Oculus will be on stage at with Engadget at CES

[rmcclelland]

Looks like Oculus will actually be on the Engadget CES stage, lined up with consumer electronics luminaries. I just noticed on Engadget's CES 2013 Stage Schedule.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/enga ... -schedule/

I think it will be live-streamed. I assume this will be an interview and maybe a live demo.

Friday 1:00PM Oculus Co-Founder Palmer Luckey / CEO Brendan Iribe

[rhinosix]

Oculus Rift hands-on video from theverge.com:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/7/384910 ... s-on-video

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/7/384891 ... al-reality

Not a whole lot of info - it's just a quick video.

[bobjwatts]

Engadget article:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/ocul ... n-dev-kit/

[Dycus]

Engadget article:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/ocul ... n-dev-kit/

"Oh, and there were some new demos to show off, albeit on an aging prototype model."

BS, I made that one from scratch literally three days ago.

[fraherd]

Whats the issue with the 7inch display. Are you having issues trying to add the convergence to the demo to re centre the images?

[Coasterpro]

Whats the issue with the 7inch display. Are you having issues trying to add the convergence to the demo to re centre the images?

The 5.6" display they were using was discontinued, prompting the search for a new one. They also note the 7" screen they decided on has superior specs compared to the old one.

From the Oculus blog, "The panel we were using in our prototype was a 5.6” LCD with a resolution of 1280×800. This screen is a great size for a VR headset and it has an impressive pixel density for the year it was produced. Nevertheless, it has flaws: it isn’t particularly bright, the contrast ratio is low, and the color accuracy is abysmal. The two biggest issues, though, are its poor fill factor and high switching times."

http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/details-on ... loper-kits

[bobjwatts]

Whats the issue with the 7inch display. Are you having issues trying to add the convergence to the demo to re centre the images?

The 5.6" display they were using was discontinued, prompting the search for a new one. They also note the 7" screen they decided on has superior specs compared to the old one.

From the Oculus blog, "The panel we were using in our prototype was a 5.6” LCD with a resolution of 1280×800. This screen is a great size for a VR headset and it has an impressive pixel density for the year it was produced. Nevertheless, it has flaws: it isn’t particularly bright, the contrast ratio is low, and the color accuracy is abysmal. The two biggest issues, though, are its poor fill factor and high switching times."

http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/details-on ... loper-kits

I think he is asking why they can't use the 7" prototype at the current CES demos.

[2EyeGuy]

Engadget article:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/ocul ... n-dev-kit/

"Oh, and there were some new demos to show off, albeit on an aging prototype model."

BS, I made that one from scratch literally three days ago.

They said the model was aging, not the prototype itself. So I assume they mean you were showing off demos on the old design with 5.6" screens, even if you only built it 3 days ago.

If you built the one in the engadget video, who built the awesome-looking 7 inch display? (yours is awesome too)

And why aren't you letting people play with the 7 inch version? Is it the software that's not ready yet? Or isn't the hardware working internally?

BTW, one thing I don't like about the new Rift Dev Kit, is the brightness, and especially contrast, buttons. It's going to be a real pain in the arse to tell the user to put the Rift into the right settings so your game looks like it's supposed to. Why should users be able to put it in a state where things don't look right, and have to adjust multiple settings to try to make it look normal (or not realise why it isn't working properly)? It's not like there are different environmental conditions requiring users in brightly lit rooms to turn up the brightness, the environment is identical for all users. And in the real world people can't adjust the brightness or contrast of the world (without sunglasses). Also, does contrast even make sense for digital displays? I thought it was an old analogue thing, like V-Hold.

[fraherd]

Whats the issue with the 7inch display. Are you having issues trying to add the convergence to the demo to re centre the images?

The 5.6" display they were using was discontinued, prompting the search for a new one. They also note the 7" screen they decided on has superior specs compared to the old one.

