Kaleidescape Strato E

Introduction

Kaleidescape is a brand well known and respected for providing a high-end media system that allows movie fans to download and playback movies, TV shows and more in the highest possible quality. The Strato E is its most enticing and consumer-friendly product yet.

This media player supports resolutions up to 4K, various HDR formats – including Dolby Vision – and has access to a packed movie store to download titles from.

The Strato E arrives as the mid-level system from Kaleidescape, sitting alongside the flagship 4K Strato V ($4495 / £5389) and the 2K Strato M ($1995 / £2395).

At $3395/ £3395, the Strato E isn’t going to be labelled affordable by anyone, but it is more attainable when compared to the brand’s other products that offer this sort of high-end skillset. If you want the best, you’re going to have to pay for it.

Design

• Compact unit that can be mounted or hidden away
• Silent and cool
• The included remote is a little basic

The Strato E is a fairly diminutive box, although it certainly stands out compared to something like the Apple TV 4K.

This is an industrial-looking box, with sharp metal corners and a steel body. On top of the box, there are slits, which let you gaze inside, and a blue light shines through during setup to signify that there is power coming into the unit.

Of course, these slits aren’t purely visual – they allow the unit to stay cool and well ventilated, and this ensures it stays pretty much silent during operation.

Throughout the testing process, I didn’t once notice any noise coming from the box, and this includes during setup and when large movie files are downloading. It remained perfectly cool to the touch, so the design and ventilation are clearly doing their job.

Around the back of the unit, you’ll find the ports: HDMI, Ethernet (which is required, as there’s no Wi–Fi), power and a USB Type A port. This port can be used to attach accessories, although it wasn’t something I used during testing.

The front is simple. There’s some Kaleidescape branding, and very little else. It feels like this box is meant to be hidden away, either put behind a media unit or mounted (something that’s easy to do), rather than having it on show. Considering what this machine is capable of, and looking back at some of the brand’s older products, it is impressively small.

I’d even call it portable. Load it up with films, pack it away and then plug it into the television at a holiday home or rental. The small form-factor also makes it easy to move between rooms, something I did quite a lot throughout the course of the review.

My biggest criticism of the whole unit is the remote. It’s a cheap-feeling affair, with rubbery buttons. Granted, it does the basics – and I assume many who invest in a system like this will simply replace it with a smarter remote, or use the excellent mobile app – but it doesn’t feel like it belongs with such a pricey, high-end bit of kit. There’s no backlight – something we noted in our Strato V review – and no way to charge it. You’ll need a set of AAA batteries.

Features

• A 480GB SSD is enough for around five movies
• Lossless audio
• Dolby Vision support

There are likely two groups of people reading this review. Those who baulked at the price and instantly wondered why someone would pay such a high price for a box to watch movies on, when an Apple TV 4K is a fraction of the price, and those who instantly knew what to expect.

While the Strato E is expensive compared to some of the best streaming boxes on the market, it’s affordable compared to previous products from the brand.

Before I delve into the specs, it’s worth just making it clear what the Strato E is – and just as important, what it isn’t.

This isn’t a box for streaming movies, downloading Netflix and the like. Instead, it gives you access to the Kaleidescape Movie Store, where you can buy or rent and then download movies (and some TV shows) onto the Strato E’s 480GB SSD.

It is designed to act as a high-end media player, one that can deliver the best video and audio around. It supports resolutions up to 4K and frame rates up to 60. It also supports high dynamic range codecs like HDR10 and Dolby Vision, plus lossless audio including Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.

Unlike physical media, there are no restrictions on how large the movie files are and unlike streaming services, there is no worrying about low bit rates that seriously hamper quality. All the files are downloaded, so once the movie is ready, there’s no worrying about buffering. The single focus here is to offer the best home movie-watching experience, and the Strato E delivers.

As this is the most affordable Kaleidescape player, there are sacrifices. The biggest is the size of the internal SSD, which at 480GB is a on the small side. To give it some context, movie files here are very large, often around 80GB if you’re downloading full 4K files, so at one time you’re only going to be able to store maybe four or five titles on the unit. Of course, once you’ve bought and paid for a title, you can delete it and redownload it again if you wish.

While the SSD is small, I didn’t find it as much of a burden as I had initially expected. When I first got the Strato E going, I downloaded five movies, worked my way through them and then deleted them as I went. I’m not the sort of person who will watch the same film over and over, and thanks to the fast Ethernet connection, downloading movies again once they have been deleted won’t be too time-consuming.

