Kaleidescape announced the launch of its Encore line of video players, including its first 4K Ultra HD model, the Strato Movie Player.
The flagship Strato is billed as the “world’s first 4K Ultra HD high-dynamic-range movie player for the home.”
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, Kaleidescape said. 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 fps.
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 60fps.
The Strato can be purchased with or without an internal 6TB hard drive that can store up to 100 4K Ultra HD movies, 150 Blu-ray quality movies, or 900 DVD quality movies. It is 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 6TB 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).
In addition, Kaleidescape has entered into a license agreement with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to offer 4K Ultra HD films for download from the Kaleidescape Movie Store to Kaleidescape video players and media servers.
To kick it off, the sale of each new Kaleidescape Strato Movie Player will include five downloadable movies of the customer’s choice from a list of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 4K Ultra HD titles.
Kaleidescape customers can also upgrade their previously purchased UltraViolet SD and HD Sony Pictures titles to the 4K Ultra HD format, where available.
Sony Pictures 4K Ultra HD titles will be available in the Kaleidescape Movie Store for customers in the United States, Canada and the U.K. Retail prices will be around $30 per movie. Kaleidescape’s Strato Movie Players are expected to ship in early Q1 2016.
