We Have to Talk about Kaleidescape... (Part 1)

[@rayjuarez5111]

Thank you for speaking up about this. There are certain other youtube channels that get angry when someone even thinks that this might be too expensive. I gurantee you will get more subs for the honesty. You are stating what we have all been thinking. Im sure some of the other youtube channels will not appreciate negative feedback on their baby Kaladeiscape but its the truth. I honestly feel that someone will come in and offer what Kaladeiscape does at an affordable price very soon.

[@specialformula14]

Nvidia shield. + kodi + external hard drives. What more do ya need.

[@titothomas78]

But were do you get the abow 80 bit rate 4K HDR UNCOMPRESSED MKV MOVIES TO PLAY IN THAT WHICH MINIMUM 80 GB ABOW FILE SIZE

[@michaelsmithdjsmitty246]

NVIDIA Shield is the way to go. And it is lossless audio, atmos on Kodi

[@specialformula14]

@@titothomas78 easy. Search for remux. That’s a full disk image. Not many movies are above 80 gig. Most seem to be around 55 - 75. And up. “Ripping ur own media “

[@heftyfunseeker9987]

@@titothomas78Bravia Core streams lossless with Purestream. I think it’s coming for Apple TV

[@PB-tc6hw]

Same here except Plex instead of Kodi…

[@paulrevere1479]

If Apple decides to offer the higher bitrate movies on Apple TV/ ITunes with lossless audio, it would be a wrap for kaleidescape.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I agree. It doesn’t even have to be lossless. Dolby digital plus can be coded at up to 6 mbps. They could double the bitrate from 640 kbps to 1.2 mbps make it almost impossible to distinguish from lossless.

[@guillermomartin8248]

Right, but they won’t because the VAST MAJORITY of people that use a smart TV to watch movies or an Apple TV connected to a sound bar will really need lossless audio/video 😂; you guys are clueless

[@eEvangeliste]

I just want  to give me the ability to save my movies on the  tv and edit my demos 😅

[@robvazquez1424]

On Apple you DONT own the movies‼️ Also you can leave movies in the cloud and d/l to the server when you want to watch.i have alot of movies pass 8TB

[@eEvangeliste]

@@robvazquez1424 And how you do that with appleTV ?

[@mauriciob8260]

I have my own Kaleidescape with my Nas server and Plex , I'm a big buyer of bluray movie disc and I made a big library over the years and all my disc are back up in my own server , so I don't need this over expensive service

[@Upscaled_HT]

I’m looking into it due the impending demise of physical media. It’s going to happen one day and it’ll become almost impossible to get media for our home grown movie servers.

[@mauriciob8260]

@@Upscaled_HT But as you said Kaleidescape is way too much overprice , is ridiculous . I will prefer when media disc disappear paid for a digital movie on Prime Video /Itunes , etc.

[@terryxperry]

​@@Upscaled_HTHollywood might be bankrupt my then. Movie costs going though the roof to make. Plus they are making less good movies. When Hollywood was at it most profitable was when there was movie rentals VHS, DVD u could buy. The way streaming services are getting more expensive and with ads etc... people will stop using them. The used DVD and blu rays will be worth a lot going forward. There will be a high demand for physical media sooner then u realize.

[@Antimonkat]

​@@Upscaled_HT thats a litle doom and gloom, I doubt it will happen any time soon, 4k and blu-ray production is still expanding greatly every year, and one thing you aren't considering, kscape requires physical media distribution to continue. if movie studios stop producing physical media, then they don't need to produce the file formats kscape uses as their base. I know Kscape does create their own deliverables from some sort of studio master (part of their cost overhead) But I don't think they are starting with the same deliverable say a digital theature would get, maybe? Also not sure where streaming starts, I assume each service also does it's own re-encode to fit their streaming guidelines, but I don't know what they start with, could be a disc master, but maybe something higher or lower. Besides the cost, the biggest problem I have is what you covered about the repairability...A 7 year old player shouldn't be throw away cus of a bad hard drive, that's not that old and yet easily within the realm of early failure for a hard drive....and what happens if you DO have am 88 tb server, and a single drive dies? Do you have to send the whole unit back and be down for weeks? do they send you a replacement to slot in (doubt it), do they say sorry, we can't service it buy a new $25000 server please and thank you, here's a $1000 movie credit? No interest if they wont support their hardware for at least 15 years

[@housbinpharteen7445]

@@Upscaled_HT HOPEFULLY IF THEY DONT SELL DISC'S ANYMORE YOUR ABLE TO BUY THE DIGITAL VERSION AND DOWN LOAD IT

[@MikeZ8709]

The ORIGINAL Kaleidescape was VERY cool. For those who don't know - it consisted of a server unit used to "rip" one's entire DVD collection to the giant hard disk array during setup. Once this was done, any number of player units could be placed throughout the home could stream any movie from the disk array with full A/V quality AND full preservation of the original DVD menu including setup and special features - watching a movie on Kaleidescape made it feel like you were playing the actual DVD in a player! As you may have guessed, they faced legal issues for selling a device that could "rip" copy-protected DVDs. This obviously led to a change in business model to a HiFi streaming service. This is a shame. Streaming services have only made me appreciate torrenting and file sharing more than ever.

[@jastorino]

Keeping it real, love it. Very refreshing in this space.

[@dwaynebellmon9472]

I really enjoyed your comments and it made absolute sense the prices for this platform is outrageous Thank you for this informative media keep up the good work.

[@Echo-jg8is]

The K has 9,000 films available, physical media has 335,000 films

[@ThatHz-]

I agree, this is a huge downside

[@chipholland9]

I come from the commercial software business not prosumer hardware, so I know only a little of what the running costs of their business must be, and yes it's expensive. But I'm not their sales market. Their market are rich folks who aren't technical, want to watch the latest movies (perhaps because they can't go to the movie theater for security reasons), want the bragging rights of having the best picture, and want the ability to pick up the phone and call someone when they need help navigating the menu. Whether it's at their ski chalet or on their yacht. I mean - you're not wrong. But...

