Kaleidescape, Inc. is bringing its high-end home theater experience to a broader audience with the all-new Cinema One. 

The Cinema One comes in a beautiful form factor that is easy to set up in any family room or existing home theater, and is the company’s first product designed for retail distribution. (For blogger John Sciacca’s thoughts on the new offering,click here).

Cinema One lets consumers store and instantly access up to 100 Blu-ray or 600 DVD-quality movies in the highest audio and video quality available. With this new form factor and price, the renowned Kaleidescape Experience is no longer limited to just high-end custom installations.

“Magnolia has been demonstrating the Kaleidescape System in the theaters of our design centers for years,” said Bill Beverley, vice president of retail sales, Magnolia Audio/Video. “But until now, Kaleidescape’s products have been installed in large home theaters and whole-home integrated audio/video systems. With Cinema One, we can now offer the same experience in a simple-to-install and easy-to-use movie server to anyone who wants to have a truly theatrical movie experience.”

Cinema One provides a better home theater experience by letting viewers watch their Blu-ray and DVD movies without the delays of previews, menus or ads. Cinema One connects to any home automation system. So when you press Play, the lights go down, the masking is set, and the movie starts instantly, creating a truly theatrical movie experience. And with the unique CinemaScape video-processing mode, Cinema One is the best source devices available for a 2.35 home theater.

A second Cinema One can be added to double the storage capacity and enable viewing of the combined library on a second television. And a three-year standard limited warranty ensures customers can enjoy their movies worry-free. 

With Cinema One, viewers can download movies directly from the Kaleidescape Store, which offers movie downloads with the same audio/video fidelity of Blu-ray discs. Downloads include all special features, audio tracks and extra content otherwise available only on the physical disc. 

“Today, Blu-ray discs are the reference standard for the discerning viewer, but they’re not as convenient as streaming,” said Doug Blackburn of Widescreen Review. “The Kaleidescape Store is currently the only way to download movies with precisely the same audio/video fidelity as Blu-ray. With Cinema One, anyone looking for the ultimate home theater experience without the inconvenience of physical discs will find Kaleidescape to be the best possible option for a theater system that will impress the owner, family and friends.”

The Kaleidescape Experience is powered by the company’s comprehensive Movie Guide, which contains nearly a quarter million titles. As viewers browse their collection, the onscreen user interface highlights similar films based on genre, director, actors and more. Kaleidescape experts have handpicked thousands of the most memorable scenes in films, concerts and musicals so viewers can jump directly to the best parts of their favorite movies.

“The excellent video displays and sound systems found in homes today create a real need for a device that makes it easy to instantly view Blu-ray quality movies,” said Michael Malcolm, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Kaleidescape. “High-capacity hard disk drives, increasing Internet bandwidth, and the new Kaleidescape Store have made it possible to deliver the Kaleidescape Experience to anyone who enjoys watching movies at home.”

Cinema One is the first component in Kaleidescape’s new Cinema line, designed for smaller systems and featuring simple onscreen setup. The flagship Kaleidescape product line—which can serve collections of any size to a virtually unlimited number of rooms using rack-mountable hardware—is now called the Premiere line, and is intended for professional custom installation.

The California 6th District Court of Appeal has granted Kaleidescape’s petition for a stay of the injunction issued by the lower court in its legal proceedings with the DVD Copy Control Association. As a result, Kaleidescape will be able to continue manufacturing and selling Kaleidescape Systems with its current features while the appeal is pending.

Kaleidescape’s Disc Vault for Blu-ray discs 

The California 6th District Court of Appeal granted Kaleidescape’s petition for a writ of supersedeas on July 20, 2012. The writ stays the injunction that was issued by the Superior Court. 

Like all manufacturers of DVD players, Kaleidescape has a license to use the Content Scramble System (CSS) from the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA). CSS is the method used to scramble video and audio data on DVDs. In 2004, the DVD CCA sued Kaleidescape for breach of contract, claiming the Kaleidescape System violates the CSS license agreement because it copies DVDs to hard disks and enables playback without the DVD disc being present.

On March 29, 2007, Judge Leslie C. Nichols of the California Superior Court ruled that Kaleidescape was in full compliance with the CSS license agreement. As part of his statement of decision, Judge Nichols noted Kaleidescape’s good faith in its efforts to ensure that its products were fully compliant.

The DVD CCA appealed, and on August 12, 2009, the California 6th District Court of Appeal remanded the matter back to the trial court.

On March 8, 2012, Judge William J. Monahan of the California Superior Court ruled in favor of the DVD CCA and issued an injunction (that did not come into effect) that states that any Kaleidescape System sold after the effective date of the injunction should not play a DVD from a copy on hard disk.