From the Oculus blog, "The panel we were using in our prototype was a 5.6” LCD with a resolution of 1280×800. This screen is a great size for a VR headset and it has an impressive pixel density for the year it was produced. Nevertheless, it has flaws: it isn’t particularly bright, the contrast ratio is low, and the color accuracy is abysmal. The two biggest issues, though, are its poor fill factor and high switching times."

http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/details-on ... loper-kits

I think he is asking why they can't use the 7" prototype at the current CES demos.

exactly, I understand the 7 inch was the only option. And on that note I think it was a good choice. I was just wondering why the Dev kit (that I assume has all its working hardware inside) is not being demoed, has the software not been updated to adjust for the off centered convergence point that you now get with the new 7 inch display? or is the Dev kit at this stage just a shell with no internal hardware.

[Libertine]

BTW, one thing I don't like about the new Rift Dev Kit, is the brightness, and especially contrast, buttons. It's going to be a real pain in the arse to tell the user to put the Rift into the right settings so your game looks like it's supposed to.

I can't imagine who would have trouble with that. I'll definitely take as many easy to use options as i can get. Some games for example are not realistically lit, like BF3, and i like to compensate with a brightness adjustment.

[Dycus]

They said the model was aging, not the prototype itself. So I assume they mean you were showing off demos on the old design with 5.6" screens, even if you only built it 3 days ago.

If you built the one in the engadget video, who built the awesome-looking 7 inch display? (yours is awesome too)

And why aren't you letting people play with the 7 inch version? Is it the software that's not ready yet? Or isn't the hardware working internally?

They said on an aging model, as opposed to the aging model. That's why I assumed they thought it was an old head mount. Good point, though.

As for why there's no 7" to play with yet, not sure I'm allowed to say.

[crespo80]

That's disappointing
I was expecting to hear press comments on the updated hardware, I hope you guys are doing it right!

[Dycus]

No worries about that, trust me!

[hyttjo]

As for why there's no 7" to play with yet, not sure I'm allowed to say.

Yes you are allowed to say that, I'll give you that permission.

[alexpez]

I'm with 2eyeguy on image adjustments, calibrate the screens and get rid of the buttons. Coming from a simulator background, you wouldn't believe how many people end up criticising graphics when their monitors are set to (rubbish) factory defaults, or (even worse) showroom settings. Users will never blame their own settings for a poor experience.

Give the devs and users a calibrated level playing field.

[EdZ]

I'd put the calibration buttons inside the casing, requiring a screwdriver to access them. So often, I've seen people 'calibrate' their displays based on what they're used to seeing on their TVs. Unfortunately, almost every TV sold is set to defaults that are absolutely awful: massively oversaturated, contrast turned up far too high, dynamic brightness, edge-enhancement, anything that will make the display look 'punchy' next to others in a brightly lit showroom but awful for actually sitting down to watch something. Trying to match your HMD to this will only result in it looking worse.
Unlike CRTs, LCDs don't drift out of calibration to any significant degree (unless you've got a calibrated colour-matched professional graphics display that has to be absolutely stop-on), so setting the correct brightness and contrast at the factory should be sufficient, and allows developers to work to a known target.

[zeroxygen]

For a non-consumer device I would suggest putting as many dials on it as possible. This one is for people that almost assuredly know how to tweak standard monitor settings.

[upsilandre]

What is it?
strange warping



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... _K86qaxoQY

[zeroxygen]

That should be a portion of the rendering that is not observable with the headset on, in-between the warping.

[TheHolyChicken]

I'd put the calibration buttons inside the casing, requiring a screwdriver to access them. So often, I've seen people 'calibrate' their displays based on what they're used to seeing on their TVs. Unfortunately, almost every TV sold is set to defaults that are absolutely awful: massively oversaturated, contrast turned up far too high, dynamic brightness, edge-enhancement, anything that will make the display look 'punchy' next to others in a brightly lit showroom but awful for actually sitting down to watch something. Trying to match your HMD to this will only result in it looking worse.
Unlike CRTs, LCDs don't drift out of calibration to any significant degree (unless you've got a calibrated colour-matched professional graphics display that has to be absolutely stop-on), so setting the correct brightness and contrast at the factory should be sufficient, and allows developers to work to a known target.

This sounds ideal to me for the consumer device. How many players do you think thought a game was a bit too dark, meddled with their monitor brightness, and then thought other games were washed out?

