They say that it’s a sign you’re getting old when policemen start to look young. When I meet implausibly fresh-faced Tom Barnett of Kaleidescape, I wonder if the same applies to senior directors of marketing.

 

We move to the business in hand – a briefing about some new developments from the residential movie server company. The first talking point is CinemaScape – “a feature born out of desire to give people the best viewing experience in a 2.35 theatre,” says Barnett. With a 2.35:1 aspect ratio becoming very common in home theatre systems – nearly 90% of the shortlisted installations in the CEDIA Electronic lifestyles Award were of this type, he points out – Kaleidescape has produced a feature that enables users to switch aspect ratios without fitting the projector with a retractable anamorphic lens.

 

Thanks to CinemaScape, the Kaleidescape Movie Guide can fit onto a 2.35 screen without the viewer having to scroll horizontally to read some of the data. Also, it makes switching between content with different aspect ratios much smoother. Adding or removing a lens requires a change in projector mode – which can sometimes produce momentary purple and green flashes on the screen – and there’s also a time delay of a few seconds as the lens is moved. This may not be a particular concern if you’re settling down to watch a full-length movie, but is more significant if you’re playing shorter clips.

 

Which brings us neatly to the second new feature – Kaleidescape Scenes. Within its Movie Guide for each title, Kaleidescape offers a list of recommended scenes – highlights of the movie – for viewers to jump to. For a while, users have had the opportunity to mark and name scenes themselves; however, the company has found take-up to be limited. At the end of August, more than 4,000 scenes from 700 of the most popular titles had been added to the system, and more are being added every day.