Is VR dead?

[Deleted member 197115]

Can you think of any reason that they would actually do that?

Same reason they rerelease PS exclusive titles for PC, money. With current starving PC VRHMD market I bet it will be very well received.

 

[gamma123152]

Not a perfect fit for me, and it still has some issues but still very interesting.

"The biggest problem: brightness"

Exactly what I expected since I saw the BSB since it's the same as with the Arpara. They couldn't even release it because of that massive issue. And the Arpara uses the same tech as the BigScreen Beyond: OLED 2560px displays + pancake lenses.

So to me it's an unusable headset. I want MORE NITS compared to my G2, not less. The greatest thing that I saw with the Aero compared to my G2 was: the brightness/nits (and together with the resolution; it was sadly enough the "only great" thing, but the difference is HUGE(even compared to the G2, which doesn't have the worst nits/brightness), so a downgrade on the G2 is unthinkable for me since I saw that).

IMO the BSB is a flawed headset because of this. The low FoV is possible to accept but such a low brightness not.

Here a video of what I'm talking about:

 

[RCHeliguy]

Interesting thing. Both he and another guy VRThrillseeker seem to be enthralled with the Bigscreen Beyond.

These are people have tried piles of headsets and yet this thing has left an indelible impression on them.

You can point out all the glaring flaws, but apparently something is very very right.

That is what I find interesting. If something seems to fail by obvious benchmarks to people who are knee deep in the VR world and both are taken by this headset, something new is happening.

Very interesting.......

 

[gamma123152]

Interesting thing. Both he and another guy VRThrillseeker seem to be enthralled with the Bigscreen Beyond.

These are people have tried piles of headsets and yet this thing has left an indelible impression on them.

You can point out all the glaring flaws, but apparently something is very very right.

That is what I find interesting. If something seems to fail by obvious benchmarks to people who are knee deep in the VR world and both are taken by this headset, something new is happening.

Very interesting.......

Very interesting indeed, because Brad just commented one hour ago about the brightness issue: "With LCD headsets, the persistence doesn’t change with brightness. Since they just pulse the backlight rather than the pixels. It’s been said that running index at 70-80% gets same brightness of beyond at 100 percent. But to match persistence of index, you need beyond to be much much lower".

And the Index has only 95 nits. So the BSB has around 75 nits? That's HALF of the Aero(150) and even roughly a third compared to the Crystal(200). Can you imagine going back to nits even lower than your Index? I think that it would be hard for you to even go back to the Index, coming from the Aero, in terms of nits.

In night/evening races the BSB would probably amazing if you ignore the FoV. The Arpara first video's with night scenes in Alyx also seemd to be amazing because of the OLED panels/pancakes.

But at daytime (I race 99% in daytime, since almost all online races are daytime), it's unusable and that combined with that low FoV: It's simply not a usable HMD for sim racers. Maybe for VR chat, what Brad seem to use a lot, it's maybe perfect, also for movies it can be good enough; but for sim racing.. sadly not.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I never considered my Index to not have enough nits. I've also run my Aero between 40-60% brightness. My eyes adjust. 60% seems too bright. I'd have no problem going back to the Index except for the resolution.

But forget the flaws again for a minute.

I'm thinking that part of this is simply the light weight. At 140 grams it's not going to move around your face at all when you move your head. It will be right there with you all the way.

They talk about the lack of fatigue and not feeling the need to get out of the VR environment. Like it or not putting a heavy headset on has a negative impact on the experience that we put up with because we have to, not because we feel it is a good trait.

I'd like it if the Aero were lighter and I'm very grateful for the large over the head support rather than a bit of velcro'd webbing. 140grams just seems like a new frontier.

If a headset has a killer feature that is important to some people, those people will adapt to the rest.

 

[gamma123152]

I never considered my Index to not have enough nits. I've also run my Aero between 40-60% brightness. My eyes adjust. 60% seems too bright. I'd have no problem going back to the Index except for the resolution.

But forget the flaws again for a minute.

I'm thinking that part of this is simply the light weight. At 140 grams it's not going to move around your face at all when you move your head. It will be right there with you all the way.

