Kaleidescape Launches Terra Prime Movie Server with Massive 96TB Storage

Kaleidescape, the maker of high-end movie servers and players, has announced the largest server offering in its history, the Terra Prime 96 terabyte movie server ($26,995). Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Kaleidescape builds its products in the USA. The 96 TB Terra Prime server can hold 1,600 Kaleidescape high-bitrate 4K movies. If your collection isn’t quite that massive, the company is also launching a new 72 TB option ($20,995), which holds 1,200 4K movies. The 48TB version stores approximately 800 4K movies. (The Terra Prime 96TB and 72TB servers replace the existing 88TB server.) Kaleidescape says that its servers are custom-designed and manufactured for reliable performance. They run on a designed-in-house Kaleidescape Operating System (kOS), of which “all of the major components, including the file system, RAID-K, the process structure, the networking architecture, security architecture, and video management software are proprietary,” according to the company. The software is developed, managed, and controlled internally with automatic updates, providing what the company calls “the best experience of any movie server on the market.”

The Kaleidescape movie server and player products are part of an ecosystem that includes an online store where users can rent or purchase movies. Prices vary, and there are often multiple resolution options to choose from. For those with large disc-based movie collections, Kaleidescape also offers a “Disc-to-Digital” program, which allows customers to transition their DVD and Blu-ray disc collections to digital on Kaleidescape without having to repurchase every movie at full price. (If money is no object, Kaleidescape’s Ultimate 4K System includes two Terra Prime 96TB movie servers loaded with every 4K title available on the Kaleidescape movie store at the time of shipment. It will ONLY set you back about $100K.) Last year, Kaleidescape's Vice President of Engineering, James Kleist, explained the Disc-to-Digital program to avnirvana.com. “The depth of the discount varies depending on the resolution you choose to buy it in and the offers permitted by studio licensing agreements,” explained Kleist. “For example, cataloging a DVD may give you a Disc-to-Digital offer on the 4K digital version provided the offer is available by the studio.”

The Terra Prime servers feature an all-new board design with faster processing power, faster network connectivity, and thus faster movie downloads and overall system performance, according to Kaleidescape. The company says that the Terra Prime is the only dedicated movie server with 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet. The servers are also equipped with enterprise-class hard disk drives for rock-solid performance and reliability. The Terra Prime HDD can reportedly download a Kaleidescape high-bitrate 4K movie in as little as eight minutes, assuming your home internet speeds are up to snuff.

Kaleidescape True Reference Video Quality and Lossless Audio

One of the major benefits to Kaleidescape’s store is that it has some titles available in 4K HDR that aren't available on 4K Blu-ray. Kaleidescape is also the only digital provider of movies with lossless audio and full reference video quality — something NO streaming service can match. Audio and video bitrates are approximately ten times higher than typical streamer rates, according to Kaleidescape. The only downside to Kaleidescape’s content is that HDR is limited to the universal HDR10 format — there’s no HDR10+ or Dolby Vision. Still, I’d take a lossless HDR10 video over heavily-compressed Dolby Vision any day. On the plus side, the Terra Prime servers don’t limit you to watching in one room; the full-size servers (about the size of a Blu-ray player) serve up to 10 simultaneous playback zones. The company also makes more compact servers, which can be formatted with either 8TB or 22TB of hard disk storage. These can serve up to five simultaneous playback zones. The 22TB configuration stores about 350 Kaleidescape fidelity 4K movies, and the 8TB holds a respectable 130 4K movies. All movies are stored securely and protected by cloud backup. Audioholics president Gene DellaSala is fortunate enough to be testing the 8TB version right now, and will be reporting back shortly with his findings. Although the enterprise-class hard drives used by Kaleidescape are fast and reliable, the company also offers a solid-state version of the Terra Prime. The Terra Prime SSD servers are available in 8TB and 31TB configurations, and are ideal for certain applications, such as marine installations, and state-of-the-art facilities equipped with 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet (or higher) and the need to serve multiple playback zones.

Kaleidescape continues to innovate, delivering hardware improvements and frequent automatic software updates, to enrich customers’ movie-watching experience. These new servers enable customers to build robust libraries encompassing movies, TV series, and concerts, with lossless audio and full reference video.

— Tayloe Stansbury, Chairman & CEO of Kaleidescape

More information: Kaleidescape

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