[@Antimonkat]

they can do both

[@sebulbathx]

But don't forget it's a higher quality like 4K bluray which is a big step from regular streaming. Like the movie file is up to a 100GB or around that if I understand correct. So beside the rich people it caters to HT enthusiasts that want the best quality available on streaming and not having to buy physical media.

[@whitecrowuk575]

But the thing is you need to download a movie to watch it. There is no way to stream directly. So they sell storage for outrageous price. And you can’t stream. So the cost on their side isn’t that high as they don’t need to have capable servers that can do streaming for multiple concurrent users just a server with fast upload speed

[@jgoldman2]

As of today, the newest complete Kaleidescape is $4k. Still expensive, but just what you were asking for. Worth another look?

[@Upscaled_HT]

I made a a video about it. Kaleidescape Strato V Breakdown: Affordable or Overpriced? kzbin.info/www/bejne/houzgKyce86Ce9k

[@marksorrells6182]

Now, that they introduced the V. What do you think?

[@Upscaled_HT]

I made a video. Kaleidescape Strato V Breakdown: Affordable or Overpriced? kzbin.info/www/bejne/houzgKyce86Ce9k

[@gabe6959]

can't the hard drive just be replaced? it looks like on the website its user replaceable. or is this the main hard drive holding the OS we're talking about?

[@Upscaled_HT]

Unsure. I never bought it since they said it wasn’t fixable.

[@gabe6959]

@@Upscaled_HT the main drive. Also the power supplies are cheap and fail. I wouldnt buy shit I cant fix. Kodi on a Raspberry Pi seems like a good alternative 😂

[@tracysmith4771]

I been thinking about buying kaleidescape but like you I can’t wrap my head around the price. They say it will hold 10 4K movies but more than 10 movies over time. Can you pull them back up from the app without paying for them again?

[@Upscaled_HT]

Once you buy them, you own them theoretically forever. You can redownload them as many times as you want. Renting is another matter of course.

[@myhometheater7029]

I agree if they drop the price they’d make way more money!! I’d be the first to buy! I’ve been contemplating it now as it is. I’m a big physical media collector but I’m running out of room so kalaeidescape is on my radar.

[@dxsloparr]

Try Blu-ray sleeves. I’ve sold all my cases and am able to keep the discs and artwork. Takes up 1/4 the amount of space

[@sebulbathx]

I didn't have too much movies on BD but I ran out of storage anyway and I ended up ripping all my movies and bought a mediaplayer and now I use a server for the movies instead. I guess it's not as plug n play as Kaleidascape but worth the effort especially since the price. Don't regret the decision for a second like it was a relief to unlock the space all the movies took.

[@princeandroyaltys2478]

I 100% agree with you and that’s it. You hit the nail in the head. Thank you. 🙏

[@hddanman7263]

Can you provide links to the hardrives you mentioned thank you i could not find anything that matched what you said

[@Upscaled_HT]

serverpartdeals.com/products/seagate-exos-x20-st20000nm007d-20tb-7-2k-rpm-sata-6gb-s-3-5-recertified-hard-drive

[@hddanman7263]

@@Upscaled_HT thanks

[@jamesmccallum8866]

Hi there I have a kalidescape and I totally agree on you the price a far to high it like there out of touch of reality when I bought my trinnov altitude 16 pre pro the dealer was making £10000 on comission so they are it with price and the same for Macintosh where do the get there prices from.

[@7renewurmind]

Great great video... You helped set aside my desire for this.. I agree waaay to much for storage and the risk of not being able to repair a HD in a few years if it went bad... Nah... Thanks for the information...

[@Upscaled_HT]

Although I’m happy I bought a strato s, I understand the whole cost benefit thing.

[@KASmonkeys]

I wish Apple, Amazon etc would do a very large download buffer to allow higher bit streams. Then you get the quality. Perhaps you could wait about 15mins to buffer. Kaleidoscape is just out of reach for most which is so sad there isnt an in-between option.

[@Upscaled_HT]

This would really bad for Kaleidescape. K could potentially go even higher quality if they even did approaching the quality that movie theaters get.

[@MSflyer2005]

With the picture, it is very hard for me to tell the difference between streaming and physical media, but the audio you can 100% tell the difference.

[@moemontana]

Great take honest take cause these other channels wont say this I understand they have a relationship with them.

[@veeracs]

What are good alternatives to Kaleidesape?

[@bobbygeneric9396]

Zidoo UHD 5000 or Zidoo UHD 8000

[@rschalk]

I Agree Completely. Their servers are 25 times too expensive. Also, it's all a total loss if they go out of business and shutdown their servers (like Zappiti did). In addition, you have to buy all movies you may have all over again from them.

[@shanen.6210]

That's the point no one talks about. They have a proprietary system and you have to buy your movies over again on their system. Of they go out of business you lose all your movies. Why would anyone think that is a good idea? Buy the blu-ray and get a disc array. Rip the movies you already own. I use kodi for a media front end and it's great, best of all its free!!!!

[@Antimonkat]

@@shanen.6210 they already shut down once, this is their 2nd attempt at a business, now you can get discounts on re-purchesing a movie fi you go through a clunky process of hooking up a drive, and registering you own the disc, but it isn't something most people who have the money for this system to really care about doing.