They talk about the lack of fatigue and not feeling the need to get out of the VR environment. Like it or not putting a heavy headset on has a negative impact on the experience that we put up with because we have to, not because we feel it is a good trait.

I'd like it if the Aero were lighter and I'm very grateful for the large over the head support rather than a bit of velcro'd webbing. 140grams just seems like a new frontier.

If a headset has a killer feature that is important to some people, those people will adapt to the rest.

Surprised by your answer. In that case you run the Aero even below G2 nits! I thought that most people bought the Aero over the G2 for its clarity which is for a huge part caused by the higher amount of nits that the aspheric lenses let through. I don't see any reason to run it below 100 percent, it really ruins the immersion for me. Meta is working on hmd's with 20.000 nits.. that's the closest to reality according to meta. I guess that it's super subjective then.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Surprised by your answer. In that case you run the Aero even below G2 nits! I thought that most people bought the Aero over the G2 for its clarity which is for a huge part caused by the higher amount of nits that the aspheric lenses let through. I don't see any reason to run it below 100 percent, it really ruins the immersion for me. Meta is working on hmd's with 20.000 nits.. that's the closest to reality according to meta. I guess that it's super subjective then.

"Human eye is capable of responding to an enormous range of light intensity, exceeding 10 units on logarithmic scale (i.e. minimum-to-maximum intensity variation of over 10-billion-fold)."

The nits have nothing to do with clarity if your headset has a good focal range. By that I mean that if you can focus your eye naturally at an object in VR at a distance that you expect it to be than it should look sharp and clear.

If you need higher nits for sharpness in VR either you need your vision corrected or the lens you are looking through doesn't have the range you need.

The higher the illumination the the more your iris constricts. In camera terms that makes the aperture small which increases your in focus area or depth of field. It does not make the image sharper but it will give you a larger range of distance that appears sharp and in focus. (Beyond a certain threshold)

A great lens is tack sharp wide open, but has a wafer thin distance that is in focus. It is true that most lenses need to be stopped down to get the maximum sharpness and the human eye does need a certain amount of light to achieve sharpness. That value is higher as you are resolving the detail approaching a retina display, but we are well above that value already.

So if your headset is by Meta or Valve, the focal range of the lens matches your normal human focal response nearly perfectly you don't need brightness as a crutch. The Aero is very close to the Meta and Valve focal range. Close enough not to matter. The G2 is off the mark a chunk and requires more brightness to increase the depth of field you perceive to keep what you see in focus throughout your focal range. Historically Pimax has been even further off the mark. This was an issue with the early Crystal lenses where people couldn't focus into the distance without the image becoming less sharp. Additional nits would help with that by increasing the range that you perceive as in focus and sharp.

Think of it this way. When you need reading glasses as you age, your lens is getting harder and won't flex as well to focus up close. Having trouble reading is much worse in the dark places because your irises open way up to let more light in, but that decreases your depth of field and your lenses are unable to focus that close anymore.

However in very bright light your iris closes down to a much smaller aperture giving you much more depth of field. So you can frequently read something up close without reading glasses in bright light that you have trouble reading at lower light levels. Your lens are still focusing as close as they are capable of, but because your eye is effectively stopped down your depth of field has increased enough for what you are reading to be in focus.

With the VR lenses we are looking at this in reverse. If a particular VR lens looks out of focus at certain focal ranges and we add enough light so that the human eye's depth of field is deep enough to include the focal range of that VR lens we can bring that image back into the sharp range.

Going back to the BigScreen Beyond. If the color and image sharpness is enough to impress these people at lower light levels, The lens likely has a focal range that encompasses the natural focusing tendencies of the human eye very well and better than other other headsets that need more light to look sharp.

 

[gamma123152]

If you need higher nits for sharpness in VR either you need your vision corrected or the lens you are looking through doesn't have the range you need.

I don't agree. My eyes are perfect, I don't have glasses and I don't need one(I had it recently checked, my eyes are even above average for short and far sight).

The 150 nits of the Aero compared to the G2 just were amazing in daytime racing. It just feels and looks way more realistic than the dimmed panels of the G2. So the pancake lenses that dim the oled panels even further than the G2 is an absolute no-go FOR ME. As I wrote; this subject seems to be very subjective.

