Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality

The consumer modems aren't here yet, but as you say, technology is completely different from last time thanks to mobile phone screens. And even the early de kits have had quite a lot of impact on those who have tried. I am not worried about the you have to have tried it factor. This can go really fast these days.
 
fellix said:
The buzz in the 90s was even louder for VR. At least now we have the techology (fast GPUs and hi-res displays), but the "killer app" moment is still to come.
Also, VR is rather challenging to market and advertise on traditional mass-media. You simply have to see it for yourself.
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It's definitevly long-tail buzz, but there're huge investments in AR/VR made in 2014/2015, new startups are just popping up on a daily basis. And finally there're some really decent sites according to http://vrfavs.com/
The world is just waiting for some decent devices and break thru games/videos
 
digitalwanderer said:
Which we've been waiting for many, many years now...that's my point. It seems like it's all hype with no pay-off, like the 3D TV craze.
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The "decent devices" part is mostly a matter of display definition at this point. With 5", 4K displays, HMDs should provide an acceptable experience. We're very close now.
 
One potentially serious obstacle I can see is the ultimately divergent needs of cellphones and HMDs. The latter have tremendously benefited from the ready availability of cheap, high-definition displays developed for the former, but from now on, it probably won't work quite as well. Most phones are fine with 1080p displays; some feature 1440p displays, which is better for VR but still not enough. Is anyone going to make 4K displays for cellphones? I'm not sure. What about 8K? That sounds preposterous for a phone, but for HMDs it's probably the sweet-spot.

That said, HMD manufacturers can probably get away with dual 1080p displays or something like that, at least until they reach sufficient volume to get display manufacturers to start making products specifically for VR.
 
Alexko said:
I can see is the ultimately divergent needs of cellphones and HMDs
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You mean like this :
tRQ79FQ.jpg
 
Sharp and Everdisplay are already making 4K screens for phones (link). Samsung and apparently 10 other companies are developing 11K phone screens (link), which they anticipate will be out by 2018.
 
digitalwanderer said:
Which we've been waiting for many, many years now...that's my point. It seems like it's all hype with no pay-off, like the 3D TV craze.
Click to expand...

I have the DK2 and even with the meager resolution it has, its something to be experienced. Yeah there are still a lot of teething problems, but it would seem that none of them are beyond solving in the next few years. It really does bring a new experience to games and other types of applications. It's very unlike using any kind of monitor and provides a more natural feeling to some first person 3D games. The biggest problem beyond the resolution is still latency of display/head/motion tracking, even with very low response times there is still a long way to go. It seems to me that we may even need something at low as 10ms per frame possibly even quicker. So for a 4k display to hit that we are still a ways off for sure, and 4k is likely to be the minimum resolution for general usability - assuming its a single display split between eyes. I have high hopes this time around, as we have much cheaper better sensors available for motion tracking and much smaller lighter higher res displays, not to mention much greater compute power.

I think for a lot of us jaded old timers this will renew our enthusiasm for games.
 
digitalwanderer said:
Which we've been waiting for many, many years now...that's my point. It seems like it's all hype with no pay-off, like the 3D TV craze.
Click to expand...
The 3D-TV market was killed off by the copy right holders.
3D movies cost as much as three times as much as the same product in 2D. They were/are also withheld from rental due to fear of illegal copying, so people couldn't even rent 3D content.
If 3D content had been provided like the 2D version, it would have had a much, much larger presense. Trying too hard to milk that market, the content providers killed it.

The same market dynamic doesn't apply to VR. It has its own issues.
 
Do you have a source on them being afraid of copying? I don't see how a 3d blu ray would be more likely to get copied than a 2d blu ray movie.

Other than that 3D tv's mostly failed because its just a crappy technology. You have to buy glasses, depending on your tv those will be cheap, or quite expensive. One size fits all so you better hope they fit your head (mine don't). You have to wear glasses while watching a movie. Might be OK for people used to wearing glasses, but I'm not and lying on the couch or in bed with glasses on just sucks. Most people get tired eyes or a headache. Quite noticeable lower resolution.

