Kaleidescape went bankrupt - feeling pessimistic about Tesla today

[calisnow]

Anyone into high end home theater has heard of the company Kaleidescape (yes with an "a" not an "o") - for 15 years they have been the only plug and play and legal solution for serving DVD's and Blu-rays from your couch (a problem movie collectors have - where to put the hundreds of discs one buys) - and are now the only solution for downloading 4K movies at bit-for-bit quality on par with UHD Blu Ray.

Their systems range from $4,000 - six figures - and until this weekend there was no news they were in financial trouble.

They were a pioneer, dedicated to uncompromising video quality and had an unparalleled user interface. They existed in a class of one - nobody else could touch their ease of use and their quality - if you had the disposable funds Kaleidescape was a no-brainer for your theater.

Over the weekend they shut their doors. They said they ran out of money developing their new 4K media server and couldn't find a buyer. People are kind of shocked - after 15 years nobody expected them to go "poof" - especially after they had been scoring deal after deal with studios recently for their new 4K download store.

But now they're gone - another purist company delivering a superior product to a world of people who accept mediocrity. Kaleidescape also spent years fighting the movie studios (ICE industry, anyone?) for the right to serve DVD's and Blu-rays from a server - and in the end had to settle with the studios and stop selling DVD servers in return for the right to sell Blu-ray servers.

Pearls before swine?

I was also in Calabasas today on business and saw a number of new Bentleys, Rolls, high end Benzes, etc. As I cruised along the 101 with my hands in my lap I was surrounded on both sides by a Rolls and an AMG Benz sedan. I wondered to myself "But you don't have Autopilot - why are you driving that thing?"

Yet - they are.

Yet - Tesla is offering a $598 / month 24 month lease to move product - product which still exists in a class of one.

I dunno - feeling pessimistic after the shocker of Kaleidescape's demise. I'll snap out of it. . .

 

[Garlan Garner]

Anyone into high end home theater has heard of the company Kaleidescape (yes with an "a" not an "o") - for 15 years they have been the only plug and play and legal solution for serving DVD's and Blu-rays from your couch (a problem movie collectors have - where to put the hundreds of discs one buys) - and are now the only solution for downloading 4K movies at bit-for-bit quality on par with UHD Blu Ray.

Their systems range from $4,000 - six figures - and until this weekend there was no news they were in financial trouble.

They were a pioneer, dedicated to uncompromising video quality and had an unparalleled user interface. They existed in a class of one - nobody else could touch their ease of use and their quality - if you had the disposable funds Kaleidescape was a no-brainer for your theater.

Over the weekend they shut their doors. They said they ran out of money developing their new 4K media server and couldn't find a buyer. People are kind of shocked - after 15 years nobody expected them to go "poof" - especially after they had been scoring deal after deal with studios recently for their new 4K download store.

But now they're gone - another purist company delivering a superior product to a world of people who accept mediocrity. Kaleidescape also spent years fighting the movie studios (ICE industry, anyone?) for the right to serve DVD's and Blu-rays from a server - and in the end had to settle with the studios and stop selling DVD servers in return for the right to sell Blu-ray servers.

Pearls before swine?

I was also in Calabasas today on business and saw a number of new Bentleys, Rolls, high end Benzes, etc. As I cruised along the 101 with my hands in my lap I was surrounded on both sides by a Rolls and an AMG Benz sedan. I wondered to myself "But you don't have Autopilot - why are you driving that thing?"

Yet - they are.

Yet - Tesla is offering a $598 / month 24 month lease to move product - product which still exists in a class of one.

I dunno - feeling pessimistic after the shocker of Kaleidescape's demise. I'll snap out of it. . .

Kaleidescape was not that smart at all in my opinion. I don't care how good the product was or how expensive it was. They kept making products that progressively became out of date. No on is buying hundreds of disks anymore. Its all electronic now. Physical media is almost a thing of the past.

Kind of akin to blockbuster trying to hang on. No one rents anything anymore.

 

[ecarfan]

I really do not see how the failure of that company should cause anyone to be concerned about the chances of Tesla's success.

 

[Alketi]

They were in the wrong industry, calisnow. I've been saying for a while that all physical media will disappear. There just aren't enough video/audiophiles to support it. Believe me, I bought a $400 Denon DVD back when DVD players were under a $100. 24-bit, upsampling, gold this and that -- and in the end, it was so refined that it couldn't play burnable DVDs that the junk from Walmart would play. I bought a BluRay player as well. It's collecting dust. People would rather have convenience. Creating a 10x better video store wouldn't have saved Blockbuster. You need a 10x better product that's also desirable by the mass market. That's Tesla.

 

[Garlan Garner]

I really do not see how the failure of that company should cause anyone to be concerned about the chances of Tesla's success.

I agree...I don't get the connection.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Hey OP..... are you posting this for click points?

 

[theslimshadyist]

What is a DVD and Blu-ray player again? Haven't used in years due to being able to just buy or rent digital media and content that we can just stream to the TV's. Times have changed and I wouldn't think that today there would be a viable, yet sustainable market for their business model. But that's just my opinion...

 

[Garlan Garner]

What is a DVD and Blu-ray player again? Haven't used in years due to being able to just buy or rent digital media and content that we can just stream to the TV's. Times have changed and I wouldn't think that today there would be a viable, yet sustainable market for their business model. But that's just my opinion...

I think a DVD is something that I can put in my Betamax vcr. I'll try it out and let you know.

