Sony VR Headset/Project Morpheus/PlayStation VR

[Shifty Geezer]

I can only guess it's something like inserted black frames. The blurb is limited and quick Googling throws up nothing, but the info given separate FPS from refresh explicitly for the purpose of 'low persistence'. Hence 60 fps refresh (too slow) but low persistence so no smearing.

1.3 Also suggests a 120 fps refresh, yet it's described as 60 fps.

Overall though, graet price for a sound product. The idea of user upgradeable parts is excellent (swap in a better screen in a couple of years). Would be nice if VR headsets became commoditized so you could use PSVR or OSVR or Google RealityBender or Apple iHelmet. I guess that'll be phase two of VR.

 

[London Geezer]

Inserted black frames would run the risk of introducing flickering, which could be quite uncomfortable for a screen that close to our eyes. Depending of refresh rate, of course.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Alternative doubled frames wouldn't be a problem. You'd have 120 Hz flicker, a frame shown twice.

 

[manux]

If they define low persistence same way as valve/oculus then the display is on only for small time for each frame.

In 120Hz case each frame is on for roughly 8ms. The display would show the content for 2ms and be black for 6ms. This would mean that for each 1 second viewed the user would see ~750ms pure black and 250ms content.

In 240Hz case each frame would last roughly 4ms where 2ms is for content and 2ms for black. This would mean that for each 1 second viewed user would see 500ms black and 500ms content.

The higher refresh rate would clearly give better picture on the low persistence use case. However I'm not sure how good of an idea it is to double the frames. There likely would need to be some form of reprojection/motion compensation(head moves). Otherwise there is at least some risk of getting the same artifacts back that low persistency is trying to remove.

 

[London Geezer]

Very explanatory, thanks!

 

[MrFox]

Doubling frames creates ghosting. The lower the persistence, the worse the ghosting will be.

 

[MrFox]

Michael Pachter gave his prediction for PSVR pricing...

http://blog.releases.com/home/2016/1/14/pachter-predicts-playstation-vr-price

I think Morpheus (PlayStation VR) is highly likely to be 400 bucks. It's gonna be hard... -- if you actually look at the headset, there's a lot there. So, I think it's gonna be hard to price it below 300; It's possible... if they believe they're gonna make enough of them.

"if they're gonna make enough of them" is interesting. Of all competitors they are the only ones with such a ridiculously wide launch time frame (First Half 2016), but they are also the only ones who didn't delay multiple times. Maybe procurement for optics and/or panels is a big problem when you need hundreds of thousands of them. With custom specs.

I think being a console peripheral they can't afford a soft-launch, or trickling in early adopters editions before ramping up. It should be just like a console launch where they accumulate in warehouses in hundreds of thousands before the official launch coinciding with the published launch games too. Filling distribution channels worldwide.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Millions? That seems optimistic for launch. I think 250k in the first week(s) would be good - it's long term sales that'll matter. 5 million by end of year would be ~10% peneration, of a $300-400 peripheral.

 

[orangpelupa]

Agh with the recent bombing and shooting in my capital city... Dollars become very strong.

Hopefully no more bombing action, at least until I got psvr...

 

[MrFox]

Millions? That seems optimistic for launch. I think 250k in the first week(s) would be good - it's long term sales that'll matter. 5 million by end of year would be ~10% peneration, of a $300-400 peripheral.

Oups, right. I was an order of magnitude optimistic... fixed.

And it's not even launching for christmas season.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

I'll be very surprised if it's out in the first half of this year. They haven't announced release games, a release date, or even a price.

I don't recall any console gaming hardware that's released in Spring / Summer.

 

[MrFox]

The gaming hype gets quite high around E3. Maybe they'll announce price/date at GDC, and launch the week of E3.

 

[Davros]

In 120Hz case each frame is on for roughly 8ms. The display would show the content for 2ms and be black for 6ms.

Except lcd's unlike crt's dont go black between refreshes, if you display a still image on a lcd its constantly lit (aka infinate refresh), display a moving image on a lcd and the pixels that have changed go from previous colour to new colour
they dont go previous colour, switched off, new colour.
unless vr screens are deliberately inserting black frames that would result in your example in a 75% reduction in brightness

 

[manux]

Except lcd's unlike crt's dont go black between refreshes, if you display a still image on a lcd its constantly lit (aka infinate refresh), display a moving image on a lcd and the pixels that have changed go from previous colour to new colour
they dont go previous colour, switched off, new colour.
unless vr screens are deliberately inserting black frames that would result in your example in a 75% reduction in brightness

At least rift and vive are oled. Not sure which headsets are lcd.

 

[London Geezer]

PSVR is also OLED but OLED so far has worked the same way as LCD, in that the pixels aren't turned off after every refresh like a CRT or Plasma, but act very much like an LCD and 'stay on' until the next refresh. This is valid for the initial batch of OLED TVs, and I think it's still valid.

 

[BRiT]

Michael Pachter gave his prediction for PSVR pricing...

http://blog.releases.com/home/2016/1/14/pachter-predicts-playstation-vr-price

"if they're gonna make enough of them" is interesting. Of all competitors they are the only ones with such a ridiculously wide launch time frame (First Half 2016), but they are also the only ones who didn't delay multiple times. Maybe procurement for optics and/or panels is a big problem when you need hundreds of thousands of them. With custom specs.

I think being a console peripheral they can't afford a soft-launch, or trickling in early adopters editions before ramping up. It should be just like a console launch where they accumulate in warehouses in hundreds of thousands before the official launch coinciding with the published launch games too. Filling distribution channels worldwide.

So if Pachter is predicting $400 for PSVR, that absolutely means it will be anything but $400. He's always wrong.

 

[Globalisateur]

So $399 is OK then?

 

[MrFox]

If we reverse his statement, as it's completely wrong, we get...

"I think Morpheus (PlayStation VR) is highly unlikely to be 400 bucks. It's gonna be easy... -- if you actually look at the headset, there's a little there. So, I think it's gonna be easy to price it below 300; It's impossible if they don't believe they're not gonna make too few of them."

 

[orangpelupa]

300 dollars for the headset only
400 dolls for the complete package?

 

[goonergaz]

So $400 was PS4 release price which was £350 in the UK?

That's probably more than I wanted to pay but at the edge of acceptable...especially if it includes games/accessories