Premium movie download service Kaleidescape has unveiled a new entry-level player that makes its high quality video delivery system more affordable than ever before.
The Strato M is designed to work as either a standalone movie player, like the step-up Strato V released in 2024, or as part of a wider Kaleidescape product system. And with a U.S. price tag of $1,995, it’s far and away the most affordable way to access Kaleidescape’s huge library of essentially lossless-quality downloadable movie files. The step up Strato V, by comparison, costs $3,995.
“Strato M opens up the Kaleidescape experience to a broader range of movie enthusiasts,” says Tayloe Stansbury, chairman & CEO of Kaleidescape. “And in larger systems, Strato M is great for secondary rooms, while reserving the flagship Strato V for main viewing areas.”
Despite its entry level price, the Strato M still offers a handy set of features beyond just providing a gateway to Kaleidescape’s pristine downloadable film files. For starters, it can play films in high dynamic range, using either the HDR10 or premium Dolby Vision HDR formats, with 4:2:2 chroma support. It also supports a huge range of audio formats, including lossless versions of the Dolby Atmos and DTS:X mixes that currently represent the state of the art when it comes to film soundtracks.
Connections
It features a fanless design so you don’t have to worry about any operating noise disturbing your viewing, and it’s fitted with a Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Base-T) connection to ensure that the large files required to contain the service’s premium quality film downloads can get into the Strato M’s built-in memory as fast as your broadband connection will allow. Other connections comprise a USB port you can use for disc cataloging, and an HDMI 2.1 port, while the player’s design features suitably premium metal build quality and a distinctive illuminated blue ‘splash’ effect emerging from parts of its front, top and rear edges.
To support the popularity of Kaleidescape products with AV system builders and custom installers, the Strato M carries such installation-friendly features as Lutron RA3 and HomeWorks control compatibility; Kaleidescape control protocol over Ethernet (supported by Josh.ai, Crestron, AMX, Control4, Savant, Kaleidescape Apps, as well as numerous other apps and control systems); and the availability of both rack (with faceplates) and wall mounting options.
As usual with Kaleidescape products, the Strato M can be grouped with other Kaleidescape devices on a local network so that it can play content stored on either one or more of the brand’s Terra high capacity storage devices, or another Strato player.
While the Strato M joins the Strato V in offering a single-product entry point into Kaleidescape’s service, carrying both in-built storage for downloaded films and full playback capabilities, its much more affordable price inevitably comes at the expense of one or two significant compromises.
First, its built-in 480GB SSD storage is only half as much as you get with the Strato V, meaning it can only hold half a dozen movies or so at at time (depending on running times). Once you’ve purchased a film on Kaleidescape you will always have access to it, of course; if you have to delete a film to make space for another you can just find it on Kaleidescape’s servers and download it again if you want to watch it for a second time. But with the service’s movie files typically running to 90-100GB each (more if a film’s particularly long) if you’re going to use the Strato M as much as most Kaleidescape owners use their systems, you’ll have to commit to swapping movies in and out of the storage drive pretty regularly.
Ultra-fast downloading
This is where the Gigabit Ethernet port comes in (there’s no support for Wi-Fi). If you’ve got a broadband connection fast enough to use all of that Gigabit Ethernet capacity you should be able to download a film in just 10 minutes or so. Clearly this time will increase if your broadband connection is much slower than that.
The Strato M’s relatively limited storage capacity means it features a specially refined version of Kaleidescape’s interface. If you decide to add a Terra storage unit, then the interface will revert to Kaleidescape’s normal menus designed to handle many more titles.
Probably the most significant limitation of the Strato M, though, is that its video output is limited to 2K resolution, rather than the 4K output supported by the Strato V. Kaleidescape states that this should still be enough to deliver better than Blu-ray picture quality – plus, of course, the Strato M actually supports HDR where normal Blu-ray discs don’t. But the Strato M won’t let you get the full glorious impact from the growing number of truly pristine looking 4K films Kaleidescape now carries.
The Kaleidescape Strato M is available now in the U.S. from authorized Kaleidescape dealers, with other territories to follow soon.
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