But maybe most of all, the effect just isn't that great. Stuff pops out, buts its just that. I don't really feel I'm actually there. The worst part is half of your screen turns into a blurry mess because of it.

Watched pirates of the Caribbean in 3D a couple of years back. Ended up not getting laid because me and my date both ended up with a headache.

Tried watching 3D movies at home a couple of times and each time switched to the 2D movie after 30 minutes or so because my eyes started to hurt, the glasses were uncomfortable and the 3D effect wasn't really that great (this includes some recent movies like the hobbit).

No, 3D tv failed because its just a lot of downsides and very little, if any at all, upsides.

OTOH I have no doubt that VR is going to be pretty successful. The first couple of years might be a bit though, I'm sure it will take a couple of alterations before VR hardware is really ready for everybody. Biggest reason will probably be that it's going to take a couple of years before 200 ~ 300 dollar gpu's are fast enough to run games at the required resolution and FPS without going all 2001 on the IQ.
 
tongue_of_colicab said:
Do you have a source on them being afraid of copying? I don't see how a 3d blu ray would be more likely to get copied than a 2d blu ray movie.

Other than that 3D tv's mostly failed because its just a crappy technology. You have to buy glasses, depending on your tv those will be cheap, or quite expensive. One size fits all so you better hope they fit your head (mine don't). You have to wear glasses while watching a movie. Might be OK for people used to wearing glasses, but I'm not and lying on the couch or in bed with glasses on just sucks. Most people get tired eyes or a headache. Quite noticeable lower resolution.

But maybe most of all, the effect just isn't that great. Stuff pops out, buts its just that. I don't really feel I'm actually there. The worst part is half of your screen turns into a blurry mess because of it.
Click to expand...

These are issues with passive glasses and arguably broadcast quality 3d. 3d bluray with active glasses gives a better than 1080p picture quality. That's part of the reason why I enjoy the occasional 3d film, not only for the 3d effect, but for the stunning "4k like" picture quality. I agree that it's a pita to wear the glasses though. The room also has to be dark and for the effect to be appreciable you have to be pretty close to the TV. All these things come together for me on the occasional weekend evening when I have nothing better to do and a few beers to drink, but outside of that I stick with regular 2d TV.
 

Another walking unit / treadmill whatever tehse are called got funded on kickstarter. I think this could the fitness craze of the future.
 
Just get a long wire !

But I've said it before I could imagine gyms using this at first as I'm sure a good system with these would run you a few grand (head set , pc , platform ) You could do anything you wanted too , running for an hour in a FPS would really get the calories off .

I'm trying to get in shape for a 5k at Disney , So running the course ahead of time would be amazing , esp if the treadmill could adjust to every incline and decline.
 
Alexko said:
One potentially serious obstacle I can see is the ultimately divergent needs of cellphones and HMDs. The latter have tremendously benefited from the ready availability of cheap, high-definition displays developed for the former, but from now on, it probably won't work quite as well. Most phones are fine with 1080p displays; some feature 1440p displays, which is better for VR but still not enough. Is anyone going to make 4K displays for cellphones? I'm not sure. What about 8K? That sounds preposterous for a phone, but for HMDs it's probably the sweet-spot.

That said, HMD manufacturers can probably get away with dual 1080p displays or something like that, at least until they reach sufficient volume to get display manufacturers to start making products specifically for VR.
Click to expand...
Don't worry chasing pointless specs will make handsets with those displays even though ask it does is make the battery life terrible.
 
Sxotty said:
Don't worry chasing pointless specs will make handsets with those displays even though ask it does is make the battery life terrible.
Click to expand...
Sony's new Z5 has a pointless 4k display. Samsung's working on 11k screens for in a few years. Without VR this would seem utterly nuts!
 
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