Kaleidescape 1U media server

Remember how liberating it was to ditch your portable CD player and get an iPod? Imagine being able to put away your CDs and DVDs and run all your music and movies from a single home gadget. That's the promise of Kaleidescape's 1U media server ($10,000), which stores 37 DVDs or 440 CDs. If you have a Scorsese-sized movie collection, you can add cartridges for a maximum of 2.25TB of space--335 DVDs or 3,900 CDs--or you can cluster multiple servers. Buy Movie Player boxes (not included) for the other rooms in your McMansion, and the 1U can feed media to each--up to 25 audio or video zones--via standard home Ethernet. With that setup, you can watch or listen to something different in the den, the kids' bedrooms, the gift-wrapping room, and more. Another convenience: when you add a DVD (and you may wish to know that the company has an ongoing legal dispute over its ripping software), the server automatically grabs Movie Guide data from Kaleidescape, including cover art, genre grouping, cast and crew info, and video bookmarking, which enables you to skip the DVD's commercials and menus. Sure, you can put together a media server for less, but if you have five figures to spare, go for the no-fuss, no-muss experience.

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