Sure, let’s add this asterisk too.

*Your convenience level may vary based on your average internet download speeds.

On a separate note, it is shocking that Japan is behind on the internet speeds and bandwidth. I have ATT fiber which is gigabit up and down for $80/month. Most HD downloads are around 8 mins and UHD are around 12 mins with gigabit speeds. So say, if you have 100mbps service, it would take 10x more time.

Trivial but Kaleidescape offers mailing you hard drives with your selected movies already present. This service was triggered by the many super yacht owners having Kaleidescape systems and not able to download at fast speed at harbors. Before anyone asks, these drives are encrypted due to copy right concerns. They will work only in the assigned system.



Note: Ghostbusters Afterlife was a pre-order. It gets downloaded to your system well before and become immediately available for you to view on the official release date. These gets lower priority download speeds before the official release date. And also, the movie was crap!

Curious to know if there is any documentation around this? I'm assuming the whole LUN(s) is encrypted with whatever they choose to use, so you've an ecrypted volume in transit and at rest. To play back a title does the player/device etc phone home and upon checking a MAC address, or other unique identifier and valid account the content is accessible? Or is there some sort of PKI or additional symmetric encryption in place that allows each title to be played? DRM essentially.

This company might look to employ blockchain technology, perhaps using NFT's or other smart contract technology instead. Meaning you own the content and retain proof of ownership along with the ability to be able to continue play back content in the event the company ceases trading and switches off the lights. I'd be wanting that kind of reassurance considering the cost of investment, both financially and emotionally.

I guess as well it's all well and good having a gigabit line but you want the infrastructure after the modem/demarc point to be capable of managing those speeds consistently in order to get the best out of it, else you're just paying for bandwidth that won't be used.

Just observations I'm keen to learn more about. It seems like an interesting product and hopefully just one way things might go in future once physical media options are gone for good. I don't want to sacrifice high quality, high bitrate content for compressed garbage tied in to one of a trillion different streaming subscriptions where your investment sees zero ownership. The studios on the other hand must be rubbing their hands in.the hopes all of this can't happen soon.enough.

No way Pedro!

The device doesn’t need to phone home for playback. You don’t need internet at all to play your movies.

You own the right to play the titles you purchased unlimited times as long as the hardware works. Once movies are downloaded to your machine, no internet is needed.

As long as Kaleidescape is around, you are able to download your content to 5 active machines at a time. You can delete and re download unlimited times to any machine registered to you.

Even if they lose the right to a movie later on, you can still delete and redownload as you wish. You get unlimited cloud storage for your purchased content. Most people buy the the cheapest player/server combo because of this. You don’t necessarily need multiple servers. A single Strato 6TB is enough to most. They keep their favorite content on the 6TB for fast access and redownload their other content from the cloud as they need. Beside its convenience, the Kaleidescape store currently has nearly 800 titles in 4K with no disc version available in any market.

Apologies substance, I forgot to reply to you and thanks as well for the great first hand information on this system.

I'm still a little baffled though as to how they protect content and prevent piracy. If there is no phoning home to enable playback, which is fair enough and not the only way to protect content just a suggestion, is there any authentication or verification methodology in place at all? Perhaps a certificate or key etc is required to prove ownership of the media or validity of a subscription etc?


If the company goes under what happens then? Purchases are lost forever when the lights in the server room are turned off? Also how can content still be downloaded if/after rights to it are lost by the business? Some sort of legal agreement in place? As any competitor I imagine would be disgruntled to lose a potential sale or force a consumer to double dip.

Just to clarify again I'm not being pedantic, just genuinely interested in how the thing works. I did allude to this in a prior post, however I can definitely see a future where physical media is no more and instead content of similar data size and quality, or better, is offered through NFT's. This gives the customer proof of ownership and the studio/publisher/retailer/whoever that degree of control over distribution, piracy accountability, data integrity and so on.

It's not even something that's in the far flung future. It's here already.

I'd expect to see cinema tickets as NFT's (already happening with sports events and concerts). Perhaps with collectibles offered for attending a first showing of a film. Or NFT incentives for buying a film or going to the cinema. Perhaps some redeemable promotional items or store discounts etc.

Then there's control over screener distribution and piracy prevention. It's already been developed for theatrical content distribution in cinema supply chains. NFT's will change a lot of the ways we do things now and will impact all areas of life both personal and enterprise. The sad part being that John and Jayne will lose a lot of their consumer control as the grip of enterprise becomes ever tighter.

Keen to learn more about your Kaleidescape system. I might drop them an email for more information.

Edit: a little research shows Kaleidescape uses Nexguard watermarking (which is not made by Nexguard but rather licensed from Civolution, who are a spin off business from Philips in the Netherlands, but owned by VC. And it goes deeper because Civolution bought in this forensics and watermarking technology from Thompson. Eventually creating two systems, Civolution and Teletrax which are both in use today via Nexguard). Their FAQ section also mentions that the hardware must be activated on first run. Hence my hunch there is something perhaps tying a unique identifier on the hardware to a DB or authentication system on Kaleidescape's side?

