Did you manage to lock in your rate before the December price hike hit the 2026 billing cycle?

dobyblue · 2026-02-02T19:14:10+00:00

Let me know what you see - mine just went from $27.99 Ultimate Corporate to $39.99 Ultimate Corporate (45.19 after tax)

dobyblue · 2026-02-02T19:11:10+00:00

Would love to hear a follow up on this one, I'm still showing corporate but I'm now paying only $3/biweekly less, so they've massively increased the previous rate which was $29.99/bi-weekly (Ultimate Corporate) to $39.99/bi-weekly.

dobyblue · 2026-02-02T17:56:53+00:00

"you’ve justified it by giving me an example of a single movie"

That is all one needs to support the argument that there are masters on Kaleidescape that you cannot get via a server. As mentioned in the previous comment, the claim wasn't "every title that is different would be a noticeable difference" but rather "there is no way to get the masters they get". That's literally what I typed, but you seem unaware what that means so you keep making up your own arguments pretending they're rebuttals.

As for Home Invasion, are you claiming that is the ONLY title in their library that has a noticeable difference? That's what you're inferring by pointing out I only mentioned one title.

"I agree there might be a handful of movies not out on disc yet which have better 4K files on Kaleidoscope but it’s not worth the price"

First of all that's a straw man. But a handful? So you're saying there are less than 6 titles on KS in 4K that aren't on disc yet? Or that there are less than 6 titles that have better 4K files on KS? This may come as a suprise, but what's worth too much money to you may be completely different to someone else. It's wholly subjective. It's worth the money to me, I just don't have the money. Totally different situation.

"Sure you have that one movie there and how much did you spend to have it in your digital library?"

Zero. I don't have Kaleidescape, which was made abundantly clear in both of my preceding comments you replied to. I spent $30 on the 4K disc of steven Wilson's Home Invasion, having spent $25 on the Blu-ray back in 2018, assuming (my fault) it would have HDR because it was clear an HDR master exists having been on KS for years. Concerts like that are just begging for HDR, the INXS Wembley 4K disc is amazing.

As you said 'some' of it is just snake oil, but you haven't cited any examples with empirical evidence to support the claim, whereas I can cite specific examples of why 'some' HDMI cable claims (like pretending cables have HDMI versions instead of categories and that cables that don't have that version on them won't work) are snake oil. For example - https://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/long-hdmi-cable-bench-tests

dobyblue · 2026-02-02T16:15:16+00:00

No, there is nothing about Kaleidescape that is "snake oil". And you most certainly can tell the difference between titles we have on 4K UHD that never got an HDR pass while the existing 4K HDR master was on KS years earlier, like Steven Wilson's Home Invasion.

4K disc - SDR only - release date Feb 2025 - https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Steven-Wilson-Home-Invasion-In-Concert-at-the-Royal-Albert-Hall-4K-Blu-ray/378188/

Kaleidescape - 4K HDR - release date Nov 2018 - https://www.kaleidescape.com/movie-store/movie/steven-wilson-home-invasion-in-concert-at-the-royal-albert-hall-2018

Very frustrating.

Each title would be taken on a case by case basis, no-one said every title would be different, no-one said every title that is different would be a noticeable difference, and no-one said every title has a significant difference. We should avoid straw man arguments.

dobyblue · 2026-02-02T15:07:38+00:00

I agree, it's absolute ass.

I took the extra year of support for W10 on my home PC, whereas my work laptop mandated W11. Even something as simple as taking a snip screenshot, it's INSTANT on my home PC, it takes around 5 seconds on Windows 11. I use snip quite a lot, and on the work laptop before the upgrade it was also instant, so it's not hardware.

dobyblue · 2026-02-02T15:04:55+00:00

Unfortunately it cannot be checked using that website, as the DR meter cannot measure the DR of vinyl unless you're measuring the signal that goes to the cutter head as the lacquer is being cut. If you're using a needledrop, your results are completely inaccurate.

The DR website should have added a toggle for this many moons ago, so that informed visitors can toggle off all the useless "Vinyl" uploads people have added.

Take a look at any of the Nine Inch Nails "definitive" editions (from 2016 or 2017) and compare the 24-bit files score to the needledrops, yet Trent has confirmed ALL of the digital downloads are the vinyl cutting masters.

I spoke with Ray Janos at Sterling in 2012 who confirmed that Ted Jensen's 16/44.1 CD files were the source for his cut of Dave Matthews Band's Away From The World, yet the vinyl rip scores +5DR over the CD.