[@frommatorav1]

From watching people on KZbin who actually own the Kaleidescape, you will not lose anything that is currently on your hardware if the server went down. You won't be able to buy anything new and if your equipment breaks, you might be screwed, though. I don't own it due to the price barrier. I also agree that their server storage prices are insane. I bought a 14TB Exos HDD for around $200 a couple years ago and it holds all my media but is getting close to full. I use PowerDVD19 Ultra to play my media. I really wish I could press a button and see my current bitrate and audio codec on the movie/content but it plays 4K HDR with lossless audio, Dolby or DTX. The computer playing it cost less than $2500 in parts, when built in early 2021. It's probably overkill for a media PC but I plan on using it for a very long time. That is a far cry from $10000, which is what the server costs with the closest storage capacity to this computer (22TB). I have about 8TB on 3 other HDD/SSD/nvme on the computer, besides the 14TB media drive.

[@damicodrums]

Hi, I saw you on another site and you said you found a used Kaleidescape . What did you find that you decided to take the plunge. Thanks.

[@Upscaled_HT]

It was the right time and the right price. I always wanted to get one but i didn’t want to pay $9000.

[@damicodrums]

What model?u

[@damicodrums]

Also would like to get one but I agree with your opinion , what model did you find?

[@Upscaled_HT]

@@damicodrums it’s a Strato S 6TB.

[@damicodrums]

@@Upscaled_HT thank you.

[@Downhuman74]

25K to gain entry into a single digital storefront complete with all the drawbacks of not actually your digital purchases is one of the biggest headscratchers in history. I rip my 4K Blu-rays losslessly to a Synology NAS running a Plex Server through a Shield TV Pro and I challenge anyone to be able to spot the difference between that and Kaleidescape's DCP's even on high-end home theater hardware and a 140-inch screen. The bump in quality isn't even going to be noticeable for anyone NOT running an actual full-size theater.

[@spacemanwho]

Iv got my own Synology NAS setup. Movies are on their as remuxs. Iv got plexs on normal streaming devices. For my home theather. Iv got a dune HD 4k setup.. For streaming you have apple TV 4k..or. Amazon fire cube. So if I don't want to wait for the blueray rip I'll grab it on apple TV..

[@richardzagozeski892]

The Player price in Canada is between $ 7 to 8 K.

[@Upscaled_HT]

That’s a hard pass at that price.

[@stephenbaker1030]

I was just listening to the argument about the hard-drive not being replaceable. As stated in the video that the older player is 7 years old and knowing that most tech that old are not made anymore and essentially discontinued. I have a older computer and if one of the components dies on me much like my video card had done which is a PCI-E 3.0 I can't get a replacement one the same interface. PCI-E 5.0 is on the horizon and even the 4.0 will become obsolete eventually so it is understandable that what was in that particular model no longer exists.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I think I would be cool them not being able to repair it if it were like under $1000 but these cost way more than that.

[@whitecrowuk575]

A) it’s a hard drive - and 7 years ago sata was in use and now guess what sata is in use B) if you pay that kind of money you would expect 10,15,25 years to be serviceable. Given your example if I buy industrial grade computer - you pay 3-4x the normal pc cost but they come with 25 year warranty and that means no cost and they have parts. What kaleidoscope does is milking gullible rich people.

[@Antimonkat]

The arguments I've heard is they are using the hardware to supplement the rest of the business, if they priced it based on their cost, it would be so much less.

[@nonametofame]

I think kscape is only interested in catering to the "rich guy who doesn't care" consumer base. It's a luxury status product. I think they're going to continue to raise prices instead of lowering them. They're as interested in catering to lower cost entry as The Ritz Carlton is interested in lowering prices to fulfill vacancies.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I’m just trying help them stay relevant. Streaming services keep getting better and one day one will have lossless audio.

[@gregbartley2475]

I own a Strato and an external 6 TB for a total of 12. I can completely understand why people have an issue with the price point. That being said, it’s a phenomenal system. The PQ/AQ, UI, ease of use and store are all top notch.

[@Colinmck16]

This sounds and looks amazing i dont mind paying £24.99 for a movie but the servers and hard drives way out of my price range

[@matta9316]

Great video. This is a product with huge dealer markups. You see them spec it into every project. It’s really catering to that crowd, rich guy who wants a theater completely made for them and doesn’t want to have to mess with it.

[@letsgetsmarter2186]

There is no more dealer margin in Kscape than in any other product category

[@HiFinest343]

Great discussion. I do wish you had touched on the real subject of the value which is, this is the only place you can get the objective data available at this quality - is it worth it?? I bought a Reavon BR player and I barely use it, I just stream everything. The disc is a little better than streaming, but I use an OLED - is KSCAPE for OLED users? I think TV users are sitting too far from the TV to benefit from the improved image quality of KSCAPE. But I’ve never experienced one, nor a nice projector.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I think it would work fine for oled but you lose Dolby vision, which it famously doesn’t support. Projectors don’t support Dolby vision so it’s not a problem. Once you’re far away enough from the screen the benefits start to get way harder to see. People like to say that it looks better since they probably made a huge investment in the equipment and want justify the cost. I kind of don’t blame them.

[@trevorlangdon]

This is for people who spent $5000 plus on a projector, not for OLED owners.

[@Antimonkat]

@@Upscaled_HT it's not just the quality, it's the convienence of picking a movie from a list, and having all the search capability vs buying, storing, finding, going to get, inserting, and then putting away the disc. It is slick looking, and that type of experience is why I had a 400 disc dvd changer back in the day, so that aspect is display agnostic. Still too much money

[@Antimonkat]

@@trevorlangdon What about people who spent $5000 on their OLED? I think you mean people who spent $15K+ on a projector, 5k is pretty much the beginning of decent projectors.

[@trevorlangdon]

​@@Antimonkat Yes, I meant this is not for people whose most expensive tv is an oled.

[@ChadAV69]

I'm over here debating whether I should buy some acoustic panels for $200 meanwhile there are people spending 10k on 22 terrabytes of storage

[@Upscaled_HT]

Crazy right.

[@MSflyer2005]

No joke man!

[@Herofmine]

extra subscriber, for being honest, thank you

[@KylesVideos]

I'm happy with my Nvidia Sheild, TrueNAS server, and blu-ray rips.

