Forget RGB, Sharp is developing CYRGB displays

Since time immemorial (or at least, since color televisions have been available), TVs have used 3 colors: red, green, and blue. Combinations of these three color building blocks produced the increasingly wide spectrum of colors you now see on the screen in front of you. Print, meanwhile, almost always uses 4 colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. RGB is an additive color space, meaning the three colors combine to form white. CMYK is a subtractive color space, meaning the three main colors form black, or "K."

Sharp is working on incorporating cyan and yellow into the red-green-blue color set displays currently use. According to the company, this CYRGB color set can reproduce over 99% of visible surface colors (paints, pigments, and other colors that reflect, rather than emit, light).

Hulu Desktop Beta has great potential

The first thought that hits me when I open Hulu's desktop application is how bad I feel for Joost. A few years ago they were trying to pull off the same magic trick: bringing a full-fledged TV experience to the desktop. Adobe tried, too with their own media player and it didn't quite do so well either. But, despite a few short comings, Hulu's application feels like it will have some staying power.

Of course, the biggest advantage, and the overall reason it won't go the way of the other streaming media buffalo, is all the high-quality content. seemingly, everything you can watch on the site, you can watch through the app. That means full episodes of Fox and NBC shows as well as full-length movies and original content. Unfortunately, that still means it won't support ABC (Disney) content, so it still isn't going to be your only source for network content. Let's face it, having Lost on here would be a big step in the right direction.

Is Zune HD the future of portable media?

Just a few days ago, the Zune HD was nothing more than the subject of some wild speculation, but now that it has been made official, many people are wondering whether or not Microsoft's new player is actually going to be make as much noise as they hope when it comes to changing the way people consume media on the go.

The HD in the name might be a tad misleading. The screen itself runs at 480x272, but the fact that it's a multi-touch capable OLED definitely makes up for the average resolution. The HD part comes into play when you slap it into the optional cradle, at which point it can churn out 720p video to an external display through an HDMI. That means the player has native support for HD videos, presumably including the ones you buy from the Xbox Live marketplace.

Custom soda machines for your theme theater

Beverages and movie-watching go together like, well, beverages and virtually any other activity. Beverages are just that great. You can keep a cube fridge in your home theater to ensure a frosty drink is always available, but that just seems so bland. If you worked to make your home theater look and feel a certain way, a blocky fridge will do it disservice.

American Soda Machines has revealed a line of custom soda machines for movie buffs. Customers can have any art they want put on their soda machine, including pictures and logos from their favorite movies and sports teams. The company uses square-top soda machines like the Vendo 63, a model that dates back to the 1960's, and paints them to order.

Looks like it's time to update my to-do list. 1: Order a soda machine covered with a life-size photo of the cast of The Big Lebowski. 2: Figure out how to modify it so it dispenses White Russians.

— Will Greenwald

NEC debuts new 2K 3-D projector for Pixar's "Up"

If you're in the NYC area this weekend, it might be worth the trip over to the Ziegfeld Theatre to see the new Pixar film on NEC's latest and greatest projector, the NC2500S-A. It uses a 1.2" DMD from Texas Instruments as well triple flash for super-clear and smooth images. It also boasts a 33% brightness increase over the previous model, which is a big jump. They also claim it can handle bigger screens and more advanced 3-D features, so this might make IMAX light look even less worth the extra bucks. They're expecting to roll out more of the projectors over the course of this year, but only to bigger theaters that can handle (and afford) these monsters.

Pioneer's new receivers play nice with iPod and iPhone

 
Pioneer just announced the VSX-819AH, VSX-919AH and VSX-1019AH A/V receivers designed to help users integrate their Apple portables into their home theaters. After plugging in a player, you navigate your media using a specially designed graphic user interface (GUI) and your normal remote. It supports album art, too so now is a good time to make sure it's all up to date.

To make up for the generally, well, kinda crappy sound that can come out of iPods, they built in their own Advanced Sound Receiver and Auto Level Control technologies. The former is designed to create a "more dynamic audio experience" from highly compressed digital files, much like Creative's Crystalizer. The ALC just regulates volume, which may or may not be a special enough feature to deserve its own acronym.

Prices range from $299 to $499 so these are obviously geared toward the more casual user, but Pioneer has been known to put out great products at lower price points so these will be interesting to check out.