Thread: Kaleidescape

I finally splurged and bought a Kaledescape server (7TB usable, 1TB spare, 1TB parity) with 4 players (I was fed up with waiting over a year for the price to come down substantially). Best expense I've made in my home theatre system, despite it being ridiculously expensive. Life is just so much better with it. No scratched discs from the kids, everything available to watch NOW with no disc hunting. Love it! User-interface is perfection.

Kaleidescape - Home

Kaleidescape is a great system for sure. Like you say it isn't cheap but the interface is sexy and it is quite fast in finding files and playing them throughout the home.

My only gripe is that they code the files in their proprietary file format. I feel the way things are changing right now with DRM (digital rights managment) and the way we watch movies that there will be many systems out very soon (ie. Control4 can do it today, NOT sexy, but cheap) that will just use the native file formats allowing you to choose and upgrade and change products without being locked into a single products.

Congrats! I would love to have a Kaleidescape they produce incredible image and sound quality. It is without question the Scud of movie servers. Some day over coffee I would love to learn more about your AV. That is what I do for a living and it is my second passion to fast cars!

So its a giant HD and you must upload your dvd's one by one? If so how long does it take to upload the average DVD and does it work with Blueray? What's to stop someone from renting an unlimited amount of DVD's through blockbuster and uploading them to the Kaleidescape.

The interfeace looks great!

Kinda looks like an AppleTV + RAID system + TV...


Please correct me if I am wrong.

damn, i need something wicked at the new house, i been battling with this in my current home

What is a movie manager?

ESCIENT
view product demo

Escient was the first movie manager in the biz. They have had real reliability issues since day one. Of the 20+ Escient systems I have sold over the past 10 or so years over 60% have had some issue(s) from a simple dead out of the box or a bad power supply 30 days after install to complete failures. I hear the newest ones have everything addressed but after hearing this year after year I have stopped selling the product.

Originally Posted by MTK

damn, i need something wicked at the new house, i been battling with this in my current home

What is a movie manager?

ESCIENT
view product demo

I assume you have a AV expert on the job by now. What systems have they recommended to you? Don't forgot you have a L4P brother who will be happy to review your proposals for functionality, value and products themselves. Feel free to ping me for free consulting =)

I will be down in Alameda to visit my father in 10 days or so, if you have time lets hook up!

Originally Posted by WebDaemon

Kinda looks like an AppleTV + RAID system + TV...


Please correct me if I am wrong.

Not really, but a K system is far more than the sum of it's parts. Kinda like calling a TiVO a hard-drive with a codec.

It loads each disc from the players equipped with a DVD player (which of course is also a stand-alone player too). It takes about 15 minutes to load each movie. It took several weeks feeding the DVD players my 650 movies. Some people choose to have their installer bulk-load the movies, but I preferred to just do it myself.

I could've saved thousands of dollars by building a media-server myself, and using off-the shelf components, open-source software, etc, etc. Much in the same way that people can build a car that will be faster than a Ferrari for a fraction of the price. At the end of the day though, until you see how seemless and perfect the end-result is it's hard to appreciate what the system does for you. I chose to spend the money because I didn't want a kit-car feel in my media system; I wanted a feature-rich pleasurable experience that I enjoyed using. I haven't regretted it at all. At the time of purchase I thoroughly researched the market and investigated every option, including Escient (and spoke to several of their dealers). I also looked very hard at AMX, which had some great looking products in development. At the end of the day though, lots of companies had great vaporware and promises, but only Kaleidescape actually *delivered*.

BH: My main media-room system comprises of a Classe Audio SSP-800 (w/CDP-502 and CA-5200 5ch amplifier), PS3 for BD (and ahem xbox for HD-DVD), B&W 802Ds for fronts, HTM-2D center, DS8S rears, Sony VPL100W, 100" Greyhawk screen.

The reason for the proprietary format was that they were trying to do things the "right" way and not draw the ire of the movie studios (ie protecting the IP, and not allowing rampant copying). That bunch sees evil everywhere, so they drew their ire anyway and got sued. Thankfully, the courts actually applied some common sense and ruled for K.

The system is fully HD capable, but as of now there is no way to load BD. In the near future, you'll be able to purchase an online movie in HD and just download it direct to your system. I've stopped buying BDs because I'd rather have them loaded on my server than deal with the hassle of storing/locating movies. The upconversion the K-players do to 1080p is pretty impressive too.

Originally Posted by BuzzedHornet

I assume you have a AV expert on the job by now. What systems have they recommended to you? Don't forgot you have a L4P brother who will be happy to review your proposals for functionality, value and products themselves. Feel free to ping me for free consulting =)

I will be down in Alameda to visit my father in 10 days or so, if you have time lets hook up!

in 10days you PM me. visit my muthufukkin crib and tell me wussup!

i switched from a 102" panasonic Plasma to a 30k projector.... i'm confused as all hell!!!!!


my boy SS hates my theater seats already and i ain't even bought them yet

Originally Posted by BritBlaster

Not really, but a K system is far more than the sum of it's parts. Kinda like calling a TiVO a hard-drive with a codec.

It loads each disc from the players equipped with a DVD player (which of course is also a stand-alone player too). It takes about 15 minutes to load each movie. It took several weeks feeding the DVD players my 650 movies. Some people choose to have their installer bulk-load the movies, but I preferred to just do it myself.

I could've saved thousands of dollars by building a media-server myself, and using off-the shelf components, open-source software, etc, etc. Much in the same way that people can build a car that will be faster than a Ferrari for a fraction of the price. At the end of the day though, until you see how seemless and perfect the end-result is it's hard to appreciate what the system does for you. I chose to spend the money because I didn't want a kit-car feel in my media system; I wanted a feature-rich pleasurable experience that I enjoyed using. I haven't regretted it at all. At the time of purchase I thoroughly researched the market and investigated every option, including Escient (and spoke to several of their dealers). I also looked very hard at AMX, which had some great looking products in development. At the end of the day though, lots of companies had great vaporware and promises, but only Kaleidescape actually *delivered*.

BH: My main media-room system comprises of a Classe Audio SSP-800 (w/CDP-502 and CA-5200 5ch amplifier), PS3 for BD (and ahem xbox for HD-DVD), B&W 802Ds for fronts, HTM-2D center, DS8S rears, Sony VPL100W, 100" Greyhawk screen.

The reason for the proprietary format was that they were trying to do things the "right" way and not draw the ire of the movie studios (ie protecting the IP, and not allowing rampant copying). That bunch sees evil everywhere, so they drew their ire anyway and got sued. Thankfully, the courts actually applied some common sense and ruled for K.

The system is fully HD capable, but as of now there is no way to load BD. In the near future, you'll be able to purchase an online movie in HD and just download it direct to your system. I've stopped buying BDs because I'd rather have them loaded on my server than deal with the hassle of storing/locating movies. The upconversion the K-players do to 1080p is pretty impressive too.

sounds official as hell
but
yo playboy you got any pics, scudman to scudman i need tha visual!