[@MntneerWVU]

The question you have to ask yourself is how much is your time worth. Home brewed setups are fine, but they require a lot of your time to properly setup, configure and maintain. Storage pricing is largely dictated by the quality of the drives they source, combined with the engineering that went into their server systems. Just recently however they just released the Strato V. It's a Kaleidescape player capable of internally storing around 10 4K titles at one time, it's priced at $3,995 and is a great way to get into the Kaleidescape ecosystem at a reasonable price.

[@alpro3714]

Thanks for the honest review. I guess (or hope) that the company must pay crazy licensing fees to the studios to justify these high prices. Why would super rich people pay these prices if they can get a NAS with 80TB hard drives fully installed and set up for less than $2K?. Frankly, if they cannot tailor to, or convince guys like you who invest not only money but home theatre space, personal time, and are doing KZbin videos on the subject on top of it...🙂 then they have the wrong business model and are doomed to fail. I recently looked into it to better understand their product offering but I would rather buy the Ultra HD BluRay disc for the very few movies worth buying per year than invest in their system. Even the price of the player at $4K (useless without the server unit?) does not make sense.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I don’t have all the insights to their costs. I just know that when I buy a blu-ray, I’m buying a license to watch the movie. I’m not sure how licensing would play into the hardware unless mgm, paramount, 20th century fox all got together and said you can you use these hard drives and they cost this much. It’s probably not like that. Maybe they license the special encryption they use but that’s why I said maybe they need to look into new encryption. Maybe it’s time to renegotiate with the studios with a proposal to expand their service to sell more movies to benefit them (the studios). Isn’t this what it’s all about? Sell more movies and make more money. I’m a diehard movie fan. That’s why I built my theater.

[@Mr.Grimble]

After you buy the hardware you still need to pay for each movie. It's not free. So how much licensee fee can it be? Now, I do realize that the studios are making special files for Kaleidescape. It's not a 4k Blu-Ray rip. But there's still no excuse for such a crazy price for the hardware.

[@CryptoQuest1]

There should be a balance between price and demand, which in this case price tips the scale. A product like this, if in reach to a broader market, could wipe out Roku and Apple TV without question.

[@TerminatorJuice]

A few months ago there was a HT podcast where they were defending the prices of the K-scap, so I decided to ask the question about why I never hear anyone talk about the build quality of the Kaleidoscope player and storage units, and they were left fumbling and stuttering trying to come up with some kind of answer. Seems to me like a pretty important aspect when talking about a device that's going to cost people $10,000 plus just to get into the ecosystem! I mean, for that kind of money it better be the highest quality components with a build quality that's second to none!

[@Upscaled_HT]

Let’s face it. This is a rich man’s product and there doesn’t appear to be anything to back up the hardware costs other than the fact that it’s built in America, uses aircraft grade aluminum and uses high quality enterprise hard drives. I sat in on a podcast with a Kaleidescape rep and he basically mentioned those things about the hardware and backed it up stating that they’re providing the highest quality possible for their movies. I’ll be making a part 2 video because I actually bought a Strato S player/server at a price that I can stomach (used). I’ll have a better perspective when I talk about what it’s like to own one of these.

[@TerminatorJuice]

@@Upscaled_HT Yeah, those "Youthful" guys immediately brought up the industrial grade hard drives, or whatever they're called, but otherwise couldn't come up with any kind of answer when it came to the build quality... which told me that they were just trying to sell people on this overpriced product that they were given for free to review. Anyway, I look forward to hearing your unbiased opinion on the product itself, but having only 6TB of storage means that you're going to be doing a lot of downloading and waiting. Enjoy! ; )

[@Upscaled_HT]

6TB is very little space when every 4k movie 60GB or more on average. It will never replace my diy movie server. My use case is for new movies, like The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, was just released to streaming. Before Kaleidescape, I’d go on iTunes and buy it to watch it before the physical release. Now I’ll just buy them on Kaleidescape instead and get the 4k disc level quality version earlier. This is unless the movie is $40 like the new Godzilla movie is and Dune part 2 was. I can’t seem to pay $40 for a movie that will be released physically for $30. I’d consider paying $40 if was day and date.

[@TerminatorJuice]

@@Upscaled_HT They charge more for the digital Kaleidoscope version than the physical 4K release? That's absolutely absurd!!! And yet another thing that these KZbinrs conveniently forget to mention when they're trying to sell us on this high-end product! Man, the more I learn, the more disgusted I am with the people who promote Kaleidoscape on KZbin...

[@Upscaled_HT]

I should clarify. Most new movies are $30 or less. Older movies can be actually pretty afordable like $10-$15. A select few like the ones I mentioned above are $40.

[@BrianGarside]

The added costs for storage is ridiculous it doesn't scale. Very similar to Apple but worse. The initial costs sure I'm paying for the platform/software. But the Costs to add storage does not make sense, I agree !

[@D8099.]

I’ve got good news. There’s only so many Kardashians. There’s a lot of Kardashians. But that number is finite. Once they’ve all bought thier players they won’t have anyone else to sell to except us normal people. Then the prices should come down.

[@ThePaulromi]

Just comes down to affordability. Not one person complains about the quality. People that still rip their own movies legally or otherwise on much cheaper servers are not the target audience. Rolex doesn’t offer a cheap model for the Timex crowd to grow their customer base even though watch parts aren’t that expensive right?

[@emiranda5079]

I think Apple’s technology is advancing exponentially. They have lossless audio now which I pay bit more for on a monthly basis. If they come out with a player that offers Higher quality movies I would definitely sign up for it. I have an JVC 8K projector and I definitely see the picture quality difference between my Panasonic player vs Apple movies. I have the money, BUT I’m not paying $9k + for a Kaleidescape. Not worth it. I rather add a couple of Subwoofers or upgrade my speakers for that much money.