Take 'Amnesia the Dark Descent' for example; they permitted access to extremely high-end settings that were just there 'for fun' (certain shadowing settings). Lo and behold, many users blindly meddled with the settings recommended for them and then complained it was "badly optimised" and that it had "crappy performance".

Given that the environmental viewing conditions will be IDENTICAL for everybody, it makes sense to me to pretty much lock it down.

[crespo80]

Given that the environmental viewing conditions will be IDENTICAL for everybody, it makes sense to me to pretty much lock it down.

Yeah, calibration has a reason for a standard monitor which can be put in very different enviroments, light-wise.
For the same reason, I can understand calibration even on a "standard" HMD like the Vuzix or the Sony, because some ambient light enters and can modify the image.
But on the Rift, every single unit will be displayed in the same enviroment, so the light conditions are exactly the same, there's no need for adjustments on the consumer unit (maybe on the dev kit for testing purposes), just keep it simple

[TheHolyChicken]

A couple of further thoughts:

I'm reminded of when I was making Portal 2 maps using the easy fun map tool Valve released. One section of my map was quite dark but, as everything was still CLEARLY visible to me, I thought it was fine. I didn't give it a second thought. Fine on my big, bright, beautiful 27" monitor, that is... in the feedback I discovered, to my displeasure, that some players abandoned my map because there was a section that was "completely pitch black" or "impossible" etc. Should the experience be changed or diluted because some people have terrible screens? Many games are.

Have you ever looked at a Wii game and wondered why none of the gui elements are right at the edge of the screen? They're always set a little inset from the borders. It's actually one of the many requirements/restrictions for games on that platform; no important GUI element is permitted to be outside a certain area of screen space, due to a small number of players that would be plugging their Wii consoles into awful screens that would cut some image off.

How many games have you played where they wanted you to attempt to calibrate the gamma? Wouldn't it be great if you could be guaranteed you're getting the experience the game devs desired? Having a fixed viewing experience is a great thing in this case - I would support those screen controls being removed or concealed.

[2EyeGuy]

What is it?
strange warping

It looks like it's rendering the scene as a single side-by-side 3D image before warping, and then probably rendering that image to the screen only once with a pixel shader that does the warping. The pixel shader takes in the coordinates of each pixel, then probably has a branch for which side of the screen the pixel is on, and scales the coordinates, then does a texture lookup at the new coordinates in the image. Where the coordinates are outside the edges of the image it returns black (you could change that behaviour by using clamp, BTW), but when the coordinates are within the image (even if now on the wrong side) then it uses the colour at that point. So when it renders the right edge of the left eye, some of the left edge of the right eye gets used instead of black.

It probably doesn't matter, since the lenses stretch out the corners of the image into a pincushion shape (undoing the warping), where they will probably be outside your field of view and you can't see them.

[2EyeGuy]

I'm reminded of when I was making Portal 2 maps using the easy fun map tool Valve released.

That reminds me, I should be finishing my Style Changer mod for that easy fun map tool. It's a bad sign that people are now using the past tense, and my mod isn't finished. But the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s underground styles are finished and working.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/101772879/Styl ... anTest.zip

[marbas]

We like virtual reality headsets, but we also refuse to accept any such headsets with displays below 7-inches in size.

We do?

[MSat]

Maybe it's just me, but I think the controls are a good thing - especially for something that sits so close to your eyes. I'm actually more sensitive to bright lighting than most people I know (I constantly squint in bright sunlight), so having the ability to control the settings is a good thing. Sure, you can sort of adjust it in software, but you'll never get the colors right without control over the backlight. What would be nice is a single "brightness" control that actually affects both brightness and contrast so that each one doesn't have to be set individually. This might not be a big deal for the dev-kit, but would definitely be nice feature for the consumer version.

[troffmo5]

Looking at the first video of the Verge article i noticed that the borders of the lenses are not flat.
Please tell me that inside there is a screw and you can rotate the lenses to adjust the distance from the screen!

distance.png

I think the mechanism of adjusting the IPD is almost clear

IPD.png

cold, warm or hot

[Mart]

I understand the need to reduce the backlight brightness - I for one am very sensitive to bright light - but what's the point of allowing the end-user to reduce the contrast ratio of the display?

