Laserdiscs is about 4 meter long and about the weight of a Baby Elephant, and my whole movie collection will fill a GIGALiner.

Or I use my mobilephone with a online storage to stream it .... what looks better :mrgreen:
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