From the links below, the last one is interesting. If the company closes it's doors, download your content ASAP else it'll likely be lost forever. Not cool.

https://dtv.nagra.com/nexguard-forensic-watermarking

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and- ... lls-again/

https://www.cepro.com/news/kaleidescape ... rinivasan/

It seems the company has quite the past with litigation around Kaleidescape and RealDVD in the early 2000's, which they lost. Also having to close their doors in 2016. I assume they were bought out recently in a salvage deal perhaps? Not sure I'd be wanting to put all my eggs in the Kaleidescape basket at the minute, but do agree the concept of it is very interesting and certainly a glimpse of the future. The studios will just end up doing it themselves though I think.

Edit 2: This is an excellent read that describes the steganography techniques employed by the system Nexguard/Civolution/Teletrax uses:

https://actusdigital.com/2017/01/08/wat ... rprinting/

Sure you can try your own steganography examples at home and embed data in to your photos, or add data to subchannels in simple notepad txt files in Windows. The beauty being, iirc , that you can write a notepad document with subchannel data e.g a hidden txt file within a txt file. Hash it. Alter the subchannel data and I think the main file hash remains unaltered. Kind of an example of what Nexguard is marketing when they talk about invisibility etc. I'll need to double check my statement around the hashing integrity of the txt file subchannel (that may be inaccurate or something i've mixed up with another technique), it's still early here and I've not woken my brain up with a cup of tea yet!

Edit 3: I stand corrected and thought as much. Of course the hash value will change! I think for a minute I'd confused myself there with just spoofing the hash value. Which you'd sniff out in about 2 seconds flat anyway. I think the main principle here is just the steganography piece, so media will be watermarked but not immediately obvious. Remember those red dots used as watermarks on films not so long ago?

If the company goes under, what will happen is anyone’s guess. Even if the movies still play, they will only play while the hardware is functional and there is no possibility to repair/replace on your own.

Why doesn’t it need to phone home? The hard drives are encrypted. The OS is completely closed and locked. Can someone find a way? Yes for sure but it is a statistically low probability in the target clientele the company is aiming to sell these to.

Looks like Zappiti is closing shop. This message was sent to all dealers.

Avsforum post

“Dear All

It’s with the greatest sadness that I have to announce that Zappiti will be over soon.
As you already know, we are fighting since January to keep our baby alive, but unfortunately Justice has refused to hear us….
We have done everything we could , we have worked without being paid to maintain customers happy waiting to have the Go to continue, but now the Cloud will be disconnected before the end of the year.

What does that mean for customers?

Zappiti Video will no longer work for the players and the NAS. Customers can always create an offline collection to keep it working even after the close down, but the new movies won’t be identified anymore.
Zappiti Explorer will still work and people will still be able to access their movies in their NAS or the internal HDD.
For the NAS owners, they will still be able to rip and to have access to their files. They will be able to keep their actual collection but with not further possibilities for identifying the new Movies on Zappiti video.

What do you tell to your customers?

That Zappiti is liquidated unfortunately, that we tried everything to continue but that we have been shut down for good

Is it really over?

We are working on a solution to propose to all the Zappiti users.

The plan is to install a new App, so they can continue to enjoy their Zappiti products. There will be a small fee for that App but at least they will be proposed a solution.
They will have to create a new account and a new collection, it’s impossible to retrieve the customer’s collection unfortunately. It will be based on a new cloud.

Repair and services

All players under warranty will be taken care by Let’s get Physical , the parts will be exchanged at no fees but the labor and shipping will be at customer’s expense.
The players out of warranty will be taken care of by Let’s get physical with the usual fees.

I will keep you all posted on the progress of the App

I’m terribly sorry for this situation that will put us all in a difficult position, but tell your customers that we are trying our best to find a way for a fair solution.


Warm regards"

So the players are going the way of the OPPO BDP-105 where all apps eventually became obsolete but local NAS/attached remain available.

So in the end, OPPO going app-less on the 205 series was not a step back but an understanding that attaching quickly obsoleting internal apps to a device will only bring trouble in the future?

Julien

Oppo’s case is a little different. The company is still alive but not making disc players. I never really used the Oppo app. I didn’t know it existed until you mentioned it frankly. Therefor I am going to assume the absence of the app doesn’t effect the main functionality.

On the case of Zappiti, the app provided metadata for the discs and allowed users to edit the cover arts and other details. Once the cloud is gone, new discs will import without cover arts or any details about the discs. Zappiti has kept the admin rights closed on the artwork and metadata editing. So yes you can continue to import/rip discs but they will show as generic discs without cover arts on the system. That’s a big effect on the functionality.

These replacements for physical media seem to not last as long as what they supposed to be replacing, Volvo 700 style.

It wasn't really replacing physical media anyways. You still had to buy or borrow discs to rip them to store on your server.

