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Paul Sweeting

Paul Sweeting is the editor of ContentAgenda.com and a columnist for Video Business. He has covered the home entertainment industries since 1985 for Billboard, Variety, Publishers Weekly and other leading business publications. He is based in Washington, DC.


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Paul Sweeting

Paul Sweeting, Editor
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Kaleidescape in Blu - February 5, 2008

Media Wonk is sure it's a coincidence, but news of Kaleidescape System's plans for a Blu-ray-enabled home server just happened to leak Tuesday, on the eve of the DVD-CCA meeting to discuss managed-copy. According to this post on the official a Kaleidescape owners forum, a new player will be released sometime in 2009 that will play Blu-ray Discs, as well as DVDs, CDs and "content from other sources," presumably a reference to streamed or downloaded content. MW couldn't raise anyone right away at Kaleidescape, but the poster, who claims to have gotten the dope from "Kaleidescape's executive team," said the news will officially be released to Kaleidescape retailers on Wednesday.

Reading between the lines--in particular the time frame and the poster's reference to the possibility that users could be charged a fee for transferring Blu-ray discs--makes Media Wonk wonder if Kaleidescape isn't banking on a licensed managed-copy protocol under the aegis of AACS, the counterpart to DVD-CCA for Blu-ray and HD DVD. The AACS final license remains pending--held up in part by a failure of the parties to agree on the details of managed-copy--but could conceivably be ready by 2009. How Kaleidescape would deal with BD+ is unclear from the post.

At any rate, the news leak has apparently caused a few heads to explode at the DVD-CCA meeting in LA, which no doubt was Kaleidescape's intention. What was shaping up as a rather dull round of jawboning could turn into a fairly lively affair after all.

More to come, I'm sure.
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Josh
February 5, 2008
Response to:
Kaleidescape in Blu

Hi Paul, I'm the administrator of the Kaleidescape Owners' Forum that you reference in your post. I just wanted to correct one thing in your text - you call us the "official Kaleidescape owners forum" and in fact we're completely UNofficial, and not associated in any way with the company (as it clearly states at the top and bottom of each page). I started the site as a place for owners to trade tips and ideas about the system. While we are fortunate to get the occasional news item or nice words from the company, we're not supported by them or connected to them in any official way. Just wanted to clear that up to make sure there's no confusion. Thanks, --Josh Administrator, Kaleidescape Owners' Forum (www.kscapeowners.com)