[EdZ]

Maybe it's just me, but I think the controls are a good thing - especially for something that sits so close to your eyes. I'm actually more sensitive to bright lighting than most people I know (I constantly squint in bright sunlight), so having the ability to control the settings is a good thing. Sure, you can sort of adjust it in software, but you'll never get the colors right without control over the backlight. What would be nice is a single "brightness" control that actually affects both brightness and contrast so that each one doesn't have to be set individually. This might not be a big deal for the dev-kit, but would definitely be nice feature for the consumer version.

Doe to a holdover from ancient TV systems (and poor labelling even then), 'brightness' and 'contrast' have nothing whatsoever to do with image brightness or contrast. 'Brightness' determines what the darkest possible light level will be emitted as (i.e. if you turn 'brightness' up, black areas will become grey, and nowhere will be black. If you turn it down, areas that should be grey will be black, and you will lose information in dark areas), and 'contrast' determines how bright the brightest light level will be (i.e. if you turn 'contrast' down, white will emit less light and you will diminish the available dynamic range. If you turn 'contrast' up, light grey areas will be displayed as completely white, and you will lose information in bright areas). Neither actually affect the backlight level, which is a separate setting.
The optimum setting (outside of the TV world, which has yet more crazy holdovers), the optimum setting is to have an input of 0 produce the least amount of light physically possible with your display technology, an input of 255 produce the desired maximum brightness (usually measured in light emitted per unit panel area, but for the Rift that will probably be light emitted per unit solid angle), and every step inbetween to be a distinct change in output. If you want things darker than this, you can modify in software equally as well (and probably better) then you can in hardware. 255 should already be the brightest acceptable emission level, so making things even brighter shouldn't be allowed to prevent eye strain. If you instead made 255 the brightest possible level emitted by the display, you then rely on game developers to ensure the safe/comfortable light limit is not breached. Enforcing this limit in software alone not only invites workarounds, but makes it hard to emit a known desired brightness.

[Libertine]

The one size fits all mentality is what brought us Crysis 2's post processing 3D, needlessly locking out 3D Vision and is what brought us BF3s blue tint (not to mention Deus Ex's yellow tint and Mech Warriors brown tint) over everything regardless of the [opposite] opinions of so many customers. I always turn up the backlight on my displays as high as they can go and i certainly dont get eye strain, in fact i like to feel the hit of bright light when stepping into a bright virtual outside area. I like realistic brightness levels that look life-like, where the light rays bounce off everything, filling in the shadows as they do in real life, to enhance immersion and i run from plasma TV's for related reasons. Many games don't render realistically, like Fable 3, which i tried to play through a little bit just last week. In it i turned down the brightness in some appropriate areas halfway.

btw, am i the only one that rears back and says "HUH?" when people mention following the intentions of the directors/devs? If i keep having to follow the intentions of the current directors/devs, i may not be an active gamer/movie-goer for much longer. I already must break too many "rules" to enjoy games the way i wish too as the believability of games and thus the immersion they provide is not following my age curve, so to say.

On another front, I recently spent 6 hours preparing to play Crysis 2 for the first time. I had to disable the forced post-processing AA that blurred the entire screen, enable [via hack] some true AA using SGSSAA and then turned on some sharpening on my TV, the results were absolutely stunning, genuinely amazing (and not intended). In Metro 2033, the walk speed is a flat out sprint, with no acceleration, and I crouch walk as i do in many games (HL2,etc ) sometimes to get the best immersion, even though it might not make sense to you. I do many other things like this to fit my personal preference as i assume many people do. Ever play a BF match giving yourself one life to live, putting your life first? You won't help your team much, but it sure is intense! Thats a good example of ignoring the rules to create an experience that i personally desire.

btw, theres no reason the controls couldn't have a very rigid detent location with some bright arrows to indicate the default level.