 

[AMPd]

I think a DVD is something that I can put in my Betamax vcr. I'll try it out and let you know.

Joking?

A dvd is those large black circular disks.
Used to play music

 

[Skotty]

I'm still a big fan of physical media. Yes, I have hundreds of DVDs. They are all alphabetized in DVD cabinets. DVDs are far more reliable than hard drives. I've been through countless hard drive failures, but I've never had a DVD disk fail (aside from letting a careless person excessively scratch a disk). You also maintain indefinite ownership, which you might not have with your digital media. Physical copies are also available long after electronic copies have disappeared from stores. Just last week I wanted to buy a music album, but it wasn't available on electronic media sites like iTunes. But physical copies can still be ordered. The only risk is not having easy ways to back them up, and having manufacturers stop selling players and potentially not having a way to rip the disks onto newer media.

Primarily, it comes down to failures for me, really. I've spent countless hours restoring failed servers and computers over the last 20 years (for things other than movies), but I have spent exactly 0 time fixing DVD failures, because DVDs don't fail.

 

[eloder]

Yea, I don't know anything about this company but if they dealt with physical DVDs, I have no idea what to even say about how this company so well put into the future (Tesla) has anything to do with something more akin to Blockbuster.

Tesla is also a public company, their finances, cash flow, and everything is extremely well documented. Was this company public?

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I for one would have totally bought into something that allowed high quality 4K/hdr streaming even if I had to start the download the night before I wanted to watch something.

Right now people have 4K TV's that are capable of HDR content and most people are just streaming overly compressed HD content to it. I haven't even picked one up because the OLED ones are too much and there also isn't much content.

It does look like this is what they wanted to do, but they just didn't have enough money to bring it to life.

 

[calisnow]

What is a DVD and Blu-ray player again? Haven't used in years due to being able to just buy or rent digital media and content that we can just stream to the TV's. Times have changed and I wouldn't think that today there would be a viable, yet sustainable market for their business model.

I just don't see a viable market for what they offered. bEverything is on the cloud now

You both may be right about the lack of a large enough viable market, but streaming solutions still do not equal the quality of physical media - Vudu HDX is inferior to Blu Ray and Vudu UHD is not as good as UHD Blu Ray. This mattered only to some film nuts like me with large front projection set-ups. Most people sit far enough back from medium size flat screen TV's that a stream vs a Blu Ray look the same.

Kaleidescape had moved to a movie download service to get with the times, and signed on all 7 studios - and they are/were still the only company in existence with quality equal to physical media - but to get this quality you had to download films to hard drives rather than stream.

If you have a large screen the quality difference between Blu Ray and the best 1080P streams is readily apparent. But - that's the problem - there aren't enough people who care about the incremental quality difference.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Joking?

A dvd is those large black circular disks.
Used to play music

AAhhhhh really?

Yet another use for my horribly designed coasters.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

If you have a large screen the quality difference between Blu Ray and the best 1080P streams is readily apparent. But - that's the problem - there aren't enough people who care about the incremental quality difference.

I had to edit my post because I didn't realize they were working on a bit-by-bit transfer for streaming when they went defunct.

For me the biggest issue is aside from iTunes there seems to be times where the compression on Netflix/amazon just gets way too carried away. It's well beyond me just being picky and well below even DVD levels. Where I have to stop it and then I have to switch to a different streaming device to try again. It doesn't happen all the time, but maybe once or twice a month.

I don't really see any 4K/HDR high quality streaming service with the majority of the studios signed up.

Of course I wouldn't be willing to pay $50 a movie or some crazy amount like that.

I also want a streaming/download service where I can rent at the typical amount ($4.99 or $5.99 or something like that), and then have an option to buy at just the difference.

I'm absolutely positive there is demand in the middle to upper end. Where it's not just a few really obsessed people.

As to the download vs. streaming I think that can be left to the customer. Where the customer can select the level of quality they want. So those of us that want MAX can simply wait for the download.

 

[ohmman]

The other thing worth mentioning is that Kaleidescape was a privately held company while Tesla is public. While public companies can keep plenty of secrets (Enron, anyone?), privately held companies don't have to jump through any hoops to keep their financial woes secret.

 

[dehydratedH2O]

I really don't get what this thread has to do with Tesla. I could post about any mom and pop biz closing up and come up with a way to relate it. And this especially has nothing to do with Model S at all...

 

[calisnow]

Allright folks - I can't hit every thread out of the park. Let's take this one off stage.

 

[Naonak]

I can build a vastly superior system to Kalidescape for under $500. I can't build a superior car to Tesla at pretty much any price. That's the difference. Kalidescape was selling useless technology that pandered to the movie studios out of date business model... they SHOULD go out of business. No business should stay around when it's products are out of date and completely useless and can be replaced with off the shelf, commodity hardware that costs a tiny fraction of what they were selling it for.

 

[omarsultan]

I am familiar with the company. Honestly, I think they were fighting the price curve and its a battle they were never going to win. There was probably a set of customers like yourself where they were the only option, but I think an increasing portion of the target market it was getting harder justifying the cost over much cheaper solutions--$4K buys a lot of 1080P movies on iTunes.

I think I get your point about whether Tesla will run into trouble if their target market is willing to settle for xEVs from existing manufacturers that are "good enough".

So, I think a couple of things: (1) Tesla is pushing down the price curve, not fighting it, and 2) Tesla is pushing the technical edge - Kaleidescape reminds me more of Fisker than it does Tesla.