Kaleidescape has slashed the price of entry for home cinema enthusiasts with its new Strato V 4K movie player which is now priced at AU$5,935.
The new Strato V will therefore be offered at the same price as its predecessor, the Strato C.
However, while the Strato C lacked internal storage, the Strato V can now be used as a standalone device in a single playback area thanks to its built-in storage.
Its onboard SSD storage drive (960GB) is enough to store around 10 reference-quality 4K movies.
Kaleidescape claims the Strato V incorporates new electronics and a new grounding topology. The addition of player-side decoding for high-bitrate audio codecs provides flexibility to maximize sound quality with a range of downstream components. The signal path is also said to have been improved.
Kaleidescape has provided a new, simplified interface for standalone use, optimized for browsing a limited movie library.
Previous Kaleidescape players did not include built-in storage and therefore needed to be paired with at least one Kaleidescape server capable of storing content. These start at around AU$7,433.
The Strato V can download a 4K movie from Kaleidescape servers in just 10 minutes via Gigabit Ethernet, while the movie is playing, without sacrificing performance, Ecoustics reported.
Downloads can be automatically deleted 48 hours after playback, freeing up space for more movies if you’re only relying on internal storage.
Purchased movies remain available to the owner on Kaleidescape’s servers, while rented titles expire 30 days after rental or 48 hours after the first start of playback of the rented title (whichever comes first).
If you prefer to keep movies locally, the Strato V is compatible with the company’s other devices, including Kaleidescape’s Terra Prime movie servers. When using this expanded storage, the default browsing interface is Kaleidescape’s full UI.
As ChannelNews previously reported, Kaleidescape unveiled a 96TB Terra Prime home theater server earlier this year, with enough storage to host around 1,600 4K movies at high bandwidth.