If you do, ever have one of your children ask to watch a DVD, of which you go searching for as it’s scattered about the house, and after cleaning off some of the sticky fingerprints from it, you put it into your DVD player to have them watch it. 10 minutes into the movie, it begins to jump, stutter, skip, and otherwise not play, while your children start to complain about the movie not working…. Ever experience this fun at your home?
A few months ago, the answer to this frustration arrived on my doorstep in 3 nicely packed boxes. The Kaleidescape 1U DVD/Music System is THE solution for the above scenario, and so many others when it comes to Audio/Video entertainment in your home. Why you ask? Well, let me give you a little taste of why:
Imagine sitting down in front of your new HDTV, and wanting to watch an action movie, but not sure which one… Instead of having to get up, go to your collection and hunt/pick what you may be feeling for, hoping that your children haven’t gotten into the Mom/Dad movies and removed/moved them, you just hit Cover Art on your touch panel remote, and pick out your DVD in full HD 1080i glory on your HDTV screen. Can life be made simpler? The Kaleidescape System has sure made my life easier!
Background:
When the Kaleidescape System came out originally in 2001 with its 3000 system, it consisted of a Server, a Movie Player and a Reader to import discs into the server, all at a cool price tag of $32,000. Yes, that’s $32,000 DOLLARS!! YIKES! Enter Kaleidescape in 2006, when they released their entry-level 1U Server and more recently, 3U Server. Giving us folks, without ultra-deep pockets, an opportunity to own what is arguably the best piece of home entertainment gear I have ever tested, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself just yet.
The Kaleidescape 1U Server runs around $14,000 dollars with a Movie Player 2 and loaded with 2 1TB Hard Drives. Add a Music Player that will operate 4 rooms of audio and that brings the total to around $17,000. Yes, $14,000 does seem like a large chunk of change for a DVD player you might think, but the Kaleidescape System is so much more than just that.
In the Age of Convergence we are experiencing these days, with portable MP3 players in phones and Media Center pc’s becoming more and more popular, Kaleidescape has set the bar high for a whole house entertainment server. By a long shot in my opinion.
First stage, Setup:
Ok, normally, I start out with a review by reading the instruction manual, (yes, I’m the guy who reads the manual first. Scary eh?), and then I make sure to follow the manufactures directions for simple setup. This allows me to approximate what an average “Joe” person would experience with a given piece of equipment. Well, the Kaleidescape 1U Server comes with…. No instructions. Why you might ask? It’s because qualified dealers and custom installation companies only sell them. This means, for the person purchasing a Kaleidescape System, they know it will work. They don’t have to worry about setting it up improperly and never performing like they saw it in the store. For my situation, I used a Wi-Fi laptop, and a Harmony MX880 remote to run the Movie Player 2, and Music Player in my system. What’s neat is that the Kaleidescape System has so many available options of being controlled. When a custom installer puts the system in, they can setup the Kaleidescape System via Crestron touch panels, or AMX touch panels, connected pc’s, and even certain programmable remote controls. Very flexible! My installation consisted of hooking up the 1U Server to power, hooking up the Movie Player 2 to my 46” 1080p panel via HDMI, hooking up the Music Player to my distributed audio system, and of course, a network connection to all 3 units. The 1U Server configured itself via DHCP in my home network, and automatically configured the Movie Player 2 and Music Player as components. 20 minutes later, I had my Harmony programmed and was ready to go. It can’t get much easier than that!
The Technical specifications:
The 1U Server, (an apropos name, as it is a 1U chassis size component), has just 4 jacks on the back of it, consisting of 1 Gigabit Ethernet jack, 1 RS-232 jack for control systems, and 2 USB jacks.
The Movie Player 2 has a full complement of connections, consisting of an HDMI jack, Component Video via BNC, S-Video, Composite video via BNC, Toslink Optical, Coaxial digital via BNC, Analog RCA jacks, RS-232 for control systems, an IR input, and finally a gigabit Ethernet connection. Kaleidescape pretty much covered all of the bases, allowing the Movie Player 2 to run in nearly any room of a house, connected to just about any type of display, and be controlled by a multitude of devices.
The Music Player has 4 zones of audio outputs, consisting of 4 Toslink Optical jacks, 4 Coaxial Digital jacks, 4 Analog RCA pairs, Gigabit Ethernet, and RS-232 for control systems. Again, it’s designed to allow a ton of flexibility for distributing audio in a whole-house system.
The 1U Server Kaleidescape sent for my review came with 3 750 GB cartridges that were pre-loaded with 120 DVD’s and about 120 CD’s as well. Kaleidescape also has a 3U Server, which houses up to 14 drives, giving a potential 1,800 DVD’s, or 20,000 CD’s, WOW! Another feature that I think is noteworthy on the Kaleidescape System is their own proprietary RAID-K array. Allowing a drive to fail, and not lose any content from the system. Excellent redundancy built-in, sure is a lifesaver when you have a few hundred DVD’s loaded in the system. Kaleidescape updated their systems during my review to utilize 1 TB (terabyte) drives in place of the 750 GB drives included in my review sample. A 1U Server with 4 TB drives will give you a total of 450 DVDs worth of storage!