[@mfkhometheater7742]

Good video! I'm not sure I would buy it even if money were no object. They're just charging too much for what it is, there is no reason storage should cost that much. Now we find out a few years old device isn't serviceable so that just compounds the problem. At that price it should be serviceable for 20 years and for free, or a minimal charge. When a company makes me feel like they are gouging me, I just don't do business with them.

[@Upscaled_HT]

They might have a really good reason why they don’t service it but who knows. Maybe that’s why they’re pivoting to ssd storage to have better reliability.

[@frankvee]

Really nice look to your theater. 👍 How wide is your room at the front row?

[@Upscaled_HT]

It’s 21 feet wide.

[@marvinabugov4579]

Right on! There is a price point vs value for home theatre. I have 6000+ hours now accumulated on two projectors: 3600 on a 1080 panasonic and 2700 on a sony 285es, and just now on its second bulb. Quite frankly, friends and family DO NOT CARE about all the technical stuff. If they can hear properly and see it well . . . duh . . . what else is there to do? My point, as you so eloquently point out, there is a price point LIMIT on all this “stuff”. Bottom-line: Streaming services are just “fine”. If I feel the need to go back in time to watch a movie, my movie fanatic daughter has her collection of dvd and bluray discs that could keep me cemented in my home theatre seat for years! Enough is ENOUGH!

[@jamesrobertson2373]

On a side note and off topic but how is your 285es holding up? Any issues ?

[@sebulbathx]

You summed up the streaming services well with one word "fine". It's nothing that bothers you when you watch but there is better quality out there. Totally agree about price points in HT. But same as most thing in HT though those last percent in fidelity is always the most expensive. Anyway my point is Kaleidascape is a high-end product and those products are rarely cost effective. Also people who are not into HT usually don't care about quality.

[@chuckhenson6896]

The only I would buy one of these player if hell froze over I got over 4500 movies on disk been ripping and putting them on hard drives and hooking the drives to a zidoo player I been collecting movies for years

[@Upscaled_HT]

Same here. I have about 2000 though.

[@ThatHz-]

Sorry I have to be ‘that guy’ but I have to clarify your statement, kaleidescape isn’t a streaming box. It’s 100% download only and play locally. The crazy pricing is all the license fees they’re paying to allow the local downloading and access to the highest quality files beyond 4K UHD Blurays. The hard drive space isn’t as critical as how you’d approach a NAS. You’re not backing up anything you’re only putting files on the drives temporarily to watch. You can delete and redownload at any time so there’s no need to store 100% of what you buy at all times.

[@ThatHz-]

My biggest gripe is, KScape doesn’t have Dolby Vision for all that money. Unacceptable…

[@kdm313]

What I don’t understand and probably never will. Is if it’s something you can’t afford or unwilling to pay for. Why emphasize the fact that that other people who are willing to pay the price are somehow getting a bad deal or whatever. People pay for experiences it’s not always the value of something.Sometimes the money pays for the experience.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I’ll be making a follow up video on it and I’ll be expanding on my thoughts.

[@KimmoJaskari]

I wonder if the entire hardware isn't encrypted and part matched. Apple is doing that to their phones nowadays - buy two iPhones and swap their screens (otherwise 100% identical) and they still don't work. Maybe the hard drive has custom firmware with targeted encryption on it or something that only works with the original hardware. I have to imagine they put an insane amount of effort into ensuring nobody can ever copy out media from their units and distribute it; if that happens, I wonder what happens to Kaleidescape's licensing deals with studios. Pretty sure that's by far the hardest part about setting up this system - actually getting licenses to distribute movies this way. Thanks, capitalism. But anyway; maybe the old unit is literally not servicable, as in they don't have a process for changing out matching encryption in the hardware itself. I don't know anything about how they've solved things but it might be something like that.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I could see the argument about security maybe 2-3 years ago when 4K discs weren’t cracked. Blu rays were cracked for even longer… going on a decade. I believe downloads to hard drives are far more secure than discs, which is probably why the industry is slowly killing discs off. Probably a simpler type of encryption would suffice along with a firewall. I figured they have a reason for not being able to service the old unit. But when a hard drive bricks the entire unit, then the encryption has gone too far.

[@davonfranklin5158]

Glad you made this video. Most of us are on the same page. 5 to 25 grand for a hard drive is plain insane. Knowing the storage is costing them $100 or less. Other AV KZbinrs love to go at and shame anyone who questions K-Scape in anyway. Great video.

[@Upscaled_HT]

That’s the power of self funding the vast majority of the content on my channel. I can say what I want. I do really like their product and hope they figure out a way to lower their storage prices.

[@joentell]

Someone sent me a link to your video. How many of those KZbinrs got it for free also? A little different when you have to pay for it right?

[@Upscaled_HT]

I know some definitely paid for it, I’m sure many got review samples they can’t keep.

[@joentell]

@@Upscaled_HT or they get to buy it at "accommodation pricing" and who knows who gets to keep it long-term or not. (I actually have an idea, but it isn't my place to disclose that. It's on them to disclose to their audience as they should.) I agree with you. If the streaming services decide to utilize AV1 to offer a higher quality tier, it might be bad for Kscape. We've talked about this before on our DailyHiFi Podcast.

[@jorgejovel5313]

Thank u for this informative video, because I have atleast 500 to 700 blurays and I wanna rip em to external HD s pretty much what u have going and have it all in one place and watch it from anywhere. But first I need a external hard drive or drives whatcha recommend?

[@bizmofunyuns6463]

I've always been a physical media collector first. I have apple tv for streaming and collect the rest. Kscape was way too late to the party for me to adopt it.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I have about 400 or so discs but my digital collection is far bigger.

[@Alphahydro]

I have a 24TB Plex Server, and I'd buy one if the price wasn't ludicrous.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I still wish they could figure something out with storage prices.

[@princeandroyaltys2478]

Thank thank thank you, I thought I was the only one that thought like that.

