Movie lovers seeking the ultimate in convenient high-quality movie playback for their home theaters ultimately wind up at Kaleidescape's doorstep. The problem? Cost of entry—this is not a Roku and the gear's price tags are in the high-end audio realm, not Walmart Electronics dept. But for anyone who craves a downloadable movie solution that meets or even (in some cases, at least theoretically) exceeds the quality of Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. Now the company has a new entry-level system, it is the just-announced Terra 6 Terrabyte Movie Server in conjunction with the company's Strato C player. This combination is a replacement for the Strato S.
According to CEO Tayloe Stansbury, this switch will provide a superior playback experience as well as "greater scalability and performance." The performance Tayloe refers to is quite serious, if you have gigabit Internet then the Terra 6TB is able to download an entire 4K movie in "as little as 10 minutes" says Kaleidescape. Furthermore, this being a server, it supports up to five concurrent 4K UHD playbacks (you need four Strato players to do this, of course) . While the Strato S was limited to two. The server is able to download concurrent to supporting playback on Strato players, a feature that was not available on its predecessor. Of course, storage is scalable.
I'll certainly vouch for the slickness of Kaleidescape as well as the quality of the content. I'm no fan of discs and appreciate a system that brings consistent high quality to viewers, even if it's a luxury item that costs well beyond what today's premium TVs cost. But, an 85" flagship TV is nothing without appropriately good content to play on it, and that is part of the Kaleidescape value proposition. It will "complete" your system if you are a movie lover. No question.
OK now the good/bad news, depending on your perspective. The cost of the Terra 6TB is currently a discounted $7995, a special that runs through March 31, 2022.