Kaleidescape Intros Two New Server Based Blu-ray Players

But just because your Blu-rays are stored digitally doesn't mean you can ditch the disc.

Blu-ray servers are a really cool idea, but they're just not practical for most users yet. The Kaleidescape servers and players are no exception. They seem interesting enough, but the price and limitations really call the whole thing into question.

The Kaleidescape M300 and M500 can both play back Blu-ray content from a Kaleidescape server. The movies stream at 1080p, 24 frames per second, and with bitstream pass-through Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

On the downside, you've got to have the appropriate Blu-ray disc in your player in order to do this. It's a bow to studios, who are concerned about piracy. So while the idea of a centralized storage area for movies is cool, it doesn't actually change the viewing experience in any fundamental way.

The folks at Kaleidescape are working on it though. They're developing a multi-disc loader that should change things up a bit. Until then, you can pick up the M300 and the Blu-ray copying M500 for $2,495 and $3,995 respectively.

Source: Kaleidescape