[@kelownatechkid]

Kaleidescape is technically not a scam because it does work as a system, but in every other respect it qualifies. 4 grand on a player for basically rented digital drm-locked files is wild. I use vero/pc primarily for playback, and that can play everything for literally an order of magnitude less money. Rip a drm-free copy off a disc and it's better in every way since I can customize, add subtitles etc

[@AGILISFPV]

The biggest deal breaker is the lack of dolby vision. Like are you kidding me? This is basic stuff. Unbelievable for the price.....

[@audireddevil]

tough conversation to be had but someone had to do it! It'd be interesting to see if you invited family/friends over to compare a disc vs streaming to see if they can tell any audible or visual difference. I know my family couldn't.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I doubt anyone could tell difference even with picture given that you have really fast internet.

[@tom6363]

Agree 100%!

[@KimmoJaskari]

As for the value proposition - I agree, $10 grand for just the hardware is insulting. I'm not even comfortable with $4 grand for the player. $2-3 grand would already feel uncomfortably rip-off-ish. And reaching almost $10 grand including stupidly overpriced storage is just completely uncool. But, I guess there are still many out there who don't care about money since they make so much.

[@hifihometheater]

I would assume the high price for storage is actually going towards licensing fees or something else they don't want to come out and say it's going towards for one reason or another. I don't want to believe they are totally in control of the costs and just have huge profits off it. This is the AV world though so it's totally possible they are! Legit questions to ask, honestly. I don't see how this video would ruin any chance of them sending a review unit. Your comments regarding streaming getting increasingly good is also relative. Thanks!

[@Upscaled_HT]

I believe the licensing thing but maybe they need a new supplier or they need to license new technology. Maybe there is an open source solution out there. I’m not an engineer so I don’t know how they can do it but I do know that there has to be a way. Do you think iTunes pays $25k for 88tb of storage in there data centers for holding copyrighted material? They figured out the cheapest possible way to do while keeping the studios happy. I doubt there are massive profits also but I’m sure the cheaper they make the products the larger the profit margins would be. Maybe they have to outsource their production.

[@michaeldelaney6256]

Compare and contrast the price of an 88tb synology nas which is faster and orders of magnitude more advanced. Its like 20x cheaper... No this company is drinking from a river of platinum gravy and they should... until a competitor stands up and eats their lunch. Then they are toast. There is NOTHING advanced in these machines, not in the player and not in the storage. NOTHING. Everything they use is 10+ year old tech. The processor, the sata controller, the nic, the HDMI board... Is it even HDMI 2.1? I doubt it, i dont care to even look it up. This thing is stupid, if i won the lotto, id buy it in a heartbeat but its cool. But would i spend money i worked for on it? Not until my income reaches 7 figs... Just my dos pesos...

[@davidpaabor1382]

You should have a livestream talk whith someone at Kaleidescape and you could ask all the questions you need no?

[@ScottSullivanTV]

They should 100% bring back the player with the hard drive installed. Make it $2,000 and videophiles would go crazy. THAT would make me ditch ever using a disc again.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I would agree. I think 80% of folks will probably only use it one room. If the price came down, it would be way more mainstream.

[@thomasferguson139]

I can definitely tell the difference regarding Atmos on a disk vs streaming. Take a survey because i believe you are wrong

[@Upscaled_HT]

I’m sure some can but most probably can’t.

[@MSflyer2005]

I made a similar comment, and totally agree with you. I did a blind test with a friend who isn't a HT person and he was able to pick streaming vs physical media each time.

[@Gkbmoney]

You can get about the same service with a NAS and Zidoo except you need to get the media

[@Upscaled_HT]

That’s what I’ve been doing.

[@mahirderman]

AV enthusiasts exaggerate the market for a $1000 price tagged high end movie player. In reality it is not that big of a market. Mainstream consumers don’t really care for lossless audio or high bitrate video. You can easily see that with DVDs still outselling Blu-rays and 4K UHD sales are only a fraction. Mainstream consumers care about price and convenience way more than quality. Actually they don’t even want to pay for each movie but they want subscriptions that get them complete libraries. You can see easily see this with disappearing physical media shelves in retailers. So the volume sales for a movie player is really more like $100 and under. If Kaleidescape cuts prices to $1000 as you suggested, they would be losing 5 to 10 times margins but maybe increase sales by 2 times at best. We all know the margin on digital movie sales is $1-2 per movie at best. They would have to sell iTunes-like volumes to have a sustainable income from movie sales. I understand $25k is a lot of money but it is what really is needed for the Kaleidescape model to work.

[@Upscaled_HT]

Great points! I’m actually planning a follow up video about Kaleidescape and will try and address some of the comments I have gotten from this video. I don’t think it would be mass market but they could get the rest of serious videophiles to jump on the bandwagon. Even if they reduced the storage prices by half, it might be enough to swap lots of folks.

[@tharrigan5661]

Completely agree with this comment. I just don’t ever believe the Kscape will ever be for a mass market.

[@jackserna3440]

All they need to do is partner with movie theaters to use their players. Their revenue will instantly increase and sustain itself for quite some time. They need to corner Hollywood and actually be involved in movie productions so that their revenue is tied to the success of films, allowing them to lower their bloated server costs.

[@DUDETHEATER]

u right bro

[@matthewgaines10]

It makes sense for a very niche customer. For the 99%, it makes no sense at all. Most who can afford and justify it don’t have the time to watch movies. The rest of us should go the NAS / server and rip route.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I can see that for sure.

[@DumisaniGoba]

Yeah spending close to 10 grand after taxes just enter kscape ecosystem is crazy. I have ziddo and 4 bay nas server and I love it.

