Kaleidescape

Kaleidescape, Inc. is a Mountain View, California-based private company, founded in 2001, which designs multi-room home entertainment server systems that store and play back video and audio content (such as movies, television shows, and music) to movie players that can be connected to televisions or projectors.[2] The company began marketing its products in 2003.[3] Research and development is carried out partly by Kaleidescape Canada based in Waterloo, Ontario.

Kaleidescape, Inc.
Private
FoundedMountain View, California
(February, 2001)
HeadquartersMountain View, California
and Waterloo, Ontario
Key people
Cheena Srinivasan, CEO [1]
Websitekaleidescape.com

History

Early history

Kaleidescape was founded in 2001 by Michael Malcolm, Dan Collens, and Cheena Srinivasan.

Malcolm had previously founded Network Appliance and CacheFlow.[3] Malcolm self-funded the startup and the company spent over two years developing its technology in "stealth mode". The company originally focused on building home theatre movie servers that could store digital copies of customers’ DVD and Blu-ray collections to help streamline the DVD and Blu-ray experience.[4] Kaleidescape’s first movie server was introduced in 2003 and could import DVD content onto a series of hard drives, utilize the company’s Movie Guide database to identify and sort films, and then present the customer’s movie collection in an onscreen user interface.[5]

In 2010, Kaleidescape released its M300 and M500 Blu-ray players as part of its Premiere line for home cinemas.[6] The M500 had Blu-ray copying abilities to allow customers to import Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs onto home servers.[7] To address the copyright concerns of movie studios, Kaleidescape required the Blu-ray disc to be present when the content was played from the server.[8][9] Later that year, Kaleidescape launched the industry's first Blu-ray server with its release of its new 100-disc Blu-ray vault.[10] The vault, when paired with the M300 or M500 players, could rip, store, and stream copies of Blu-ray movies throughout a home.[10] The server’s internal storage could hold 2,700 DVD titles or 485 Blu-ray discs but is dependent on the size of the hard drives you bought with your system.[11]

In July 2013, Kaleidescape launched the Cinema One as the company's new entry-level high-definition entertainment server.[12] Cinema One is a movie server that allows users to watch films instantly and jump to special scenes, bypassing menus. Through Kaleidescape's online movie store, which launched in beta in 2012 and officially opened in May 2013,[13] users are able to add high-definition and standard definition movies to their collections instantly.[14] Cinema One allows the storage and playback of up to 100 Blu-ray quality, 600 DVD quality or 6,000 CD quality titles.[15]

Recent history

Kaleidescape's current product line was announced in 2015, and consists of the Strato movie player and the Terra movie server.[16] The Strato is a movie-playback device and is compatible with different control systems and universal remotes, and can hold anywhere from 105 Ultra 4K HDR movies to 1500 DVD quality movies, depending on which version of the device is purchased.[17][18][19] Content is added to the device by downloading movies from the Kaleidescape movie store.[20] The Terra provides computing and caching services to enhance the performance of the Strato, and provides extra storage space for movies purchased from the store.[21]

The Strato C movie player was released in 2017.[4] It has no hard drive to store content, but streams content from either the Strato S or the Terra movie server, with the same audio and video quality of the Strato S.[4]  That same year, Kaleidescape also released its 1U+ Movie Server, which was an upgrade of the 1U Server.[22]

In October 2018, the company introduced the Kaleidescape mobile app for home cinema.[23][24]  The app can be used to buy movies from the movie store, control the playback of films, concerts, and TV shows, and receive movie recommendations.[24] It includes a remote designed to make it easy to control the onscreen display using a smartphone, and is free to Kaleidescape owners.[25][26] In December, Kaleidescape announced a partnership with BBC Studios - Americas to bring BBC documentaries and TV series to Kaleidescape.[27] The deal marked the first time the company offered episodic content in 4K Ultra HD and HDR.[27]

