While this certainly isnt cheap its definitely more affordable than the alternative of buying theKaleidescape Strato C Movie Player.
The included remote is small and simple but gets the job done.
Its great to have the option to scale up the storage, even if you never actually need to.
The new Strato V combines a movie player with built-in 960GB SSD storage – enough to hold 10 movies at a time
Kaleidescape even includes a THX Certified HDMI cable, which is a nice touch.
Once powered up, just follow the onscreen instructions and youll be up and running in no time.
After I selected standalone mode, the activation page appeared.
The Strato V uses wired Ethernet for a network connection; it has no Wi-Fi option
Once youve entered your email address youll receive a confirmation email to activate the player.
Youll obviously need to add your credit card details as well for making purchases from the Kaleidescape Movie Store.
Insert a disc into the drive, and the Strato begins cataloging it.
The Kaleidescape Movie Store features new releases that aren’t yet available on VOD services
Its also worth pointing out that the Strato V runs completely silent and cool in operation.
I found deleting existing films off the internal drive and downloading new ones onto it to be straightforward.
In fact, the larger file sizes mean it can even surpass 4K Blu-rays at times.
A Strato V setup menu page
The audio is equally impressive, with full lossless support for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.
When watching lower-resolution content the picture is clean and well-defined, with no obvious scaling artefacts.
KALEIDESCAPE STRATO V review: Should I buy it?
The Strato V provides detailed info on video and audio formats during playback
If you prefer physically owning content, discs are still your best bet.
if you want to rip discs youre better off buying a media player and storage.
You want a streaming service:This is not a subscription streaming service like Netflix.
This provided me with an opportunity to test every aspect of the store and overall ecosystem.
