12 Sep Online Home Theater – Improve Your Movie Quality
Online Home Theater
Why do the movies that I pay-per-view or buy On Demand look and sound below par? How can I get a true “online home theater”?
The broadcast suppliers are to blame. This includes Comcast, Verizon, Direct TV, Dish, and Optimum. All of those broadcast services stream the video content that you have ordered on demand. The process of providing movies, TV shows, music, etc. on demand can only be accomplished by streaming them, which is a different method of delivery than the standard content that is being broadcast. In order to stream content the broadcast companies must compress the audio and video signal so that it will be able to travel in real time over the internet from them to you. There is still no reliable way to stream 4K or even 1080P high-definition video images without significant compression. The same holds true for the audio signal. The most advanced Dolby Digital surround sound signals and high-performance audio also require more bandwidth than streaming will allow, which results in the audio signal being compressed. The results of this compression on picture quality are a tile effect, moray patterns, fuzzy image, jitter, and digital motion artifacts. The audio signal is also degraded, with the dynamic range and frequency response both being reduced from compression. This means that normally impressive sounding movie soundtracks will sound homogenized. Or better put, like an old AM radio broadcast.
The better the quality of your online home theater system, the more noticeable the compression effects will be. Luckily, there are some options for our friends and clients to get more out of the video content that they are paying for.
Apple TV and Roku are both steaming video and audio content with less compression than the rest. So either of those products can be purchased and installed as a new source for your online home theater for you to enjoy. Neither of these look or sound as good as a Blue Ray disc, but they are a step in the right direction for a minimum investment.
The ultimate solution is a Kaleidescape Alto or Strato movie player. The Kaleidescape components connect to your online home theater system and are installed in the same rack as the rest of the gear. They can serve one TV or many, throughout the home. The movie content can be purchased and then owned by you. The movie and concert titles will reside in the Kaleidescape hard drive and arrive there from downloads over the internet. The selection and purchase of movies and concerts can be made from the online Kaleidescape movie store. It is easy to use and every movie studio is participating, but best of all, there is absolutely no compression applied to the content.
That means that 4K HDR content and 1080P content look incredible. It takes about two hours from the time you place your order till the content arrives in your Kaleidescape hard drive, but after you download them, you own them. So you can watch them any time and as many times as you want. There is currently no better way to watch a movie or a concert video. Kaleidescape provides the ultimate online home theater experience.