[crespo80]

anyway, I happen to have forgotten that the dev rift's control box does already have contrast and brightness controls

http://www.roadtovr.com/files/2012/11/o ... or-box.jpg

[MSat]

Maybe it's just me, but I think the controls are a good thing - especially for something that sits so close to your eyes. I'm actually more sensitive to bright lighting than most people I know (I constantly squint in bright sunlight), so having the ability to control the settings is a good thing. Sure, you can sort of adjust it in software, but you'll never get the colors right without control over the backlight. What would be nice is a single "brightness" control that actually affects both brightness and contrast so that each one doesn't have to be set individually. This might not be a big deal for the dev-kit, but would definitely be nice feature for the consumer version.

Doe to a holdover from ancient TV systems (and poor labelling even then), 'brightness' and 'contrast' have nothing whatsoever to do with image brightness or contrast. 'Brightness' determines what the darkest possible light level will be emitted as (i.e. if you turn 'brightness' up, black areas will become grey, and nowhere will be black. If you turn it down, areas that should be grey will be black, and you will lose information in dark areas), and 'contrast' determines how bright the brightest light level will be (i.e. if you turn 'contrast' down, white will emit less light and you will diminish the available dynamic range. If you turn 'contrast' up, light grey areas will be displayed as completely white, and you will lose information in bright areas). Neither actually affect the backlight level, which is a separate setting.
The optimum setting (outside of the TV world, which has yet more crazy holdovers), the optimum setting is to have an input of 0 produce the least amount of light physically possible with your display technology, an input of 255 produce the desired maximum brightness (usually measured in light emitted per unit panel area, but for the Rift that will probably be light emitted per unit solid angle), and every step inbetween to be a distinct change in output. If you want things darker than this, you can modify in software equally as well (and probably better) then you can in hardware. 255 should already be the brightest acceptable emission level, so making things even brighter shouldn't be allowed to prevent eye strain. If you instead made 255 the brightest possible level emitted by the display, you then rely on game developers to ensure the safe/comfortable light limit is not breached. Enforcing this limit in software alone not only invites workarounds, but makes it hard to emit a known desired brightness.

I've done a bit more reading on this subject, and from what I found leads me to believe that what you said only applies to CRTs, and perhaps video card driver settings. For LCDs however, the "brightness" control is as the name would seem to imply, that is, output level of the LCD backlight, likewise the contrast sets the ratio between minimum and maximum pixel light emission. That leads me to believe that contrast control is unnecessary, or at least on the display side.

One issue that I would like to bring up is that LCDs (at least those for mobile, not sure about computer and TV LCDs) generally aren't full 24-bit, but rather 15 to 18-bit so that can be a particular problem for content that is overwhelmingly dark, bright, as well as content that uses minor variances in hues (Ex: Hawken). In such cases, it might be beneficial to be able to exaggerate the contrast in order to preserve details that might otherwise get lost. While this limits the overall dynamic range, one solution to preserve some semblance of it may be by using a dynamic color look-up table limited to the LCD's actual bit-depth, so that dark indoor areas might use a particular LUT, a bright outdoor area could use another. Better still is if the software could take panel brightness into account as well to apply further correction to the LUTs.

[Flassan]

The display settings should NOT be subjectively adjusted for personal taste. They should faithfully reflect the way the material is intended to look.
The enclosed nature of the Rift design means they have absolute control and that could be a major advantage. Normally a producer has no idea how much ambient light the viewer is watching in, it's color temperature or how the monitor is adjusted. The scientific way to check this is by using television test signals such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Card_F
For instance the flesh tones of the girl should be the right hue and saturation and the little grey dot in the middle of the black rectangle in the greyscale to her left should be adjusted using brightness until it is just visible.

Testcard_F.jpg

The engineering terms for brightness and contrast are Lift and Gain. Lift is the black level and Gain is the signal amplitude and in a TV studio they are always adjusted with the help of a waveform monitor (a kind of Oscilloscope). Of course game developers should always view their material under operational lighting to check it's leaving them ok

[EdZ]

I've done a bit more reading on this subject, and from what I found leads me to believe that what you said only applies to CRTs, and perhaps video card driver settings. For LCDs however, the "brightness" control is as the name would seem to imply, that is, output level of the LCD backlight, likewise the contrast sets the ratio between minimum and maximum pixel light emission.

