Movie streaming specialist Kaleidescape is looking to target a bigger audience with the launch of its second new hardware device this year, offering 4K Blu-ray quality for streaming content at a lower price point than its flagship product.
It’s called the Kaleidescape Strato E, and it sits below the older Strato V and Strato C models, with a price tag of less than $3,000 in the U.S.
It looks much like their other devices in the Strato family, and it’s designed to work as a standalone media player, featuring onboard storage for those who want to download a small collection of movies. Alternatively, it can be connected to a bunch of Terra Prime Servers if you’re interested in building a bigger movie collection.
Aimed at home theatre enthusiasts and small commercial operations, the Strato E is a 4K media player that supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 and SDR content, with a BT.2020 colour space and 4:4:4 chroma, capable of displaying content at up to 20160p at 60 frames per second.
What’s special about Kaleidescape’s players is that you get the same kind of bitrates as seen at the movies – exceeding that of 4K Blu-ray discs and, of course, far in excess of any traditional video streaming services.
In other words, it’s targeted at purists who want the best possible quality, with the most lifelike details, ultra-clear motion and colour reproduction that’s as close as possible to the creator’s intent.
Other features on the Strato E include support for lossless multi-channel and spatial audio formats such as Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio and Linear PCM at up to 7.1-channels are also onboard. All of the outputs are HDMI 2.1 specification with HDCP 2.3
To watch movies, you’re required to download them via Kaleidescape’s online store, and there is a rental or purchase fee for each one. The Strato E comes with 480GB of internal storage, which is enough for about six full-fat 4K movies. You can set the player to delete movies you’ve watched 48 hours after the fact, but they’ll be available to download again at any time. The download itself takes around 10 minutes over gigabit Ethernet.
As mentioned, the Strato E sits below the Strato C and Strato V, which support higher resolution and have more storage space onboard. If you need more storage space, the Terra Prime Servers may come in handy. But be warned they’re not cheap - prices start at £5,900 for the smallest, 8 terabyte model, rising to £15,600 for the chunkiest 48TB server.
The Strato E isn’t on sale in the U.K. yet, but it can be found in the U.S., where it carries a price tag of $2,995 (around £2,299). That said, we do think it will arrive here soon. For context, the Strato V currently costs around £5,399, while the Strato C is priced at £4,099.
There is one cheaper model in Kaleidescape’s range, called the Stratro M, which is priced at just $1,995 in the U.S. The main difference is that it only supports up to 2K resolution. That model launched in April, and we’re also still waiting to see it in U.K. stores.
While Kaleidescape is currently a bit of a niche product, the focus on more affordable models suggests that the company is looking to expand its target audience and become a more comprehensive alternative to the likes of Netflix, at least for those who care about film quality. The company is also making a play for the 8K industry. It recently joined the 8K Association, seeing itself as the ideal vehicle for getting native 8K media into people’s living rooms.
