Media servers are not all created equal, and Kaleidescape’s Cinema One Media Server proves that once and for all. It’s easy to see why it won a 2014 Red Dot product design award, when you consider the quality of the product.
If you are looking for a cheap media server option, this is not the product for you. The price point is around $4000.
If you want to assemble your own media server, this is also not the product for you. You can do-it-yourself for much cheaper.
But if you want an incredible media server that can be easily installed and play your media with high-fidelity sound and immaculate picture quality, this is the product for you.
Cinema One can import all types of disks from CD to Blu-Ray, and will store up to 100 Blu-Ray or 600 DVD quality movies. Additionally, this media server will catalog your library in an easy-to-use interface. Finally, and perhaps most impressively, you can download Blu-Ray quality movies from the Kaleidescape Store directly to your Cinema One Media Server.
If so inclined, you could link two in two separate rooms to not only double the available storage to one combined library, but also to have the added bonus of pausing a movie in one room to resume it later in another room exactly where you left off minutes to days later.
The company, Kaleidescape, has been making high-end media servers since 2001, making Cinema One a step-down in price, though certainly not quality for them. One major drawback to Blu-Ray storage is that the physical disc has to be present in the machine to play the movie. This is directly because of a legal battle over importing DVDs that the company has been embroiled in recently. The server will still catalog Blu-Ray movies in your list; they just won’t playback without the disc.
The bottom-line on this media server: If you are in the market for a high quality media server that you can easily navigate with the added bonus of an online store for Blu-Ray quality movies, then this could be the one for you.
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*Photo credit Kaleidescape