Products

The Strato

The Strato S is a “movie player,” a disc-less playback device that users can add content to by downloading titles from Kaleidescape's movie store to the device's hard drive.[18] The Strato S is available in a 6TB and a 12TB version[28][29]; there is also an external server called the Terra if more space is needed.[30] The rear of the Strato provides a connection for the external power supply, an HDMI output, an audio only HDMI output, a toslink and coax digital audio output, a USB connection, an ethernet connection, and a rear IR input.[31][32] It has built-in 802.11ac WiFi, and can output 3840x2160 resolution at 60 Hz along with extended color and HDR.[33] It supports a range of audio formats, including Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital, PCM, DTS:X, DTS-HD Master Audio, and MPEG audio.[34][35] Playback from the hard drive or the network delivers bit rates up to 100 Mbps and frame rates up to 60 fps.[17][36]

The Terra

For customers who require more storage space, Kaleidescape designed the Terra Movie Server.[37]

The Terra comes with either 24 or 40TB of storage - allowing storage of more than 400 4K Ultra HD movies, 600 Blu-ray quality, or 3600 DVD quality movies -  and can supply content to as many as 50 Strato players.[18][38][39] Once connected to the network, the Strato players can either access their own movie collections, or those of the Terra.[18] For homes with more than one Strato, the Terra can handle up to ten 4K streams or 15 Blu-ray streams at a time.[40][36] The Terra also provides computing and caching services to enhance the performance of the Strato players.[41][42]

Kaleidescape movie store

The Kaleidescape movie store launched in May 2013 in the US and June 2013 in the UK, becoming the first online store to allow users to download Blu-ray quality movies via an internet-based delivery platform.[43][44] The movie store is only built to work with Kaleidescape's playback systems. Purchased and downloaded movies are stored on the company's Strato S or Terra products, and played back on the Strato.[45] The only way to add content to a Kaleidescape system is to download movies from the store to the device’s hard drive.[46][40] The store allows users to upgrade movies from SD to HD to UHD.[40] Kaleidescape supports download speeds of up to 100 Mbps, and it is possible to set a maximum download speed and a download schedule.[40][17][36]

The movie store's initial title offerings included a multi-year license agreement with Warner Bros.[47] The movie store expanded its availability to Canada in September 2013.[48] In October 2013, Kaleidescape announced a multi-year studio agreement with Lionsgate, resulting in the addition of approximately 2,000 titles to the store.[49]

Major Studio Support
  • Warner Bros.
  • Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
  • NBCUniversal
  • Lionsgate
  • Twentieth Century Fox
  • Walt Disney Studios
  • MGM[50]
Minor Studio Support
  • Cinedigm
  • Kino Lorber
  • Magnolia
  • Moving Art
  • The Orchard

In 2004, the DVD Copy Control Association, the licensor of CSS (content scramble system), the technology for the copy control of DVDs, sued Kaleidescape for breach of contract. The DVD CCA alleged that its CSS License did not permit Kaleidescape's movie servers to serve DVDs from copies on hard disk. They sued to stop the company from selling these movie servers. Kaleidescape Systems allow users to rip, store, and stream video from DVDs.[51] The case, although only for breach of contract and not a copyright case, was considered by some to be an important recent test of fair use precedent,[52] given advancements in technology and the digital media rights field.[53] In 2007, Kaleidescape won the case. In fact, the DVD CCA had alleged that Kaleidescape had breached terms in a document called the General Specifications. The court ruled that the General Specifications are not even part of the contract.[54]

On August 13, 2009, a California appellate court reversed the lower court's decision that the General Specifications is not part of the CSS License, and sent the case back to the lower court for further proceedings (see DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. v. Kaleidescape, Inc.). This appellate court ruling did not address the issue of whether Kaleidescape violated the contract (contrary to some news reports), instead deferring that determination to the lower court.[55][56] In March 2012, the Superior Court ruled that Kaleidescape had violated the terms of the contract, and issued an injunction prohibiting it from selling or supporting the products in question.[57]

The California 6th District Court of Appeal granted Kaleidescape a temporary stay of the injunction on March 29, 2012. This temporary stay stops the injunction from coming into effect, while the Court of Appeal decides whether or not to stay the injunction during the entire appeal process.

In June 2014, Kaleidescape and DVD CCA reached a settlement agreement. As of 2019, the company had license agreements with 29 studios to allow the purchase and download of content from its movie store.[58]

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