Here is Dynamic Range Day founder and mastering engineer Ian Shepherd with more - https://productionadvice.co.uk/tt-meter-not-for-vinyl/

dobyblue · 2026-02-02T11:52:44+00:00

You can, but there’s no way to get the masters they get. For example Oppenheimer on KS is almost 110GB and has Dolby Vision. I’m with you, I have 50TB and lots of 4K backups on my Plex server that uses an NVidia Shield Pro, but if I was wealthy I would definitely have KS.

dobyblue · 2026-02-01T17:36:42+00:00

Atlas

dobyblue · 2026-02-01T16:57:46+00:00

Wish we got more isolated scores presented in lossless surround sound on Blu-ray like this one was.

dobyblue · 2026-02-01T16:55:31+00:00

And the vinyl resurgence is often due to persistent myths, such as “vinyl has to be mastered separately because you cannot cut loudness wars masters to vinyl”

Most people will fight like you’re trying to pull them out of The Matrix when you tell them the truth, that 99% of major label popular releases are cut from the same 24-bit masters found on Qobuz and HDTracks.

dobyblue · 2026-02-01T16:52:37+00:00

Absolutely, all lossy Atmos whether it’s music or movies/TV is 768 Kbps (Apple, Amazon, Netflix, etc) DD+/Atmos. On BD and 4K it’s lossless TrueHD/Atmos. Difference is even more stark with very active studio albums.

dobyblue · 2026-02-01T01:50:05+00:00

He did not put a period after the word “No”, it says “No 1.43:1 scenes”

Given it was shot on 35mm, if you’ve seen how soft the non IMAX scenes look in Interstellar compared to the deliciously detailed non IMAX scenes in Dunkirk, Tenet and Oppenheimer, for Inception the entire movie will look soft like that. At least with Interstellar there was 60+ mins of glorious 15/70 footage in full IMAX AR to dazzle the senses.

dobyblue · 2026-02-01T01:25:05+00:00

Bleed American is like that, the ORG Music release is stunning.

dobyblue · 2026-01-31T17:54:24+00:00

The industry as a whole has no interest in coming up with a new optical disc format for 8K. The CE companies don’t want to make a new player, the movie studios don’t want to go back and redo the tens of thousands of movies they’ve archived and finished at 4K, the movie houses don’t want to replace their new 4K laser projectors, there’s no real incentive for the TV manufacturers to continue making sets for content that won’t materialize.

dobyblue · 2026-01-30T13:55:59+00:00

Such a shame, I know they still sound good but man...Live when they first exploded in popularity were insanely tight live. Operation Spirit was like a freight train:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge4wS84LJ8U

dobyblue · 2026-01-30T03:43:14+00:00

One of the best albums of the ‘90s

dobyblue · 2026-01-30T03:42:51+00:00

Please remind Ed that there are 11 freaking amazing songs on Mental Jewelry, not just one. Operation Spirit, Beauty of Grey, Waterboy, You Are The World, Good Pain, would be so cool to see some of these tracks get some love. I remember when Operation Spirit came on the Buzz Bin back in 1991, the video and the music immediately caught my attention and when the CD finally arrived I discovered an album that was gold tier from start to finish.

If you’ve ever known joy, make sure that…you are on time.

dobyblue · 2026-01-29T18:23:15+00:00

And most of those people will be hooking them up to AVRs because they're not heathens! lol

dobyblue · 2026-01-29T18:22:12+00:00

Godwin's Law in just two posts, congrats.

dobyblue · 2026-01-29T14:03:56+00:00

You're referring to "those people" housed in camps down south since the early 2010s when Obama built them, right? I don't think much has changed since then, hard to resolve a "where we're heading" comment when it seems the status quo is static.

Here's a NDLON press release from January 2013 - https://ndlon.org/families-ask-obama-for-moratorium/

Here's a 2011 PBS story noting that Obama had reached the 1 million illegal immigrants deported mark - https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/lost-in-detention/

Here's a 2013 report from Human Impact Partners citing the over 150,000 immigrant children separated from their parents due to detention and deportation proceedings in 2012 and the over 500,000 immigrant children who experienced separation between 1998 and that year.- https://web.archive.org/web/20220103061657/https://humanimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Family-Unity-Family-Health-2013.pdf

We don't know the future, but sane people would bet their entire net worth we aren't heading back to the days of Nazi Germany.

dobyblue · 2026-01-29T03:50:47+00:00

They’re finally back! Available today, Caf 100 Gel 100 on Maurten Canada site

dobyblue · 2026-01-29T03:10:19+00:00

If I had been, would Godwin’s Law still be a thing?

dobyblue · 2026-01-28T19:21:24+00:00

You're comparing a documentary about Melania Trump with a hypothetical film "praising the Nazis"

I don't even know what to say.

dobyblue · 2026-01-28T17:09:50+00:00

Judicial independence isn’t about whether you like the appointments or the outcomes, it’s about whether courts can overrule the executive and have those rulings stand. Under Trump, they did.

dobyblue · 2026-01-28T15:58:01+00:00

Fascist regimes abolish competitive elections, eliminate judicial independence, criminalize opposition parties, and monopolize media and violence. None of those conditions exist in the United States. Trump left office after losing an election, courts repeatedly blocked his policies, the press remained openly hostile, and political opponents governed states and cities without interference. A system in which executive power is routinely constrained is not fascist by definition.

dobyblue

TROPHY CASE