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Grimes, FKA twigs and Twice's Chaeyoung give art talks for Google
After two million people listened to musician Maggie Rogers narrate an ASMRy video about Van Gogh's Starry Night, Google has released a second season of Art Zoom. The project combines the Google Arts & Culture division’s photography with wispy narration from musicians, and the first set of videos last year also featured Feist on Bruegel, Jarvis Cocker on Monet and Girl in Red on Edvard Munch. The 1975 frontman Matty Healy gets into Mondrian’s abstract art, K-pop group Twice’s Chaeyoung narrates Yoo Youngkuk’s Mountain, while Grimes covers Bruegel’s The Fall of Rebel Angels.
Leaked NPD numbers show HD DVD hardware sales still trailing Blu-ray
While the official tally isn't out, TWICE apparently has leaked data from The NPD Group -- which wouldn't confirm the accuracy of the numbers -- indicating HD DVD continued to trail Blu-ray in hardware sales and sales dollars in the week ending January 26. These numbers show Blu-ray at 65% of units sold, HD DVD at 28% (changed from 66% and 34% the week before, respectively) and combo players taking 6% of player sales. These figures still don't reflect the PS3 or the price-dropped Xbox 360 add-on, but right now it'll really be more interesting to see if Toshiba can hold any of that marketshare after today's events.
Sharp's slashing prices on 1080p Aquos LCDs
Since the only thing we like more than HDTVs are cheap HDTVs, this latest news about Sharp's Aquos line can't help but make us smile. According to TWICE, MAP (minimum advertised pricing) on certain models the company's older D62 line has been removed entirely, and dropped prices on others, including its more recent D92U, D82U and D72U series LCDs. The 1080p, 46-inch LC-46D62U that launched to such fanfare last October with an MSRP of $3,499 is now available for as low as $1,824 on Amazon. Meanwhile, the newer D92U series with 120Hz at the same size will still cost you $2,549. If horror stories of uneven banding haven't scared you off yet, this is a great time to go 1080p while manufacturers and retailers make room for upcoming models.[Update: corrected Model #, thanks Dominic!]
More not-1080p silliness at SINOCES
It's clear to us now, even the manufacturers don't know what is 1080p and what isn't. Well, maybe they just don't care. TWICE's report from SINOCES (Chinese CES) indicates many manufacturers are putting the 1080p tag on everything they can, if a TV can accept a 1080p signal but not display it, and even on displays that don't do 1080p at all. As they note, it's not such a big deal yet in China because until HD DVD and Blu-ray launch there won't be much at that resolution to watch. They also mentioned Chinese manufacturers looking at the US market as a hard one to enter because of low-priced 1080p displays like the Westinghouse LVM-47w1. Hisense, who manufactures the Best Buy house brand and HP televisions, was showing a 71-inch 1080p plasma based on the LG one we've seen before, maybe you'll be getting an in-store demo sooner than you think. Conspicuous in their absence apparently are EVD and VMD based players, targeted as low cost alternatives to HD DVD and Blu-ray using old school red laser technology.[via Home Theater Blog]
Maxell/Hitachi plans September US HD DVD-R/RW launch
According to this article from TWICE, the US division of Maxell is planning on releasing HD DVD-R and -RW discs in September (July for Japan), and shipping Blu-ray BD-Rs and BD-REs in August. They haven't announced a price for either yet. Also notable was the quoted VP's concern over the complexity of a format war and how many returns they had of recordable media in the early days of DVD. They don't anticipate the market to be profitable until at least 2007 and are focusing on consumer and retail education to ease the transition. Finally, they consider hardware pricing the most important factor in consumer acceptance of new technology. Very interesting words, we can assume HD DVD burners will be available come September, but who, what price and what speed?