[@ben23a31]

They lost their rabbit a$$ minds! I recall many many years ago when they were in on the brink of folding. Imagine you're in $10k+ with hardware and movie purchases and one day they go out of business? Nah, that's why I still buy physical media which is the only way you truly own the movie. Moreover, some movies have been edited due to social outcry with sensitive material. Which means at any giving point the movie you paid for can be altered from the original release/purchase. Apple quality is good enough for streaming and buying movies if I went that route. But then again that's why Bentley makes cars that aren't for everyone. It's all relative to your income.

[@richardzagozeski892]

They don't provide Review units, you have to buy one to review.

[@Upscaled_HT]

That’s what I’ve heard too.

[@erod9088]

Completely agree. I spend a lot of money on my system, but the Kscape is wildly overpriced. I have Lumagen, JVC projector, Stewart Screen, 9.4.6 layout..... but there is a limit. Kscape is insanely overpriced, and when it becomes obsolete by newer, cheaper tech, its owners are found to feel duped.

[@WhiteEvo6]

They price it like this as they don’t want us as customers. They want to deal with the rich, people that will drop $25k to watch a movie are few and will pay whatever, zero issues, easy They are likely also running high end data centre drives not consumer drives like your buying, significantly more expensive and last far longer

[@John-ok8ts]

Why would you think a 7 year old product is serviceable.. They probably dont even have any spare parts for that. Kscape is stupid expensive but i dont see how they are to blame for this.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I have a McIntosh amplifier from the 1970s that can be serviced and I have serviced. Very different product I get it. Similarly high end though.

[@John-ok8ts]

@@Upscaled_HT But not by McIntosh. The reason this can't be serviced is because there's tons of encryption that goes into something like this so you can't just rip from and to it. The hardware that does that has probably changed and that is specific to the device. They aren't going to just keep it around for spare parts.

[@Upscaled_HT]

@@John-ok8ts true. It was a third party listed on the McIntosh website as a service provider. When the encryption is so draconian that it bricks the entire machine if the hard drive fails, it’s gone too far. I would have been so mad if I had bought it.

[@John-ok8ts]

​@@Upscaled_HT I think the whole thing is ridiculous and I'm not sure why Apple can't offer this service either for people who don't want to deal with the quality dropping or skipping. Forcing people if they want to buy content in the best format or download it first to use discs is so shortsighted. But I wouldn't expect any company to directly support a product that has long since been discontinued.

[@melraine919]

Too true 👏🏼 👍🏼🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

[@sebulbathx]

From my understanding Kaleidascape master or whatever the movies also to make the as "good" as possible. And that I can see the price tag. But the price makes it a rich man's product or product for hardcore enthusiasts. Idk but I feel Kaleidascape has never been made for the masses so compare it to mainstream services like Apple TV, Netflix is not fair, imo. I feel it's like comparing a 10K speaker to a 1K speaker and say it's not worth the difference. And there is no 4K Bluray type streaming service out there so I think it has its use. 4K Bluray is better than any 4K stream in my experience both sound and picture quality. But still the price for Kaleidascape is odd and I wonder too how they calculated those prices.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I wish I had more insight to the pricing myself.

[@MD2525-1]

how many movies can one normal person watch and how many times? Why save a movie on the drive forever? wtf?

[@Upscaled_HT]

Very sound logic. I can’t argue with that.

[@mephInc]

Home built server, pi5s in every room running kodi omega. Life is good

[@Upscaled_HT]

That’s definitely a good solution!

[@jbird_inc]

I'd rather buy a high end 4k disc player as I don't want a product that is 2% better picture/audio quality for 12x the cost.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I think the convenience factor is their greatest strength.

[@eEvangeliste]

I just want  to give me the ability to save my movies on the  tv and edit my demos 😅

[@richardgusztaw5091]

I'll stick to my DVDs, BluRay, and 4K discs. At those prices, i can buy physical media and never reach the cost of their hardware.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I completely understand.

[@thewatchmensknowledge4914]

A Honda and a Bugatti will both get you from point A to B. Only difference is the status obtained while driving the Bugatti. Point being there is no justification for the price of this thing; just the pleasure of status in owning it……….they realize it is for elites that’s why the price will never come down

[@Upscaled_HT]

I just think they should go downmarket to be more of a Mercedes, BMW or Lexus. Still luxury but just more attainable.

[@charlesking678]

The Bottom line is you're not their target customer and nor am I. At a minimum you have to spend $9k just to watch a movie! The market who is firstly interested and secondly who can afford this is a ridiculously small niche market to begin with. As you said the vast majority cannot see an improvement in streaming from Netflix, so even at $3k it's a hard sell. There is a segment of the population that attribute price with quality and they only want the best or most exclusive. Same reason why exotic cars or high end fashion doesn't bring down the price. The exclusivity is a big part of the allure.

[@cwhitchblu]

My assortment of 4K players were less than $3k. And I’m not locked into an eco system with one provider to get content from. K-scape went bankrupt once before. It can happen again.

[@marvinabugov4579]

Correct. You nailed the logic! Well done.

[@marvinabugov4579]

Correct. You nailed the logic!

[@titothomas78]

They should allow to use other type of storage system with the player like synology …

[@Antimonkat]

the storage is how they suport the business model, and it isn't secure nough or closed ecosystem enough, so the studio's wouldn't allow it I'm sure.

[@titothomas78]

@@Antimonkat but the movies are already available in the market .. Physical medias And it is not providing any releasing movies almost similar to disc release or may be bit early thats all know

[@titothomas78]

@@Antimonkat one more thing This system is available in only 3 countries legally Us, uk, canada ,

[@mephInc]

Even synology is technically overpriced is you are willing to do your own work.

[@titothomas78]

@@mephInc but not much as the kalediscape

[@barbouradam]

the storage prices are insane, they are gatekeeping the storage and putting an unreal price on it bc you are tied to the system. I think most HT reviewers are defending them and the pricing of storage bc they are getting free units. There is no storage at any caliber that costs that much... I understand the movie price and the player price, but storage is WILD!!!!!!

