The high-specification home cinema hardwire firm Kaleidescape has signaled its belief that there’s a promising future for 8K resolution, at least within the niche segment it operates in.
The company said Friday it has joined the 8K Association, known as 8KA, positioning itself alongside other brands such as Samsung, which are “dedicated to the advancement and standardisation” of 8K media content. .
"As consumers demand larger screens, higher-fidelity and increasingly immersive experiences, Kaleidescape’s involvement in the 8KA will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of premium home cinema,” said the company’s chairman and chief executive Tayloe Stansbury.
With its high-end streaming media players, Kaleidescape provides an intriguing alternative to video streaming services such as Netflix and Blu-ray media discs. Rather than watch the movies as they’re streamed, Kaleidescape downloads the entire flick onto its special hardware in the highest quality available. We’re talking reference quality and lossless audio with Dolby Vision, and it ensures the content is far superior to anything you can watch on Netflix and even surpasses the quality of the best physical media, the company claims.
The company describes its service like this:
Kaleidescape movies are high bitrate and downloaded to local storage for uninterrupted, flawless playback. Kaleidescape movies are also unconstrained by file size limits, enabling our content team to maximize the video quality transcoded from studio mezzanine files, unlike Blu-ray discs that have a maximum file size limit. The combination of high bitrate movie downloads and unconstrained file sizes is unmatched by any other source, providing the highest quality movie-watching experience available for the home.
Kaleidescape’s devices are pretty expensive though, with its entry-level 2K Strato M player costing $1,995, but it’s not yet available in the U.K. It also offers more premium players including the Strato C and Strato V, which can be purchased in the U.K., at prices of £4,000 and £5,400, respectively. In addition, to store more than a handful of movies, you’ll also need to purchase a Terra Prime server, where prices start at £5,900 for the smallest, 8 terabyte model, rising to £15,600 for the chunkiest 48TB server.
The high costs of Kaleidescape’s devices show it’s aimed squarely at higher-end home cinema set ups, where 8K screens are perhaps a bit more likely to find a home.
The company hasn’t said if or when it intends to launch an 8K media player. Currently the most premium Strato V only supports 4K resolution and there is no 8K content available in the Kaleidescape Movie Store at this time.
However, the company said its move to join the 8KA shows its commitment to “pushing the boundaries of home entertainment” and suggests that it is looking to get some 8K content out there at some point in the future.
At present, the market for 8K TVs and media hasn’t really made much traction, having found itself stuck in a traditional “chicken-and-egg” situation. 8K TVs tend to be very expensive, and there’s no real incentive to buy them due to the scarcity of true 8K resolution content available to watch on them. But there’s no incentive for filmmakers to make 8K resolution content if nobody has an 8K TV to watch them. So far, most 8K TV owners are limited to a small selection of 8K media on YouTube and a few other services.
We’re still waiting for a breakthrough, but it’s not clear if or when it will happen. Recently, Sony admitted it doesn’t have any plans to launch a successor to its last 8K television, the Sony Z9K, which was launched in 2022. LG has also abandoned the 8K format for the time being, though it still sells last year's QNED99T (an LCD TV, not OLED). On the other hand, Samsung continues to announce new models every year, while Hisense rejoined the 8KA last year, having previously left the organisation, though it has not announced any new 8K models since that announcement.
Another Chinese brand, Konka, also launched a new 8K TV model recently, but it's an extremely expensive one.
If Kaleidescape does start offering enough higher-quality content in 8K – and we’re not sure how it will do that – it could potentially provide the impetus needed for the market to start getting more traction. But it’s a very big “if”.
