Kaleidescape or Plex or Both

[Topfox]

Have talked to at least one other member who started with K-scape then happily left for Plex already. Just curious what others think.

I currently have a Plex setup that has grown to over 1.5k movies. There is nothing wrong with it, seems to work fine. However Ive been reading up on K-scape and it has captured my interest. I think what’s drawing me in the most is the store. I’m definitely a buy the disc and rip without compression kind of guy for my own content. So the K-scape store is intriguing to being able to get similar quality, if not better quality, content from a download vs going to a store to buy discs or ordering disc from like Amazon then ripping. Which as of late I’ve had a few incidents where the discs purchased didn’t work. Have always been able to return discs get new ones that did work, but feeling like the stability of disc is going downhill from manufacturers. 
 

Negatives in my eyes is your content is trapped in K-scape. So if you leave the platform you leave behind the content you bought unless Im miss understanding that part. Also wish K-scape had a way I could see before joining their ecosystem what the cost would be to do disc to digital for my existing physical Blu-ray and 4k UHD collection would be. (Approx 300 discs). Some reviews I’ve watched it could be as little as $4 and has high or maybe more as $20. 
 

Again just curious what others think to get a more broad opinion. Not overly concerned with the equipment cost in regard to the feedback. Of course if I buy that would be a concern to find the best deal, but for overall decision I’m not looking at that initial equipment buy as a barrier. 

[Neo1738]

Hard part is what you're using to render the plex videos. I find even with a very strong gaming rig (1200k, 3080ti, and ssd) my computer SOMETIMES has trouble rending full quality blue ray. I probably haven't optimized it (maybe someone here knows what I'm missing) but feel that's a struggle. Could also be my player (using roku to play and PC as server). I think K-scape is a great option to not have to rip movies. 

[bobbay]

A couple of things. 

Disc to digital is only available for 1080pBlurays and older DVDs (and then limited to what is in the store). There is no D2D for 4k UHD discs. Now, a $100 blueray reader plugged into a Strato is all you need to catalog for D2D, very easy and convenient now. 

If you have a kscape system and buy content, you basically own it. Technically it is probably a license, but once it is downloaded to your system, it works even offline. So even if Kscape closes down, if you have it downloaded, the content is there until the drives blow up. The only issue here is if you fill a server and can't add more content you can delete old content from your server to download new content and then it lives in your account until you want to download it again. At that point, if kscape were to close you could lose content.

IMO, other than the hardware cost, there is no better way to consume content than Kscape. As good or better video quality than disc. Way better than streaming. Mostly better audio quality than disc. Discs are limited to maybe 60ish gigs of data, Kscape files are as big as they need to be. Audio quality from streaming to kscape is so much better it is ridiculous. Streaming audio is like a transistor radio compared to the kscape audio. (and most 4k discs are close) 

Anyway my 2 cents

[JSTRONG]

Kaleidescape is not going anywhere. They have billions of $ backing them and support of nearly every studio and soon will have almost all movies. Physical media is going away, so it’s either streaming or Kaleidescape.  Yes, as mentioned , adding the ability to use your own Blu-ray drive to catalog your collection makes it a lot easier for you to buy movies from the store for as little as $1.99. 
 

 

[Topfox]

That was a good point. I didn’t really think about. If you stop buying it doesn’t mean you lose your content, you just have to keep the kscape equipment you have working. I’ll have to check if my 4k uhd discs have Blu-ray Discs. Would hate to lose that investment since as mentioned you can’t currently catalog 4k discs. 

[Topfox]

5 hours ago, Neo1738 said:

Hard part is what you're using to render the plex videos. I find even with a very strong gaming rig (1200k, 3080ti, and ssd) my computer SOMETIMES has trouble rending full quality blue ray. I probably haven't optimized it (maybe someone here knows what I'm missing) but feel that's a struggle. Could also be my player (using roku to play and PC as server). I think K-scape is a great option to not have to rip movies. 

I haven’t had any issues with my stuff. I’m running Plex on a synology ds918+. I use both Nvidia Shields and second gen FireTV Cubes. However one thing I do have to do is ensure I select the correct audio track or I have issues. Ex in my theater I can play Atmos tracks, but if I stream the same movie on a TV that is not Atmos enabled I do get video play back issues. If I switch to a lesser audio track the video streams without issue. Something to try if you rips have multiple audio tracks. 

[ekohn00]

15 hours ago, Neo1738 said:

Hard part is what you're using to render the plex videos. I find even with a very strong gaming rig (1200k, 3080ti, and ssd) my computer SOMETIMES has trouble rending full quality blue ray. I probably haven't optimized it (maybe someone here knows what I'm missing) but feel that's a struggle. Could also be my player (using roku to play and PC as server). I think K-scape is a great option to not have to rip movies. 

Try making sure you're using direct play with plex. You shouldn't have a problem at all.

[LollerAgent]

2 hours ago, ekohn00 said:

Try making sure you're using direct play with plex. You shouldn't have a problem at all.

This.  You need to figure out why you're transcoding in the first place.  Once that is fixed, you won't have issues.

[Neo1738]

Thanks for the tips.