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Kaleidescape, Inc., creator of the movie server product category, today announced shipment of the industry’s first Blu-ray movie server. The Kaleidescape System stores exact copies of your Blu-ray Discs on its hard drives, and transforms your collection of movies into a magical experience. Kaleidescape’s simple and elegant user interface makes choosing something to watch part of the fun.
“Blu-ray offers the highest fidelity for my discerning clients, but if you thought watching a DVD was frustrating, just try a Blu-ray Disc,” said Jeff Cherun, owner of Teatro Custom Installation, Inc. in Los Angeles, California. “With the Kaleidescape System you’re enjoying any of your Blu-ray movies in seconds instead of minutes. My customers will never go back to an ordinary Blu-ray player.”
The Kaleidescape Movie Guide enables an unparalleled movie-watching experience. High resolution cover art combined with a brief synopsis of each film and many other details make it entertaining to explore your collection of movies. Video bookmarks and triggers enable the system to start a movie instantly and automatically adjust lighting, curtains and screen masking during playback. With over 145,000 titles, Kaleidescape’s exclusive Movie Guide is the largest database of its kind.
“The simplicity and elegance that we have achieved for watching Blu-ray movies required significant hardware and software innovation, legal analysis and user interface design,” said Michael Malcolm, Kaleidescape’s founder, chairman and CEO. “My family and I enjoy the freedom to jump to a favorite scene in a movie or to any song in a concert. For the first time, all of our Blu-ray movies are literally at our fingertips, at any screen in our home.”
The new Kaleidescape Modular Disc Vault completes the Kaleidescape Blu-ray movie server. Paired with a Kaleidescape M-Class player, the disc vault imports, houses, and organizes your Blu-ray Discs. The copies stored on the server are then ready for instant playback. With a capacity of 100 discs, the Modular Disc Vault simplifies ownership by automating the import process. Any number of Modular Disc Vaults may be added to a system, but each must be connected to its own M-Class player.
The Modular Disc Vault is priced at $1,495 MSRP in the United States and Canada, and is available now. The M500 Player and M300 Player have been shipping since May 2010 and are priced at $3,995 and $2,495 MSRP, respectively, in the United States and Canada. Any Kaleidescape System can be upgraded to be a Blu-ray movie server with the addition of an M-Class player and a Modular Disc Vault.

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How much television do you watch? Now, how much television do you watch on your television? If you’re like me you don’t have time for such pesky things as TV schedules and minutes-long commercial breaks. In this day in age the Internet is king, and the king mandated that we the people shall get some TV whenever we want it.

As of last week, change that mandate from some to all: One the world’s largest cable service providers, Comcast, has bought NBC. You know, NBC! Aka the NATIONAL Broadcasting Company, aka the parent network of CNBC, Bravo and USA (among many others). With this merger, a big, drooling, fire-breathing, Chuck-Norrising, monster, behemoth has been born.

Comcast is the largest ISP (internet service provider) with nearly 20 million subscribers, and NBC, is well, NBC. So what’s so special about this merger? I’ll put it this way: Not only does Comcast not control the tubes that connect us all, they can control what flows through those tubes (in terms of digital entertainment).

Now, there are two camps probably forming at this point. On one side we have the “WTF Comcast?! Way to go and destroy my Net Neutrality dreams!” camp, and on the other side we have the “Woohoo! I’m so pumped because now I will have more access to all my favorite hit NBC shows like Community, The Office and 30 Rock (it’s comedy night done right, starting tonight at 8:30! Am I right NBC? That pitch was free, the next one won’t be)!

The latter camp has good reason to be excited. Today, no one pays attention to the schedules TV stations set up because God gave us things like Tivo and Hulu. When we want our entertainment, we get it. This Comcast-NBC deal will make this even more true than it already is.

Though this is exciting, I do also sympathize with the “WTF?!” camp. Comcast controlling what entertainment you consume means that it is the decider. Want to catch some Leno? No problem! “Here you go”, Comcast will say, “watch as much Jay as you want!” Now should you have the nerve to watch Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, well Comcast may very well be to say “You want Kimmel? OK. As long as you pay us, not a problem.” I think I just got a shiver down my spine, because that could be one dark future.

Having to pay to watch Jimmy Kimmel, may be a scary notion, but you could come out from under the covers for a little bit, because nothing has actually been set yet. Thankfully you live in the United States of Insanely-complex-government-system-rica, and it likely will not be another year until you actually see the full effects of this merger. There’s the FCC, the FTC, the Justice Department and who knows who else that needs to approve this merger. This merger will be a hot topic in parts of Washington over the next year, and could seriously shake up how we get our Conan in a year’s time. Speaking of Conan, check out his take on this merger in a clip from The Tonight Show!

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