This is unfortunately NOT the case, causing no end of infuriation to anyone trying to set up an LCD or PDP (or even a CRT outside of the broadcast world). Some LCDs may have a separate backlight level, some may just not allow modification of the backlight level, some may link it to 'contrast' (white level) and in the worst case the 'brightness' (actually black level) setting will change both the black level AND the backlight level, making it completely impossible to acceptably set both!

One issue that I would like to bring up is that LCDs (at least those for mobile, not sure about computer and TV LCDs) generally aren't full 24-bit, but rather 15 to 18-bit so that can be a particular problem for content that is overwhelmingly dark, bright, as well as content that uses minor variances in hues (Ex: Hawken). In such cases, it might be beneficial to be able to exaggerate the contrast in order to preserve details that might otherwise get lost. While this limits the overall dynamic range, one solution to preserve some semblance of it may be by using a dynamic color look-up table limited to the LCD's actual bit-depth, so that dark indoor areas might use a particular LUT, a bright outdoor area could use another.

The 8-bit -> 6 bit conversion is done via dithering/modulation (or both) in the LCD hardware itself. You won't be able to drive the display from the computer end at a high enough refresh rate to computationally replicate the same or better effect, with the exception maybe of a slightly nicer dithering algorithm. In either case, blowing out the gamma (what most people from the photography world thing of as contrast) won't net you any more detail from a 6 bit panel, it'll just result in a less accurate output.

[MSat]

This is unfortunately NOT the case, causing no end of infuriation to anyone trying to set up an LCD or PDP (or even a CRT outside of the broadcast world). Some LCDs may have a separate backlight level, some may just not allow modification of the backlight level, some may link it to 'contrast' (white level) and in the worst case the 'brightness' (actually black level) setting will change both the black level AND the backlight level, making it completely impossible to acceptably set both!

The more I looked into it, the more my assumption was verified. From the various sources I've seen, here are some of the best:

http://www.spearsandmunsil.com/articles ... ntrol.html

"One question we get a lot is, “why does the brightness control need to be calibrated? Isn’t there a standard voltage or code value for black that can be locked in at the factory?” This isn’t a dumb question at all. Modern computer monitors almost never need brightness calibration, and a lot of LCD monitors either don’t have a control labeled “brightness” or have one that controls the backlight brightness, which is a completely different adjustment. Essentially modern computer monitors assume that the video card is going to produce a consistent signal that is exactly to spec. This is a pretty good assumption – in fact video cards do generally produce proper and consistent signals that are exactly (or very nearly exactly) to spec."

And another from http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php

"Use the contrast setting, and maybe gamma to improve the display of the darker squares, but watch out for undoing the optimizations in the earlier images. On most LCD monitors, the brightness setting only affects the backlight, but doesn't affect the test images otherwise."

Though I have seen some sources that mention as you said and have backlight controls linked to black-level controls, particularly once the backlight is dimmed beyond a certain point.

At any rate, the Rift could have a strict backlight-only control, and do away with any legacy "brightness" and "contrast"

The 8-bit -> 6 bit conversion is done via dithering/modulation (or both) in the LCD hardware itself. You won't be able to drive the display from the computer end at a high enough refresh rate to computationally replicate the same or better effect, with the exception maybe of a slightly nicer dithering algorithm. In either case, blowing out the gamma (what most people from the photography world thing of as contrast) won't net you any more detail from a 6 bit panel, it'll just result in a less accurate output.

I understand that dithering is generally handled on the LCD side (at the DVI/HDMI/etc -> LCD panel interface to be specific), but that wasn't what I was talking about. But speaking of dithering, I think in reality it would be detrimental to overall picture quality considering the relatively low angular resolution of the Dev-kit (and perhaps even a 1080 unit), which would make any implementation of dithering much more apparent, reducing its effect, and probably do little else than introduce significant noise to the image. What I was suggesting was not using dithering at all, but rather working within the constraints of the panel's native bit-depth by eliminating extensive use of subtle hue variations which would be impossible to resolve making the scene looked washed out. The point is to get the most out of the hardware, and since dithering is unlikely to help, why not at least sharpen the image as much as possible?

