Cool new tech.
My buddy Nik from work left us about 3 months ago on a mysterious mission in outer tech-ville. His new job was top secret hush hush. I didn't know a thing about what he was actually doing until I checked out kaleidescape.com today and got a glimpse of the future. Well, I'm not sure this version of the future deserves bold and italics, but it's futuristic.
They're taking the iTunes/iPod/Streaming approach to your home DVD library. It's a very high end system consisting of a "Kaleidescape server" that's a black box containing a RAID-5 array of hard disks (think terabytes) and 100-base-T networking cable to lots of "Kaleidescape receivers" throughout your house. You can browse your entire movie library, including movie reviews, and watch any of your movies on any TV hooked up to a kaleidescape receiver. You get DVDs into the receiver in the first place by loading them one-at-a-time into the "DVD Reader."
That's some pretty sweet shit, although they advertise it as "high-end" so you can bet it'll cost at least a few grand. And who's got 100-base-T laying around their house? Probably eleven millionaires do. But I like this direction. I've been wishing Apple would take this direction with the iPod - imagine a 30GB iPod, maybe big enough to stash 4-5 raw DVDs, with an S-Video port and a stereo out jack. mmmm... copyrights....
Next week: Kaleidescape vs. Tivo in a blowout!
Posted by Ethan at June 30, 2003 08:41 PMThat looks fucking amazing. I didn't know I needed it until I saw it a few minutes ago, but I do. It will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine.
As for an iPod, I'm sure the next iteration or two will incorporate, at the very least, quicktime and mpeg4 playback. With some basic compression (VirtualDub) you can get a crapload of movies on an iPod with some sort of video out.
Posted by: Kones on July 1, 2003 06:52 AMkoniak
you only have 1 TV (albeit HUGE) in your apartment, which only has 2 rooms, why the hell do you need a distribution system for video content?
And yeah, the thing does need to be glued to Tivo-like functionality while they're at it... Then you just wire every room for 100bt inSTEAD of coax + phone.
ip everything? good luck making a phone call during your california blackouts, hippy techies.
Posted by: adam on July 1, 2003 08:42 AMUnofficial installation estimate from "my friend" is $20,000.
Posted by: Ethan on July 1, 2003 10:19 AMbun, you speak to me as if logic applies, when you know as well as I that pretty lights and hardware waved in front of my face make me drool like a Pavlovian dog . . .
Posted by: Kones on July 1, 2003 10:45 AM