Kaleidescape Announces Support for Blu-ray

Popular (and pricy!) entertainment server manufacturer Kaleidescape announced to its dealers this week that the company would be producing a player in 2009 that would play back Blu-ray discs, as well as “regular” DVDs and CDs. The product will work with the company’s existing media servers as well.

Called the Blue-Laser player, the device will support the H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2 formats. The company is “optimistic that it will be possible to import Blu-ray discs” at the time of the product’s launch next year.

Kaleidescape had originally gained license from the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) to essentially bypass the encryption technology placed on DVDs that stopped them from being “copied”, so to speak. Using a Kaleidescape server, a customer can store tons of movies to be organized, browsed through, and played back through a home theatre system. The DVD CCA took Kaleidescape to court, claiming that the company had violated the licensing agreement. On March 29, 2007, a Superior Court judge in Santa Clara, CA ruled that Kaleidescape was in fact in “full compliance with the DVD Copy Control Association’s license to the Content Scramble System”. The decision was appealed.

Once the Blue-Laser player is launched, Kaleidescape says that a 750 GB disk cartridge should be able to store approx. 33 Blu-ray movies, which take up about 22 GB of space each (on average).

Kaleidescape went on to say that it has no current plans to support the HD DVD format, but it would “re-evaluate this decision if HD DVD becomes a more successful format.”