[Libertine]

The display settings should NOT be subjectively adjusted for personal taste. They should faithfully reflect the way the material is intended to look.

Lets hope game devs who never intended to have their game/s used with an Oculus Rift have a more respectful attitude toward other people's personal tastes than you do.

Are you working on Windows 8 by chance?

That said: What i really hope for is backlight and white level adjustability. I don't modify brightness that much outside of compensating for dimming 3D glasses.

[Flassan]

oh, I didn't mean to cause offence. Reading it back I guess it was a bit blunt. Sorry about that.
Just trying to pass on information that some may find useful. Lift and gain are interrelated so increasing the gain causes the blacks to become grey which reduces the dynamic range.
I haven't tried Windows 8 programming yet but when I do I'll know my place

[EdZ]

"One question we get a lot is, “why does the brightness control need to be calibrated? Isn’t there a standard voltage or code value for black that can be locked in at the factory?” This isn’t a dumb question at all. Modern computer monitors almost never need brightness calibration, and a lot of LCD monitors either don’t have a control labeled “brightness” or have one that controls the backlight brightness, which is a completely different adjustment. Essentially modern computer monitors assume that the video card is going to produce a consistent signal that is exactly to spec. This is a pretty good assumption – in fact video cards do generally produce proper and consistent signals that are exactly (or very nearly exactly) to spec."

And from the paragraph previous to that one (emphasis mine):

"The name “brightness” is really not a very good one. Professional video engineers refer to “black level,” which is more descriptive. What you’re really setting is the input level that the display will consider absolute black. If the input is analog (such as component or VGA), then you’re setting a voltage level that the display will consider black. If the input is digital (such as DVI or HDMI), then you’re setting a digital value that will be considered black."


If you check almost any LCD display (or TV), you will find a brightness and contrast setting. It is completely pot-luck as to which control, if either, will change the blacklight level. You're entirely reliant on what the display controller manufacturer thinks the setting should do, and this decision seems to usually be entirely arbitrary, as does the choice of default values.

[PasticheDonkey]

backlight level is normally under eco settings.

[MSat]

"One question we get a lot is, “why does the brightness control need to be calibrated? Isn’t there a standard voltage or code value for black that can be locked in at the factory?” This isn’t a dumb question at all. Modern computer monitors almost never need brightness calibration, and a lot of LCD monitors either don’t have a control labeled “brightness” or have one that controls the backlight brightness, which is a completely different adjustment. Essentially modern computer monitors assume that the video card is going to produce a consistent signal that is exactly to spec. This is a pretty good assumption – in fact video cards do generally produce proper and consistent signals that are exactly (or very nearly exactly) to spec."

And from the paragraph previous to that one (emphasis mine):

"The name “brightness” is really not a very good one. Professional video engineers refer to “black level,” which is more descriptive. What you’re really setting is the input level that the display will consider absolute black. If the input is analog (such as component or VGA), then you’re setting a voltage level that the display will consider black. If the input is digital (such as DVI or HDMI), then you’re setting a digital value that will be considered black."


If you check almost any LCD display (or TV), you will find a brightness and contrast setting. It is completely pot-luck as to which control, if either, will change the blacklight level. You're entirely reliant on what the display controller manufacturer thinks the setting should do, and this decision seems to usually be entirely arbitrary, as does the choice of default values.

I certainly don't mean to argue what the definition of "brightness" and "contrast" is as it pertains to video displays, and as I see it is irrelevant to the discussion. In order to avoid further confusion, or a misuse of terms, I'll refer to backlight control as "backlight intensity" or perhaps "backlight luminance" which should make the meaning quite clear. The ratio between the minimum and maximum possible luminance of a pixel for any given backlight intensity could be called the "contrast ratio". All I'm saying is that the rift should indeed have a "backlight intensity" control, while a "contrast ratio" control might not be necessary.

As I respect your (as well as many other members of this forum) opinions, I would like to know what your thoughts are regarding the possible issues I mentioned with using dithering. Am I on the right track with thinking that it would not enhance the perceived colors but rather just introduce noise to the image given the low angular resolution?