New Products

Kaleidescape’s New Movie Player Supports Dolby Vision, Lossless Audio

SV Staff  |  Jul 16, 2024

Kaleidescape, the Silicon Valley firm that introduced the first dedicated movie server in 2001, today announced a new 4K movie player that supports Dolby Vision high dynamic range (HDR) and lossless audio, including Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. The move addresses the criticism that previous players were limited to the static HDR10 format.

Clicking our links might earn us a commission—thanks for supporting Sound & Vision.

Priced at $3,995, the Strato V player is a single-zone device that works on its own or as part of a larger Kaleidescape system. It can store up to 10 reference-quality 4K movies on its solid-state drive and features a streamlined interface that has been optimized for navigating a small movie library.

The player is able to download a 4K movie during playback without sacrificing performance in as little as 10 minutes over Gigabit Ethernet, according to the company. To make room for new movies on a continuous basis, the system can be set up to automatically delete a movie 48 hours after playback.

To increase movie storage capacity, the Strato V can be grouped with the company’s Terra Prime movie servers; any number of players can be grouped with one or more new or existing Terra movie servers.

Kaleidescape says the addition of player-side decode for high-bitrate audio codecs provides flexibility to maximize sound quality with a range of downstream components. In addition to the new user interface, the Strato V features updated electronics and grounding topology.

“Strato V is perfect for new customers and those who have a TV or projector with Dolby Vision support, or older audio equipment that does not decode Dolby TrueHD or DTS:HD [Master Audio lossless audio],” the company said. “Strato C is perfect for current Kaleidescape customers who have a Co-Star configuration, or a large library of HD content.”

The Kaleidescape movie store offers thousands of 4K and HD titles, including movies, TV series, and concerts. Movies are available with lossless multichannel and object-based audio, including Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and about 100 titles are currently offered in Dolby Vision with more on the way.

The Strato V is housed in a black anodized aluminum and glass chassis. For more information, visit kaleidescape.com . To buy one, follow this link to Audio Advice.

COMMENTS
Billy's picture
Submitted by Billy on July 16, 2024 - 12:33pm

4Gs and it only holds 10 movies? Not much of a value, is it? For four grand, just think of the system you could set up for yourself, and it sure as hell would hold more than 10 flicks. Of course, does your average one percenter have any idea how to do that? This is all about showing off the hard work of someone else (who laughs all the way to the bank) If the movie studios would have gotten off their high horse, maybe we would actually have affordable mass market movie servers. I would love to be the Henry Ford of the industry, but the crazy copyright laws make that more or less impossible except for only the very well heeled. People should not only be able to download material directly, but they should also be able to legaly rip their own discs. It is not like the goofy laws have stopped piracy and file sharing, so why not just accept a small percentage of leakage while inturn, opening up a huge volume of happy paying customers? Just make sure any discs ripped have a watermark hidden in the code so they can be traced if they are illegally shared. There, problem solved. Plus, people could easily back up those files in case of hardware failure. With this company, I assume it is a their own code, and no back up except what they very expensively provide. What if this company goes belly up, what happens then? They have for years been awfully quiet on that. Do not get me wrong, I love the interface, love the idea. If I were to hit a billion dollar lotto, I would buy 500 TB of solid state servers from them, and buy out almost the whole catalog of material. (no calling goofy David for me to have him pick out a house, that is for sure) Problem is, this world should not be just for the crazy rich, everyday working people should be able to have a piece of the pie to. The rich will always be well off, just don't take it all, okay?

trynberg's picture
Submitted by trynberg on July 17, 2024 - 3:22pm

It's hard to parse much from your rant, but the existence of the Kaleidescape system doesn't prevent you from running a Plex/Kodi server at much lower cost. So not sure what all the class complaints are about...

I run a Plex server myself with a library nearing 800 movies; the Kaleidescape system is very expensive but it works beautifully if within your budget.

Billy's picture
Submitted by Billy on July 17, 2024 - 5:18pm

Rant isn't the best word here, try , opinion. I DO have a Kodi system (been aboard that train since is was called XBMC, even have a T Shirt from them) I have a whole wall of DVDs and Blurays, all of them are in it. All are available from any TV in the house, even the one in the bathroom. It is one of my best hobbies, and of course it is a better value, but how many of us can actually do this? People who see my system are amazed all the time by it, but most insist they could never understand it. If we had simple mass market systems that were affordable, it would be of great benefit and happiness for the masses, not just your average trustfund baby. I tried for years to set up a system for my elderly parents. They loved the idea, but could never get it to work twice in a row. Seemed like I was on call for tech support 24/7/365. If they had a system like this, it would be so simple for people like them. Why is this sort of tech only available for a such small percentage of the population? If the tech had trickled down in price over the years so average people could afford it, then I would have little to be concerned about. Why has it not? In my opinion, that speaks of a much more troubling societal problem.

HDTV1080P's picture
Submitted by HDTV1080P on July 16, 2024 - 7:27pm

Good to hear Dolby Vision HDR is supported, however HDR10+ also should in the future be added in a firmware update. Also some consumers are subscribing to 10,000Mbps Internet and a 10Gbps ethernet jack would be ideal. Should be able to get the download of a 100GB movie down to 1 minute instead of 10 minutes if ones Internet speed is fast enough.

trynberg's picture
Submitted by trynberg on July 17, 2024 - 3:19pm

Why? If the content is in Dolby Vision, there is zero reason to have HDR10+. This isn't a disc player...they manage their own server content.

pw's picture
Submitted by pw on July 17, 2024 - 1:12am

My Roku TV does the same thing and it’s built in..
$4000 ??
Ridiculous..

trynberg's picture
Submitted by trynberg on July 17, 2024 - 3:17pm

What's ridiculous is that you think a Roku has the same functionality of this box...

X