Ok, now on to the Kaleidescape Experience:
After setup, I sat down and turned on my Kaleidescape System, and after about a minute, was greeted with an HD display of all the DVD covers that were loaded in the system. My wife, looking over my shoulder said “Wow, that’s really cool”. An understatement I’d say! Scrolling to one of my favorite Test DVD’s, “The Fifth Element” in Superbit, I noticed not only was the cover art incredibly crisp, but the scrolling was smooth. I saw no motion blur when moving around all of the cover art, and that, in itself, is impressive and a statement to how well the Kaleidescape team designed their interface. Most media servers have a varying amount of lag when going from disc to disc, especially when you’re using cover art. It is truly awesome to just sit down, grab the remote, and flip through your entire library on your HDTV, never leaving your couch potato haven. A-B comparisons between the Kaleidescape Movie Player 2 set to 1080i, and an Oppo DV-HD981 set to 1080i on the same disc, made for a nearly impossible determination of difference. The Kaleidescape System does just what it’s supposed to do; displaying the image the DVD was encoded with. When a disc is soft, it comes across exactly like it should. Scaling is excellent on the Movie Player 2, even with discs that are poorly encoded. The Movie Player 2 also passes the Silicon Optix Benchmark tests with flying colors, again identical to the Oppo, (one of the most popular reference scaling DVD players on the market). In a word, flawless performance for both audio and video!
One of the features that set the Kaleidescape System above the milieu of Media Servers on the market is how incredibly simple it is to find what you want and watch or listen to it. Not entirely sure what your craving to watch? No problem for the Kaleidescape user. Just rest the cursor on a title, and wait about 3 seconds, the Kaleidescape System automatically selects movies with the same actors, similar plot themes, similar genre’s, etc… and reshuffles the covers around the one you’re resting on and displays them around it. This is one of the coolest graphic interfaces you will ever use or operate. For example, my 4 year old can pick up the remote, and look around for the “Little Einstein’s”, press the play button and watch the movie, all in about 4 seconds, (and not scratch the disc or break the DVD player!). They also upgrade the software via the Internet automatically, so your up to date, and you don’t have to lift a finger to make it so. It’s all so simple it’s scary.
Not only does the Kaleidescape System allow you to house a nearly unlimited amount of DVD’s, (unlimited in the fact that you can add additional 1U or 3U Servers to increase capacity of storage) it’s how it stores them that’s so cool. DVD’s take about 20 minutes to import, and CD’s take about 6 minutes. The Kaleidescape System goes online and finds the DVD cover art and info directly from their own servers, so it’s pre-formatted and High res right off the bat. CD cover art is downloaded from their AMG database and the system found nearly everything I put in it, taking about a day at the longest to find a DVD I had imported. You may be wondering why so much hard disk space is needed, and the answer is no compression. The Kaleidescape System imports all information bit-for-bit, no compression, for an exact copy of what is on the disc. This guarantees no loss of information, and is in my opinion, the way a Media Server should work. On top of all this, is how the Kaleidescape System plays a disc. Choose a DVD from your Kaleidescape library, and press play. FBI Warning… Nope, the Kaleidescape System bypasses all the extra stuff, and goes right to the movie you’ve chosen. I love it. You can also press select on a DVD cover and choose to either play movie, or play disc, which will take you through the normal process of watching a DVD. The Kaleidescape System also updates itself automatically when Kaleidescape releases a new software version. This took place during my review, and not just for updates in general, but Kaleidescape added even more features! The biggest one during the latest operating system update was the ability to now download a local importing client to allow your pc to sync the music from your Kaleidescape System directly into Itunes, and then allowing you to dump that music onto an Ipod. Awesome upgrade, and one that works great!
But wait, there’s more… With a gigabit switch in your house, you could run up to 45 simultaneous Movie Player 2’s or 45 zones of music CD’s at one time, by any connected TV or Zoned music location in a house. 45! It also is excellent in that for instance, your watching a movie in the living room, and getting tired, you decide to pause the movie. You can walk into your bedroom, pick up the remote, and resume the movie you were watching from right where you paused it. Could it get any more, simple? I don’t think so.
