Tips From The Top

If you’re a home theater buff, then you are lucky: there has never been an era of more exciting home theater technology developments. You’ve got 4K/UDH and HDR delivering the richest, most vibrant pictures ever, Dolby Atmos bringing home the most realistic sound to date, streaming services to deliver content that works with all these advanced systems and new technology coming out all the time. But with all this new, thrilling tech also comes a challenge: bandwidth.

Let’s take 4K/UDH for example. HD has a resolution of 1080 pixels. 4K comes in at 3840x2160 pixels st minimum—essentially an increase of four times the resolution (thus the name 4K). But that also means that if you are streaming 4K content, your connection has to suddenly deliver four times data in the same amount of time. In order to have a system that can deliver that amount of bandwidth, along with content that is truly 4K, home theater owners are going to want to consider some additional upgrades.

What are my Internet options?

In some cases, you might have the option of upgrading to Internet with a higher connection speed, but that’s simply not always possible. Here in Jackson Hole, for example, the infrastructure doesn’t yet exist in most cases to provide the extraordinary connection speeds that would allow your technology to provide true 4K quality at all … much less without all that infuriating buffering.

If faster Internet isn’t an option for you, have no fear: you have another option, possibly an even better one.

Meet Kaleidescape

Billed by Kaleidescape as the “"world's first 4K Ultra HD high-dynamic-range movie player for the home,” the Strato is an all-in-one solution to your media streaming and movie watching needs.

The Strato allows you to download your DVD and Blu-Ray movies to its a local hard drive — either on the Strato or a Terra Movie Server, which is a device that exclusively stores content. With your entire collection downloaded, Strato can then play back the movies in full 4K Ultra HD, at up to 60 fps (frames per second). But playing movies you already own is only part of the equation. What if you want to watch a movie you don’t own, one you would have streamed, if only your network had enough speed to deliver it in 4K?

That’s where the Kaleidescape Alto Movie Player comes in. Available with a 6TB hard drive, the Alto Movie Player can still play Blu-ray discs and DVDs, but it also allow you to download Blu-ray and DVD quality movies from the Kaleidescape Movie Store. Because these movies can first download and then play, their playback quality is no longer dependent on bandwidth.

And what if you have an extensive movie library? Not a problem. You can store your entire collection on the Kaleidescape Terra Movie Server, which creates a home network that provides 4K quality movies that can be played on up to 50 players.

These are just the highlights of Kaleidescape’s new Encore line, which provides high performance solutions for today’s highest-tech home theaters. To find out more, give us a call at Jackson Hole AV.