If you want more space, you can pair the Strato E with one of Kaleidescape’s Terra Prime servers. These are far from cheap (prices start around $6955 / £5900 for a 12TB model), but if you have the money, they will let you store your entire movie collection offline. For me, though, having a few movies available at once is absolutely fine.

User Experience

• Smartly designed UI
• Requires a connection
• Movie selection is better in some regions than others

Setting up the Strato E is very simple, although there is one notable caveat. You need a Ethernet connection to get going, as there’s no Wi-Fi onboard. This might cause some issues for those who need to do some rewiring or movement to get things started, but if you’ve already got an Ethernet port near your TV, you’re set.

There’s a THX-certified HDMI cable included, and once everything is plugged in, you’re walked through a simple setup process that includes creating an account and getting your player registered. These initial steps are where you would connect to an existing system if you’re already decked out in Kaleidescape gear, or simply set it up as a new player – as I did.

I’d say it took me less than twenty minutes to go from unboxing the Strato E to getting ready to download my first movie. Unless you really want to delve into the weeds, the player will also set all the correct video and audio settings for your connected display, and I left everything at their default settings.

Another feature that’ll interest those with huge DVD/Blu-ray collections is the ability to have the Strato E read discs. You’ll need to provide your own drive (attached via the USB port on the back), and this isn’t for direct playback, but once a movie is scanned, you’ll be offered the chance to buy and download it (if it’s in the store) at a typically reduced price.

The whole UI revolves around movies, and it’s been designed as simply as possible. Everything is fast and responsive, with very little waiting for things to load.

Movies are downloaded from the store, and what titles are available to you will vary depending on your region. This isn’t down to Kaleidescape as such, but rather the studio agreements it has in place within different regions.

I tested the Strato E both in the USA and the UK, and the store in the States is packed with a lot more content. For instance, Kaleidescape doesn’t have an agreement to host Disney titles on the UK store, so there are no Marvel, Star Wars or 20th Century Studios titles. The UK store is by no means sparse, but there are gaps.

Within the store, titles are clearly labelled with which formats they are available in (4K, Dolby Vision, etc), and again, this varies by region. For instance, in the States, The Brutalist is available in 4K, whereas in the UK it tops out at HD.

Titles arrive on the store typically at the same time as other premium on-demand services, like Apple’s Movie Store, and this is usually sooner than they arrive on 4K Blu-ray.

However, prices of content (something once again set by the publisher, not Kaleidescape) are higher than other services and more in line with 4K disc prices. For instance, One Battle After Another costs £29.99 to buy on Kaleidescape and £19.99 on iTunes. There are frequent sales though, and there are bargains to be had. I grabbed Nosferatu for £6.99, for example.

The Kaleidescape Store can be accessed on the box, the mobile app or online. You can set stuff to be downloaded from anywhere, and it’s you can also manage the internal storage of the Stato E from these places too. I mostly used the mobile app to initiate downloads, and this is a great way to browse new releases too.

Performance

• Stunning 4K image
• Immersive HDR representation
• Lossless audio

The Kaleidescape experience is fantastic, right from the process of downloading a movie to finding it within your library and then playing it back.

Downloaded items are laid out with their artwork front and centre, and it’s almost like going through a cabinet of Blu-rays as you browse through. Downloaded movies are split into different sections, including titles that are paused, those that are unwatched and ones that have been rented as opposed to purchased.

Click on a film and you’re very visibly shown the formats it’s been downloaded in, along with a quick scene selection tool. Nothing is complicated, and there’s absolutely no learning curve to getting to grips with the system.

Downloading something to watch is easy, although how long an item takes to download will really depend on your internet connection. These movie files are very large, so if you’re on a slow connection, it’s probably best to set it to download and then do something else while it gets to work. 

Thankfully, I live in London and have fast 1 Gbps speeds, so a download of No Time to Die took just over 15 minutes to complete.

I’ve been glowing about the Kaleidescape experience so far, but really, this box lives or dies by the quality of the audio and video it can output. If it’s no better than streaming, then what’s the point?

I was a little sceptical to begin with, but wow – if you want the single best way to watch films without building up a huge collection of discs, this is it. I tested six films to begin with – including Midsommar, Nosferatu, No Time to Die, Weapons and The Empire Strikes Back – comparing them to a stream of the same title on an Apple TV 4K.

The difference was huge, with the picture quality from the Strato E noticeably better in every way.  The HDR reproduction was fantastic in every instance, and the picture was much cleaner than streaming. The audio experience is equally impressive, although this depends on your setup. I would assume most people investing in a product like this already have a high-end system, and if you do, you’ll benefit from a lossless audio experience like you would with a disc.

Should you buy it?