Kaleidescape Ships DRM-Friendly ‘Vault’ for Movie Streaming

“...and a $5 savings over the original price.”

ROFL

You know how many Vudu and Amazon movies I can stream for that cost?

Are they nuts? I think they did it to #### off the movie execs. 

Good for them!

But sorry,  i still won’t buy one.

My customers would Laugh me out of thier house if I suggested they spend $8k+ to be able to watch movies in thier home. How many people are really opting for this rather than paying for Vudu or netflix? I can put a Blu ray player with each TV and probably buy duplicate blurays for each room cheaper.

Certainly this piece isn’t for everyone.
But if your customers are asking you in for integration, then this is atractive. If they are asking for seperate components in each room,then that’s not integration.
It’s like calling an air conditioner in every window a central AC sys…

“My customers would Laugh me out of thier house if I suggested they spend $8k+ to be able to watch movies in thier home. How many people are really opting for this rather than paying for Vudu or netflix? I can put a Blu ray player with each TV and probably buy duplicate blurays for each room cheaper. “

320 BluRays, average price of $15 = $4800 (before tax).  So if you figure a KScape system with the Vault and extra players is $40K (guessing a bit here since I don’t have a pricing sheet handy), doing it your way you can outfit 8 rooms (the leftover cash can help pay for all the shelving you’re going to need).

VuDu, NetFlix, Boxee- Honestly. Your eating McDonalds and saying “Yummy”
“It’s good for you”. I’m not saying we all don’t love the convenience, but our failure and confusion to represent it for what purposes they serve is our lacking and theirs. Don’t try to fast forward or rewind on NetFlix- you all know what I mean- hardly a first class experience. The catalogues- pretty good- but FAR from copmplete and probably won’t be for QUITE some time. Godfather in Blu-Ray $60., Hannah Montanna (BD) $15…
Stream Hanna, OWN Godfather…

Joel, I would be pretty surprised if integrators were representing Netflix and other streaming services as the best experience available.

I think dealers should not ignore clients (like me) who want an experience that is “good enough” or at least good enough for their budgets.

There is still money to be made there.

Julie, I am certain that there are many (dealers) who don’t even discuss media servers any more. It’s too hard of a pitch- the customers say “I read” or my BFF says. They’ve (dealers) lost confidence basesd on press and articels. Many dealers (just like their clients) are buying too far and deep into the Cloud and streaming. The profit and experience are in Media servers (we agree)- they just need to get their heads around the reality of the category.

Julie and Joel. Both excellent points. Joel you are correct that some dealers are forgetting what custom is all about and how to seperate themselves from the generic consumer off the shelf and simply selling on what could be the lowest price. Sure I understand over the past few years why this mentality has attached to many dealers but if the custom CEDIA channel doesn’t improve the selling methods then this channel is going to become even more divided between super high end custom shops and the one many operations.

Julie - I am sorry to say but your surprise is happening out there. Many dealers fear losing a sale so much that they have a very wide definition of what “good enough” is.

I love the ease and concepts of Netflix and others but Joel is right some of the performance and basic features are so WEAK.

All that being said our industry is going to see so much change over the next 1-2 years that everybody needs to be getting back to basic’s of custom. How can I make these things work better together for my client. I worry for all of those that can’t think outside that framework because there are some major consumer electronic companies that will run right over them and put them out of business.

CEDIA will be fun and filled with many new toys for our industry!

How many rooms in a house really demand the pristine picture and sound supported by the actual disc? Media Room, Den, Master?
Besides the parents (DAD), the wife and kids likely don’t care or notice the difference.
Are your guests crying because they may have to stream a movie vs seeing the true disc copy? Really?
Do you have a fleet of Range Rovers available for them to drive as well?
A Sony BD changer is $800. What is it about this device the supports its 7.5X premium? Are you running a hotel or a house?
Mark my WORD - this product will be a memory in 18 months!

Oh, and you have to have each room connected with a CAT5 drop back to the server as well. cannot be done in a lot of retrofits (cheaply)

I really don’t think Kaleidescape is targeting the customers you’re describing…also the Sony BD Changer is A) only good for the first 300 (400?) discs, after that you have to get another and then remember which changer the desired disc is in, and B) the UI is kinda crappy, but still better than having to go to the front panel.

At this products price-level you’re probably talking about distributed video systems a lot of the time.  Centralized equipment makes that a moot point.

In true retrofits though, ability/willingness to add wire is a limiting factor for lots of products/upgrades.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t had cable for 5 years.  Netflix, Hulu, and the XBox Zune video service are my bread and butter at home.  I’ll be celebrating as much as anyone when physical media is truly a niche market and streaming/digital copy is actually embraced, but that hasn’t happened yet, and the studios seem hell-bent on making things drawn-out and painful for a while longer (windowed release, ‘rental’ terms/limitations, etc).

Kaleidescape fills a relatively small, pricey niche, but they do it extremely well and seem to be comfortable in that role.

Rich, you only have to put a player in the Media Room, Den, and Master if those are the only important rooms.

It’s not just about having pristine picture quality (lots of DVD/Blu-ray transfers are terrible!) although that is nice. Not having to worry about changers (which can only watch 1 movie on 1 TV at a time) or discs in general, combined with an incredibly UI for finding something to watch is what makes this product worth such a premium.

It’s all about the trade-offs. If the hassle of forever fighting with managing your discs and/or relying solely on streaming media is no big deal to you, then surely you won’t see the value in Kaleidescape. Many people disagree with you, and a subset of those people can afford to do something about it - those are the Kaleidescape customers.

This product may be a memory in 18 months when they come out with something new to replace it, but Kaleidescape will be with us for a long time.

As to the Cat5, you just need to get all of the components on a reliable, fast network. The server can go anywhere, and nothing has to necessarily be home-run.

Wireless is cute… I wouldn’t hang my home network off of it. Great for web browsing and e-mail- that’s all (currently)Kaleidescape isn’t the only player in the Media Server game and ReQuest works very well and is an inexpensive upgrade for all of those legacy customers.
My point simply- There is much greater value in physical ownership, whether it’s a quality issue, availability of title or an existing investment. The pendulum of new tech adoption should be swing back to the cornerstone values of Media Servers and ownership of content. This was fun, now let’s sell some products which make us $$$

JG - if the wireless comment was directed at me, I was just pointing out there there are numerous options out there that could make use of existing wire if running new isn’t an option (MoCA, Powerline, wireless adapters). None of those are as pretty as a legit hard-wired network, but they may work depending on the specifics of the retrofit.

Otherwise, 100% agreed on content ownership. Better for us, better for our customers, and no one is a slave to the whims of a studio exec!