- Kaleidescape launches first 8K movie player certified by the 8K Association
- But the new 4K cinema format for higher quality 4K is the most exciting
- $4,995 (around £3,777 / AU$7,180)
Kaleidescape makes some seriously spectacular 4K video players and now there’s an 8K version. It’s “the world’s highest fidelity movie player,” says president and CEO Tayloe Stansbury. “It brings movie lovers closer to the filmmaker’s intent, with clearer details, truer colors and a more natural presentation that dramatically improves the viewing experience on any screen.”
It is also a world first. Kaleidescape Strato K is the first 8K movie player certified for 8K by the 8K Association.
That’s good, but the fact that it’s the first accreditation of its kind points to the problem with 8K. Buying 8K hardware right now is a little like being the first person in the world to buy a fax machine: who are you going to send faxes to? Similarly, with 8K movie players and 8K TVs, what 8K movies can you actually watch?
That means the Strato K, while impressive, is a bit of a risk: you’re buying hardware in the hope that the trickle of 8K movies will turn into a flood, and I’m just not sure it will ever rain.
So the biggest new feature might not be 8K support, but a new format that Kaleidescape calls “4K Cinematic.”
Kaleidescape Strato K: key features and price
Kaleidescape’s 4K Cinematic is a format designed to deliver even better 4K image quality, and it does so using less compression. Movies are encoded at around 110 Mbps using the HEVC codec. Kaleidescape says that compares to around 60 Mbps for 4K Blu-Ray and around 17 Mbps for standard 4K streaming services.
It’s worth noting that those figures are not the maximum bitrates for formats, for example Blu-Ray. can go up to 144Mbps, although 80Mbps is a more standard limit, but these are the bitrates typically used in commercial releases.
In addition to the higher bitrate, 4K Cinematic uses 4:4:4 color sampling instead of the 4:2:0 of most commercial film releases, which means more accurate colors and less “banding” or other color artifacts.
The downside to those higher bitrates is that you’ll need a lot of storage: as FlatpanelsHD points out, the player only has 1TB of storage, equivalent to around seven 4K movie titles, since they’re 1.5 times the size of regular 4K movies. Like other Strato players, it’s actually intended to partner with the company’s Terra servers.
Kaleidescape will label higher quality movies as 4K Cinematic in its movie store and in the Stratos K interface to differentiate them from standard 4K versions. Prices will range from $10 to $30, and the initial set of titles includes Top Gun: Maverick, F1: The Movie, Superman, Ave Maria Project, Dune: Part Two; sinners, Predator: Wastelands, mortal kombat ii, Avatar, Tron: Ares, Good heavensand others.
4K Cinematic supports Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and DTS:X, but the Stratos K player does not support Dolby Vision in 8K movies, which are SDR or HDR10. The maximum frame rate for 8K is 30fps over HDMI 2.1.
The Strato K has a recommended retail price of $4,995, which is $1,000 more than the five-star Strato V 4K. In fact I’m looking forward to seeing what the new film format looks like…
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