The only things I had issues with were on a few of the user-features of the system. For instance, when you put in a movie in the Movie Player 2, and choose to not import it, or stop it, you can’t get back to watch the DVD unless you jump a few levels deep in the menus, and select play movie in drive. Funny, as I brought this up with Kaleidescape, and lo and behold, they are aware of this issue and are working on a solution. Another issue I feel is a problem is how sensitive the system is to playback of discs that are slightly scratched or smudged. The same movie, pulled from the Movie Player 2, and inserted into the Oppo, it plays fine, while the Kaleidescape locked up and went back to the main menu of the system. I’m not sure what drive they are using, but it is very touchy. The only other thing I am sad about is the lack of Blu-ray support, (I’d include HD-DVD in that phrase, but the nails been slammed home in that format war finally!) But again, lo and behold, word from Kaleidescape recently is that there is a Blu-ray Movie Player in the works, and it will be backward compatible with all of their servers. Talk about awesome. Imagine your entire HD library at your fingertips, in full-resolution goodness!
Conclusion:
Well, I’ll be honest. I’ve reviewed more equipment than I can remember, and never have I felt so depressed to see a review sample leave my house… Living with the Kaleidescape System in your house is like having a personal Movie Concierge right in your house. No working issues other than the 2 things I noted above, incredible image quality and sound. And hands down one of the most intuitively developed interfaces I have seen to date. My hats off to the team at Kaleidescape for building the most impressive piece of home entertainment product I have had the pleasure of testing. Now, if only I could afford one myself!
Great review Jason! I wouldn't mind getting one of these myself. Alas I don't think there is room in my budget for such an item but man is it ever cool.
Pioneer Kuro PDP-5010FD 1080p plasma display
Panasonic DMP-BD35K Blu-Ray
Sony PS3 Blu-Ray
SA 8300HD-DVR
Denon 2808CI HDMI 1.3 receiver
Definitive Technology BP10b fronts
Definitive Technology CLR-2000 center
Definitive Technology BP2X side surrounds
Definitive Technology Pro-monitor 80 rear surrounds.
SVS PB12+/2 subwoofer
All aided by Audyssey room EQ
Belkin PureAV Home Theater Power Console PF60
Bedroom: Samsung LN-T3753H 37" inch 720p LCD display
XBOX 360
Nintendo Wii
I saw their big system at the Home Entertainment Show in NYC a few years back, it's an impressive system. Even at the reduced price for the entry level it's, IMHO, just not even close to "worth it."
I wonder if they really have any plans for HD content in the future. They've been shipping their system with two wildlife HD titles for a while now, with the promise of more to come.
I had the system for awhile, as I was awaiting the update to the KEOS software to check out the added features. I tell you, my kids cried when I boxed it up... Yes it's expensive, but there really is nothing "like" it in terms of plug it in and it works Servers. And the interface is great!
Steve, they actually are working on a Blu-ray Movie Player (probably Movie Player 3 from their naming schemes ) and that is from them directly. There's a dealer letter floating about the internet announcing the plans for it. And they say that the servers will most likely be able to import the Blu-ray content, meaning folks could replace their library and store it all on their current Kaleidescape System. Pretty sweet...
Now, like Fender says on Robots "Now say Money falls out of the sky" and I'll be able to get one myself
On top of all that, I may become a dealer for their line, I was that impressed!
Heh, they actually didn't get it to me until the end of Sept 07, so I had it, and heard about the upcoming software update and waited to get that, which didn't happen until Mid Jan 08
Pretty nice to have the one repository for Itunes, as it syncs directly from the Kaleidescape 1U Server, worked great.
Great review Jason! It truly is a remarkable system, and I agree it's wonderful for kids, and while it is an irrational and exorbitant purchase, it's one of those rare high-end pieces of gear that truly lives up to the lofty expectations its buyers have.
Great review (as you know already from the numerous replies) your review was dead on and very informative. I actually had a meeting with Tom from their engineering division recently. The Blu-ray player will hopefully be out towards the end of the summer (hopefully around CEDIA 2009). The biggest problem it appears is that they are trying to get a processor chip that can play the blu-ray movies as quickly as the current DVD players do. As we all know even the quickest Blu-ray player on the market is still slow. So time will tell.
We were discussing at the store the importance of the lossless Blu-ray audio codecs also, which we feel are are just as important (if not more so in some cases) than the high definition video. We were pushing the point since many of our clients crave (if not demand) the best of both audio and video and to get just HD video without the lossless audio codecs is only half of what Blu-ray has to offer.
-Lee
Jason Kuenkler Senior Editor
Posts: 2207
Loc: North Idaho, USA
Reg: 09-27-00
I have spoken to them while doing the review on the Blu-ray standpoint, as well as some tweaks they could do to the products OS and accessibility with other items on a network. (Like firefox or accessing from alternate internet enabled items).
I personally believe if they are going to take it to the next level, they need to incoporate the entire disc of Blu-ray, including all of the lossless audio codecs. Of course, the size of the storage will be dramatically affected. They will need to incoporate at least 1.5tb drives into their servers just to give a fairly adequate size capability for Blu-ray. Combining that will really stand the Kaleidescape system on a whole new level of "awesomeness" to quote Kung Fu Panda