It is really weird right now. Disney announces dropping physical media in some markets due to declining sales then unexpectedly releases the Mandalorian and other Star Wars TV shows on 4K UHD Blu-ray. I think new physical media will be fine as long as Amazon still sells them. Once Amazon is out, it will be a micro group of only enthusiasts who buy higher profit margin limited edition and boutique titles.

In that case what is the purpose of this device? I have ripped large amounts of my movies to reduce storage and clutter. It's very easy to just watch them via a pc tower. I'm guessing there are some benefits but I don't know what they are.

It is an all-in-one solution. You don't need to build a custom media PC. You don't need to educate yourself on which software you need to install on your custom media PC to rip discs, edit metadata/cover art, organize/manage your media library, and setup media share to distribute them. You don't need a media player such as Plex or Kodi to view your content on your TV. It comes with its own proprietary operating system to do all this. It is a purpose specific hardware design so it uses less power than a PC, it is much less quiet than a PC, it can output video in its native resolution and refresh rates, it has built in very high end audio DACs for music, it comes with a proper remote control, it has a mobile app to control and manage it, it integrates with all of the major control systems such as Control4, Crestron, Savant and URC, it is rack mountable, its storage is infinitely expandable with 3rd party servers such as QNAP and Synology, it is expandable to multiple rooms, it automatically keeps itself up to date with all of its software and so on.

If you have the knowledge and the time, you can surely build an equivalent DIY media PC. You may have to use multiple different software for multiple different tasks. You will have to continue to spend time keeping all software up to date and making sure they are compatible with each other. You are probably going to need to use a mouse and a keyboard time to time. PC hardware is rarely videophile/audiophile grade. It may not have the correct color output, low noise floor and high signal to noise ratio as a high end dedicated disc player or Zappiti like machine. After all said and done, such a capable custom media PC would likely cost more than a high end Zappiti system.

Now it makes sense. Not something I would personally spend money on but I can see the appeal. Especially for people that are not overly tech savvy (my uncle would love something like that so long as I set it up). Of course these things going belly up is unfortunate but not super surprising. That thread on AVS took a little over 2 years from the start until they gave up. Slightly under two years after release.

I will say I do not care about present-ability at all (ie cover art). It would probably bother some people but for me it's just files in a folder, I click the file it plays on mpc. I know it's nowhere near this device but this was mostly just ripping dvds and watching them on a decent plasma tv. So apples/oranges for sure. Will be expanding the storage on that soon-ish which is definitely the biggest money pit aspect of it for me.

I think so too. If you know what you are doing, you have many options. There is a guy on Blu-ray forum. He built an interface to control several Sony 400 disc changers that are connected to an HDMI switch.

Netflix, Zappiti and now Best Buy in short a few weeks. Hopefully Amazon will continue to carry physical media a few more years.

Best Buy is exiting physical media business after 2023 holiday season

I should probably go back and complete my original post. This thread is becoming more important as physical media resellers becoming a rarity.

Note: I updated the first post.

Quick summary:

Amazon is the only big retailer for physical media now. There are many small boutique labels with small libraries they sell their physical media content independently on their own web stores (some have physical stores too).

Physical media alternatives are streaming services and digital stores (for purchase or rent). Kaleidescape store is the only one with high bitrate downloads which either matches or surpasses the physical media quality at an extremely high cost of entry to the eco system.

There are integrated server/player and DIY options but they need physical discs for their content.

Obviously this entire thread is a concern to you only if you care about new releases that are new movies or films previously never been released on physical media. Millions of copies of previously sold physical media will be floating in the 2nd hand for generations.

This is an interesting one, recently I purchased a CD of an old blues musician, while there were three other versions floating around
the only copy available at the time was a reissue from one of the two and it was a manufacture on demand.

I didn't realize until I received it and sent it back since the others weren't selling for much more than this copy, but they are second hand.
Seems like they are doing small run MOD or limited runs of stuff that are older material on physical media.

There is another CD I bought about 6 months ago, it was not a MOD but I was slightly disappointed that it was mastered off the vinyl record.
Not too much of an issue now to me since I've sold off my turntable and most of my small collection of vinyl, just hate buying stuff that feels
like fan made when I could have done it myself for little to no cost when I had the gear and older media.

Recently when I buy media I try not to buy anything post 2018 but it slips sometimes and I get sort of upset about owning these inferior pressings if you can
call half of them pressings.

If new physical media ever does go away, I suppose I will have to upgrade my ten megabit Internet service (if the company did not do so already by then; they want me to take ten-gigabit fiber now). Then, I will go talk to my friends about the "naughty stuff" they do with their Internet connections.

Yeah I don't care too much about new movies but there is a lot of older anime I'd still like to have. I have most older movies I would want though I do always scan over what Criterion puts out.



Yeah that MOD stuff is garbage.

I can't find any links from Target but it seems Target is dropping physical media too.


Some Target Stores Reportedly No Longer Selling DVDs, Blu-rays, and CDs