Kaleidescape’s movie player blows streaming, and your wallet, away
Kaleidescape’s movie player blows streaming, and your wallet, away
Kaleidescape 电影播放器：震撼流媒体体验，但也会掏空你的钱包
The Strato E combines the convenience of streaming and the quality of Blu-ray without discs — at a high cost. Strato E 结合了流媒体的便捷性与蓝光光盘的画质，且无需实体光盘——但代价高昂。
We’ve lost something in the past 15 years. Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple; they’ve all convinced us that streaming is the best way to watch movies and shows at home. With everything at our fingertips, there’s no need to run to Blockbuster for the weekend’s entertainment, or wait for a DVD rental to arrive in the mail. And going to the movie theater is a luxury — one that keeps getting more expensive. 在过去的 15 年里，我们失去了一些东西。Netflix、亚马逊、迪士尼、苹果；它们都让我们相信流媒体是居家观看电影和节目的最佳方式。一切触手可及，我们无需再为了周末的娱乐跑去百视达（Blockbuster），也不必等待 DVD 邮寄到家。而走进电影院已成为一种奢侈——而且这种奢侈正变得越来越昂贵。
But we were, all of us, deceived. We traded quality for convenience. And while TVs have improved drastically, we feed them inadequate, bitrate-starved, internet-throttled streams that won’t let our fancy screens show their full potential. Blu-ray sales have plummeted, and even though 4K Blu-ray sales went up slightly last year, they’re never returning to what they were. Throughout all of that, I’ve always known there was a better way. 但我们所有人都被误导了。我们用画质换取了便捷。尽管电视技术已大幅提升，但我们喂给它们的却是码率不足、受限于网络带宽的流媒体内容，这使得我们昂贵的屏幕无法发挥出全部潜力。蓝光光盘销量暴跌，尽管去年 4K 蓝光销量略有回升，但已无法重回巅峰。在这一切过程中，我始终坚信还有更好的选择。
Kaleidescape gets movie files directly from the studios, encodes them at reference quality, and makes them available for download to its high-end media players and servers. They offer 4K Blu-ray quality, or better, without a disc, and the ease of streaming without the quality loss. But they’ve always been expensive — so expensive that even in my 20 years of reviewing AV systems I’ve never had the chance to use one. They’ve been the purview of pricey, custom-installed home theater spaces. But now, Kaleidescape has released its most affordable 4K movie player yet. Although, at $2,995, the term affordable is extremely relative. Kaleidescape 直接从电影制片厂获取电影文件，以参考级质量进行编码，并提供下载至其高端媒体播放器和服务器。它们无需光盘即可提供 4K 蓝光甚至更佳的画质，同时拥有流媒体的便捷，且不会损失画质。但它们一直非常昂贵——昂贵到即使在我从事影音系统评测的 20 年里，也从未有机会使用过。它们一直属于昂贵的定制家庭影院空间。但现在，Kaleidescape 发布了其迄今为止最实惠的 4K 电影播放器。尽管 2,995 美元的价格，让“实惠”这个词显得极其相对。
The Strato E isn’t a streaming device. It has a built-in 480GB solid-state drive, which is enough to store five to six 4K movies, plus a USB port and an HDMI 2.1 port that handles both audio and video output. What makes Kaleidescape unique is that it’s not constrained by bitrate in the same way as streaming or even Blu-ray can be. 4K UHD discs have a maximum bitrate of 144Mbps, although most discs are limited to 128Mbps. That maximum is most important for movies with lots of action and detail, like Top Gun: Maverick, although even Maverick won’t be at that maximum for the entire movie. Strato E 并非流媒体设备。它内置了一块 480GB 的固态硬盘，足以存储五到六部 4K 电影，此外还配备了一个 USB 接口和一个负责音视频输出的 HDMI 2.1 接口。Kaleidescape 的独特之处在于，它不像流媒体甚至蓝光光盘那样受到码率的限制。4K UHD 光盘的最大码率为 144Mbps，尽管大多数光盘限制在 128Mbps。对于像《壮志凌云 2：独行侠》这样充满动作和细节的电影来说，这一最大码率至关重要，尽管即使是《独行侠》也不会在整部电影中都保持该最高码率。
The average throughput for a title on 4K Blu-ray is around 50Mbps. The max throughput on most streaming services is significantly lower — usually around 20Mbps — with an average of under 10Mbps. Sony Pictures Core, which has a max bitrate of 80Mbps, is an exception, but it’s only available on Sony devices. Compression can add artifacts to the signal, which can visually show as color banding or a loss of detail, especially in dark scenes, and can limit the dynamic range and spatiality of the audio. 4K 蓝光电影的平均传输速率约为 50Mbps。大多数流媒体服务的最大传输速率要低得多——通常在 20Mbps 左右——平均值甚至不到 10Mbps。索尼的 Sony Pictures Core 是个例外，其最大码率为 80Mbps，但仅限于索尼设备使用。压缩会给信号带来伪影，在视觉上表现为色彩断层或细节丢失（尤其是在暗部场景中），并可能限制音频的动态范围和空间感。
Against streaming, the Strato E was a big improvement in almost all situations. The spice-laden sand of Dune sparkled, and there was more devastatingly handsome detail in Oscar Isaac’s face than in the streamed version from HBO Max. When Paul first encounters Shai-Hulud in the darkness of the desert planet, the stream’s shadow detail gets crushed, and there can be banding artifacts from the compression. But because of the higher bitrate, the Kaleidescape doesn’t have those issues. Even though the scene is dark, the great worm is visible in the shadows. Compression artifacts inevitably pull me out of the story and the action, so when the image stays pristine, I’m able to stay immersed in the movie. It’s the great benefit of Kaleidescape: supporting the storytelling by faithfully presenting the material. 与流媒体相比，Strato E 在几乎所有情况下都有显著提升。《沙丘》中充满香料的沙子闪闪发光，奥斯卡·伊萨克脸上的细节比 HBO Max 流媒体版本更加清晰动人。当保罗在沙漠星球的黑暗中第一次遇到沙虫（Shai-Hulud）时，流媒体的暗部细节被压缩得模糊不清，且可能出现压缩带来的色彩断层。但由于更高的码率，Kaleidescape 不存在这些问题。即使场景很暗，巨大的沙虫在阴影中依然清晰可见。压缩伪影不可避免地会让我从剧情和动作中出戏，因此当画面保持纯净时，我能够沉浸在电影中。这就是 Kaleidescape 的巨大优势：通过忠实呈现素材来支持叙事。