It has nothing to do with sharpness at all. Sharpness comes from the lenses and the panels(which combined give the amount of PPD), not from nits. With the nits I'm talking about the brightness of the panels(and how much of that passes through the lenses). In most HMD's they feel simply way to dimmed compared to real life. With pancake and oled this is an serious issue as also Bradley and Sebastian from MRTV spoke about it, it's the downside of the BSB and especially if you(like me) prefer high nits. But it depends on how you use the headset and what you prefer, since I learned from you that you prefer a dimmed HMD.

Edit see here the article about the future in terms of nits in VR: https://uploadvr.com/starburst-hdr-demo/

 

[RCHeliguy]

I understand how 10bit color and having more brightness for HDR could be more life like.

No arguments there.

 

[blekenbleu]

Can you imagine going back to nits even lower than your Index?

I can; useful contrast is a ratio between dark and light; while I much appreciated the increase in resolution when migrating from Samsung to HP, I found the brightness increase tiresome.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I can; useful contrast is a ratio between dark and light; while I much appreciated the increase in resolution when migrating from Samsung to HP, I found the brightness increase tiresome.

For monitor calibration the recommended brightness target is 120 cd/m2 or nits, 150 for bright environment, why HMD needs to be that much higher.

 

[BrunoBæ]

the human eye does need a certain amount of light to achieve sharpness.

Hey RC good explanation about the relation between the percieved sharpness (or rather depth of field) and iris opening/brightness.

BæTheWay: I was a bit disappointed to be told in the review that the BigScreen set does only offer 8bit color depth. Aceptable but not ideal for imersion - me think

 

[gamma123152]

These Screens are Bright​

One of the biggest advantages of the Varjo Aero over other headsets (other than the resolution improvement) is the brightness of the displays. In bright, colorful VR environments, you would be hard-pressed to find a better VR device to experience the true beauty of the digital world.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/varjo-aero-review

Look at the through the lens pictures as examples (Varjo also uses these on their own website). That's also what I experienced in the headset itself regarding brightness. It's surely subjective I found out now, but to me it makes a huge difference and especially in sim racing.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Finally something Pimax could actually deliver!

Of course it will probably be front heavy and require some extra padding.

Yes, I know what day it is.

 

[Spinelli]

I've seen some comments regarding certain VR headsets' brightness being good / not good for daytime use. I don't understand. How does day or night have an anything to do with it if the headset is being worn?

 

[metalnwood]

I've seen some comments regarding certain VR headsets' brightness being good / not good for daytime use. I don't understand. How does day or night have an anything to do with it if the headset is being worn?

They mean that when displaying a daytime image it doesnt have the brightness to be convincing in all scenes. For showing night scenes, it doesnt have to be that bright.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Current leaders in various specs ( price unlimited )

FOV - XTAL 3 VR 180 x 130 real FOV not theoretical
Highest ppd - Varjo XR-3 ( over 70 ppd in the retina display area)
light weight - Bigscreen beyond 140g

So where does it break down?

The XTAL 3 VR is limited to 75 fps, and has a ppd of ~22, price over $9,000
Bigscreen beyond isn't available yet, has narrow FOV and low light.
Varjo XR-3 has a limited FOV, price over $3,000

None of those 3 headsets even has built in headphones and only one has a microphone.
All have deal breakers for some of us.

There is still not one reasonable successor to the Valve Index that is all upside even with price tags as high as $9,000.

So we will continue to pick compromises based on our personal priorities.

 

[blekenbleu]

They mean that when displaying a daytime image it doesnt have the brightness to be convincing in all scenes

I suppose that there are drivers who in real life drive in brightest daylight without helmet visor tint, but my experience has been that visual acuity is forfeit without.

 

[BrunoBæ]

So we will continue to pick compromises based on our personal priorities.

Maybe the Crystal could fill some marked niche afterall.
Eventhough the FOV is rather small - by Pimax standards.

BæTheWay: But as usual they will probably spoil the niche by bad quality and sporadic delivery.

 

[blekenbleu]

I anticipate/imagine actual developer/manufacturer assuming more control over Pimax' destiny.