Kaleidescape Announces Industry's First 4K Ultra HD High-Dynamic-Range Movie Player

The Encore line also includes the Kaleidescape Alto Movie Player, a new movie server named Terra, and a disc server that makes it easy to select and play DVDs and Blu-ray discs on a Strato or Alto movie player.

Strato is designed to provide an immersive home-cinema experience, with playback quality that matches or surpasses that of commercial theaters. Each movie is downloaded and stored on a local hard drive—either on a Strato, or on a Terra Movie Server. Strato plays back the movie in full 4K Ultra HD, at up to 60 frames per second, without the startup delays, buffering messages, or quality drops that are so common with streaming services. Strato supports lossless multichannel audio, and is capable of playing HDR content on televisions and projectors that can process open standard 10-bit HDMI® 2.0a HDR. The Strato onscreen user interface is also displayed in full 4K Ultra HD, at 60 frames per second, resulting in fluid animation and a stunning visual impact.

Strato can be purchased with or without an internal 6 TB hard drive that can store up to 100 4K Ultra HD movies, 150 Blu-ray quality movies, or 900 DVD quality movies. Strato equipped with an internal hard drive can be used standalone or in a system comprised of other Encore components. The Strato without internal storage plays back from a movie server.

The company also announced two new models of the Kaleidescape Alto Movie Player. One comes with a 6 TB internal hard drive; the other has no internal movie storage and plays back from a movie server. Alto plays Blu-ray and DVD quality movies downloaded from the Kaleidescape Movie Store. It can also play Blu-ray discs and DVDs via its built-in Blu-ray drive or from a Kaleidescape Disc Server.

The Kaleidescape Terra Movie Server stores movies and serves them to players on the home network. Terra also provides computing and caching services that enhance the performance of Strato and Alto movie players, and enables system configurations with up to 50 players. The Terra Movie Server can simultaneously stream 4K movies to up to seven Strato players, or Blu-ray quality movies to up to 15 players (Strato or Alto).

“I’ve long argued that streaming offers immediacy and convenience, but the Internet can’t deliver a reliable high-bitrate content stream, such as 4K, unless it is heavily compressed,”

said industry analyst Dan Rayburn, Principal Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Kaleidescape’s model of downloading and playing back from a local hard drive is the only way to get Internet-delivered content to match a 4K disc experience. Many of the service providers touting 4K content are capping their streaming bitrates at 16 Mbps. So, naturally, Strato’s local playback—with bitrates up to 100 Mbps—will deliver better picture and sound quality,” he added.

“For people like me, who are into home cinema, Kaleidescape’s 4K movie player is the only option,” said Michael Hunkapiller, a long-time Kaleidescape customer. “What is exciting about this announcement is that I get to enjoy all the benefits of the Kaleidescape experience, while continuing to keep up with the state-of-the-art audio and video technologies, such as 4K Ultra HD, HDR, and Dolby Atmos. Whenever available, I choose to purchase movies from the Kaleidescape Movie Store, instead of on discs. The store offers the same pristine quality, coupled with the convenience of Internet delivery. I use the Kaleidescape Disc Server for movies I can’t find anywhere but on disc. This is the ultimate movie-lover’s dream.”

#homecinema #distributedvideo #Kaleidescape #Encore #Strato