What Are the Components of a Kaleidescape Media Server?
First of all, a Kaleidescape Media Server is a device, installed by custom installers, which will provides DVD and CD storage as part of a whole house audio video system or high end Home Cinema. The whole system consists of a few different elements and choosing what you need can be slightly confusing without a fair bit of product knowledge.
I have tried to simplify the options below:
The server: The server is the main brains of the system. it is the piece of equipment which holds your DVD’s and CD’s and serves them up as you require them. there are two models a 1U and a 3U, the only difference between them is the number of disks you are able to house. The 1U server will hold 4 disks which equates to about 450 DVD’s or 4950 CD’s (or a mix of the two) whereas the 3U server will hold 14 disks and therefore 1,800 DVD’s or 19,800 CD’s each server has redundancy built in (called KRaid) which enables you to loose one hard drive in the 1U and two hard drives in the 3U server – without losing any films.
Should a hard drive fail the viewer will be completely unaware yet the server will email Kaleidescape HQ and order a replacement for us to install – impressive stuff indeed.
The Movie Player: The Movie players from Kaleidescape also come in two varieties – a Movie Player 1080p and a Mini Movie Player 1080p. The only difference is the big version has the all important drive to upload films to the server. The mini player doesn’t have a drive but, in common with it’s big brother, will take your existing stored DVD collection and upscale them to 1080p. this resolution revitalises your existing films and enables you to enjoy them like never before. The mini player is designed to be small enough to mount behind a TV or side by side in one of our automation racks. Both players have HDMI output as well as Component and Composite video outputs for older displays and a number of audio outputs.
The Music Player: The Kaleidescape Music player has four audio outputs which means you can have four different CD’s playing at once around your home or combine them together for party mode. this unit also has a drive to enable easy importation of music from CD’s. Utilising Kaleidescape Conductor software enables you to export your music (stored on your server at the same quality as the original CD) to iTunes running on a PC. The software converts your music in to MP3 automatically.
Integration with an Automation system: All Kaleidescape components are built from the ground up to be controlled by a Crestron or AMX control system. All the components talk together over Cat5e networking using IP and every component is controllable via TCP/IP. this ensures even if the player or server is housed some distance from the control system then control is straightforward. neat touches such as intermission give us the option to raise lights automatically when a film is paused. it is this attention to detail which makes the Kaleidescape system a pleasure to install and commission.
