Kaleidescape, the California maker of high-end digital movie platforms, has announced the Strato M, a new entry-level movie player for residential, marine, and commercial theatre systems. Offered at half the price of Kaleidescape’s previous lowest-cost Strato V system, Strato M provides reference 2K video output, with better than Blu-ray quality and like all Kaleidescape movie players, Strato M supports lossless audio.
Strato M can download and play 4K content, but video output will be downscaled to 2K even if the player is connected to a 4K display. This downscaling often retains more detail and sharpness compared to native 2K content. High-quality 4K masters contain more information, which results in a cleaner final image even after downscaling. In addition, 4K content played back with a more efficient video processing like 4:2:2 chroma produces a richer, more colorful image than formats that use 4:2:0. Kaleidescape has produced an excellent white paper to help understand downscaling that can be viewed here.
“Strato M opens up the Kaleidescape experience to a broader range of movie enthusiasts,” said 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.”
Strato M works on its own or as part of a larger Kaleidescape system. As a standalone system, Strato M provides a single playback zone that holds a half-dozen movies on an internal solid-state drive with downloading speeds about ten minutes for each movie, over gigabit Ethernet. It features a streamlined interface, optimized for navigating a small movie library, offering automatic offloading of watched movies 48 hours after playback to make room for more movies. Purchased movies can be re-downloaded at any time.
Strato M can also be grouped with Terra Prime movie servers to increase movie storage. This returns Strato M’s interface to the full Kaleidescape user experience. Strato V, Strato C, and Strato M movie players can all be grouped together with one or more Terra movie servers, to fit a user’s entertainment needs.
Strato M supports lossless multi-channel and spatial object-based audio, including Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. Strato M supports reference 2K video, with higher bit rates and bit depths than Blu-ray, including Dolby Vision, HDR10, BT.2020, and 4:2:2 chroma.
The Strato M is immediately available with an MSRP of $2,995.00 CDN. Kaleidescape is exclusively distributed in Canada by The Watershed Group.