Kaleidescape, best known for industry skirmishes related to DVD decryption and archival, is out with the new Cinema One. Unlike the rest of Kaleidescape’s product line, the budget priced Cinema One can be picked up at any Best Buy Magnolia outpost for a mere $4k – without the expense or inconvenience or going through their dealer network. Touting a “breakthrough user interface” and “beautiful form factor” the One (not to be confused with the other One) takes a page from Vudu’s initial playbook in offering super high quality movie downloads for purchase. Further, DVD and audio discs can be essentially ripped onto the integrated hard drive for quick browsing and playback. However, if you happen to have a large Blu-ray collection, you’ll need to pick up the D700 Vault for just a couple more thousand dollars to handle licensing verification à la Xbox. Who’s in?
dumb.
Kaleidescape’s downloads are bit-for-bit copies of the blu-ray feature, VUDU’s HDX is format is still compressed, although seemingly less compressed than the other mainstream downloads.
The Cinema One is for people who enjoy investing in their home theater and demand that the content match their installed technology, quite intelligent actually ;).