[@Macroproxy]

Speaking to the choir. I love to hate on K-scape.

[@hddanman7263]

Like your video, but I’ll have to disagree with you about not being able to tell the difference between physical media, and any 4K stream. Every time I watch a 4K stream, and then buy the disk later the disk is so much more dynamic. I’m not sure if your system just doesn’t resolve it or what But I’m glad you’re enjoying it

[@Upscaled_HT]

It’s probably my ears more than my system. I always prefer a lossless track btw.

[@MyFatherLoves]

Kaleidescape has by far the best designed UI and system but it's absolutely asinine that you have to buy their NAS which is 100% overpriced. I could painfully swallow the price for the player ($4k). That's still extremely expensive but I could talk myself into it. I also don't like the idea that I wouldn't own my movies. That's also entirely ridiculous. Beyond those two huge issues, I'm very off put by the blatant lie they push on their website that their custom compressed versions of each movie have higher bit rates than 50gb 4k discs. Bottom of the barrel 4k discs. The average bit rate for a 4k disc is around 75mb/s. 60gb and 100gb discs are able to hit 110mb+/s. Meanwhile, Kaleidescape boasts a 65mb/s bitrate. Why would they push such an easily provable lie?

[@Upscaled_HT]

Kaleidescape does provide higher bitrates on average than disc. I think that's an average bitrate. I think the larger files sizes are more telling than some marketing material that I found on their website.

[@mullvaden83]

They dont want poor ppl to buy thier stuff cause poor ppl are a pain in the ass. Rich ppl just buy new stuff instead of repair and RMA. And with more clients you need to have a bigger supportstaff and so on.

[@shaolin95]

KaripoffScape it's too much 😂

[@percybedford6266]

I think either Sony, Amazon, or Apple will offer the higher bit rate with lossless audio. I remember Sony had that 4k media streamer that had 1tb, but for whatever reason it got a lot of pushback and it went away. It was the FMP-X10. Not too long after Kaleidescape became more of thing with a way higher price tag. I agree Kaleidescape costs way too much for what it is. I have brought this up on other content creators vids and the responses I get are more pro than con agreeing with me.

[@Antimonkat]

Studio's don't want you to have lossless at home, so they make it expensive to deliver for companies. and Amazon and APple don't really want to pay for the bandwidth. Sony uses it as a selling point to buy their tv's, Apple uses it as a selling point to sell their players, so they have a little incentive to fight with each other there, but not sure it will go up to lossless, not likely soon. Amazon really doesnt care, they even charge you extra for no ad's and DV/Atmos now

[@percybedford6266]

@@Antimonkat yeah Amazon is charging now because they see money to be made. To me Sony is the best in reproduction physical media and maybe they do something more on the streaming side. Hopefully we see some cost effective alternatives.

[@specialformula14]

Truth

[@chrisbullock6477]

Just like with anything "High-End" if you need to complain about the cost then its out of your financial range and you shouldn't complain especially when their are plenty of alternatives which we all know about.

[@Upscaled_HT]

This is a very controversial subject in home theater. I’m just going to leave it at that.

[@marcmolina9708]

Nah, hes valid and i 2nd his complaint as I'm sure there are thousands upon thousands of ppl who would agree. None of the alternatives offer their services with lossless audio/video. So granted, they should get paid for it, but not THAT much. As he said, if they came down to reasonable prices, the floodgates would open. Home theater has been a rising trend and has skyrocketted since covid. So many ppl would jump on this at a price of 4 to 5k max. And their webstore would also get tons more business.

[@rts100x5]

Ive watched Keleidescape from the begging ..... It has always had its share of problems too numerous to list its NOT WORTH A DIME .... have a nice PC running JRIVER > rip your blue rays and dvd's to a NAS like synology .... DONE NO INSANE COSTS OR LICESING ISSUES etc etc etc

[@rts100x5]

I would also add that JRIVER has MADVR software included

[@jbwise2002]

They just need lossless audio for ATV to bankrupt K

[@motogp3478]

Just bought a used system that was 6mths old for 6k (C & 6tb) because I couldn't afford a new one. Negs = player is not a bad price but all their HDD drives are out to lunch. 10k for a system and no remote anymore only app. The power buttons on the front are chintzy 🙄I think Kaleidescape only cares about the 1% 😮‍💨

[@Upscaled_HT]

Guessing most are installed in homes with Control4 or some kind of smart home systems. You would think that everything would built really well for that price. I hope they change their minds about what customers they’re trying to get.

[@HercDryvr]

These things are wildly over priced. The studios probably think so as well. For them, it’s a win win, zero cost for distribution, make money on movie sales. It won’t be long before a competitor hits the market. Studios want to be done with physical media, streaming isn’t there yet. This nonsense about security with Kscape is just that, nonsense. Anyone with a capture card can copy a movie from a DVD and/or streaming and on top of that, the studios give you a digital version with a DVD purchases. Kscape has a few more years before they get priced out from competitors.

[@petecap4382]

I hear u it’s crap we spent cash on VHS,Laser,DVD, Blu-ray & now 4K how many times can they kill us on us buying our movies F them. They want to kill our physical media, which is the best way to hear and watch a movie.

[@Upscaled_HT]

This is why I’m interested is Kaleidescape and will most likely eventually bite the bullet. I’m not there yet. We might a while before discs are gone and they may never go away. I love movies and after discs are gone it might be the best way to watch them.

[@williamdepalma8349]

I assume you are interested in K because of your channel not because you need something to supplement your own 80 tb server. Or do you think the K is somehow better? Personally, I think it’s way too much for way too little.

[@Upscaled_HT]

I’m just thinking about the future in a world where physical media may become less common. I’ve found myself buying movies to stream before they’re available on disc more and more. It’s not necessarily better but I just like the idea of seeing the best possible version of the movie. I also think it’s cool and I suffer from fomo.