Talk about Head Mounted Displays (HMDs), augmented reality, wearable computing, controller hardware, haptic feedback, motion tracking, and related topics here!
GSG9LIGHTNING wrote:The Review is very hard to understand in many parts because he uses terms and phrases that i dont understand... kind of slang or special regional phrases ?
I'm a native English speaker and the problem is not due to any regional dialects or slang. He is simply a poor writer. I think he is trying to be funny and clever, but his writing style is so disjointed and his sentence structure is so poor that it becomes nearly incomprehensible is some places.
(I think this is what happens when someone gets all of their writing experience by phone texting and Twitter posts)
I've been trolling these boards for a few weeks now because I am getting ready to purchase an HMD. I've been waiting to see the reviews on the ST1080 before I pulled the trigger on the HMZ-T1. I think I'm starting to lean towards the HMZ-T1 because of the fact that the current ST1080s have 10% transparency and no light shield. I'm buying an HMD because I want the most immersive experience I can reasonably afford. I'm sure that SMD will eventually release 0% transparency and light shield but who knows how long it will be before that happens.
EDIT: I just realized that the website says "0% transparency add-on available (included)". That is interesting. I wonder how much light sneaks in around those glasses. Hopefully the next person to review them will comment on that.
wiredmessiah wrote:I've been trolling these boards for a few weeks now because I am getting ready to purchase an HMD. I've been waiting to see the reviews on the ST1080 before I pulled the trigger on the HMZ-T1. I think I'm starting to lean towards the HMZ-T1 because of the fact that the current ST1080s have 10% transparency and no light shield. I'm buying an HMD because I want the most immersive experience I can reasonably afford. I'm sure that SMD will eventually release 0% transparency and light shield but who knows how long it will be before that happens.
EDIT: I just realized that the website says "0% transparency add-on available (included)". That is interesting. I wonder how much light sneaks in around those glasses. Hopefully the next person to review them will comment on that.
From what I read, they are putting "Sticker" type light shields in the box. They are for the front of the unit to block out the 10% transparency and make it 0% transparency . A shield to block out the outside world from around the rest of the unit, I do not think they have one for sale. But that seems pretty easy to do yourself anyway.
@wiredmessiah: Light pollution is one of the easiest things to fix on an HMD, so I think it does not make sense to make that an important deciding factor. You should compare them based on technical criteria like FOV, weight, optics, resolution, color contrast, etc.. and worry about the light pollution later.
The new review is much much better! I have a quick question for you guys that are experts in 3D. That second review mentioned that the ST1080 is compatible with Nvidia 3D vision so that 3D content on a computer is watchable. My dad has a passive 3D TV at home and we plug it into a regular laptop (without Nvidia 3D) through an HDMI port and if we play a 3D movie in SBS mode fullscreen on something like windows media player, the 3D TV has no problem blending the two sides of the movie into a regular 3D movie if we set the TV onto SBS mode.
If this works without Nvidia 3D vision, then what is this Nvidia thing for? Intuitively I'm thinking for frame-packed 3D since I don't really know what that is. Should I expect 3D SBS to work on the ST1080 without Nvidia 3D as well? Thanks!
Hi there. I'm the writer of the review. I'm glad you like it.
To answer your question: By using the menu button, you can manually put the ST1080 into different 3d modes (Frame packed, side by side, Top-Bottom). 3D Vision not required. I can also toggle the modes when the ST1080 is connected to my Asus transformer tablet.
For computer gaming as long as your computer is beefy enough you can run in 1080P for full screen correct ?
It would be with the PS3 and XBox that the small 720P screen size would be a problem.
I would like to here from someone that has used both the Sony and the ST1080 about how the FOV's at full screen compare between them. Dose the sony screen look alot bigger than the ST1080 ?
@3dvison: Well I would love to game at 1080P, but there are limitations to the current HDMI hardware. Basically it means you can only game at 720P at the full 60Hz, when at 1080P its restricted to 24Hz (good for Blu-Ray, suck for gaming). The latest AMD GPUs (HD 7000 series) can actually handle 1080P 60Hz 3D over HDMI, however no displays yet support this.
Anyway, it seems SMD are going to release a patch to fix this, but it still seems like a big blunder to not have that ready for release.
cybereality wrote:@3dvison: Well I would love to game at 1080P, but there are limitations to the current HDMI hardware. Basically it means you can only game at 720P at the full 60Hz, when at 1080P its restricted to 24Hz (good for Blu-Ray, suck for gaming). The latest AMD GPUs (HD 7000 series) can actually handle 1080P 60Hz 3D over HDMI, however no displays yet support this.
Aren't you ignoring the extended modes (not demanded by HDMI spec, but supported by ST1080) of 1920x540@60Hz t&b, 960x1080@60Hz sbs and 1920x1080@30Hz t&b? Those should certainly be supported by PC drivers, and the 540 mode is no worse than what one of those passive 3D TVs can show. They're not the full display capacity, but they're 12.5% higher pixel density without blurring (60Hz modes vs 720p) or 25% higher framerate (30Hz vs 24Hz).
The problem is the best 3D driver available now is 3D Vision and support 720p 60hz Framepack or 1080p 24hz Framepack for HDMI. Although there is an interim solution by using external hardware scaler and 3D converter (converting 720p 60hz Framepack to 1080p SBS or TnB 60hz). For gaming 60hz refresh rate is important. Off course if you don't mind 1080p 2D gaming than ST1080 is a great choice now for HMD.
I was wondering if 1080 @ 30hz might be enough anyway. Since the game loop can run much faster, I wonder how much it will effect things. I think that translates to a 33ms lag, but if the rest of the loop is fast enough, it might be just responsive enough to use.
This ST1080 does seem like a very good design etc. If it had double the FOV, and took 60hz 3D in @ 1080, it would be perfect.
The guy over at veda is up to review #4 now.
He still writes like he's strapped to a Red Bull Intravenous line, with a stick of dynamite in his mouth, thats set to blow-up, if he types less than 80mph. Or is that words per second...LOL
From reading it, it does sound like the ST1080 has better 3-D pop-out effect than the Sony HMZ-T1.
Want to see what cybereality thinks of the ST1080 with the Fuji W3.
Ok, totally confused right now. In his #4 Review of the ST1080 the Veda-guy goes into detail concerning console gaming and 3D console gaming in particular. Despite of the excellent 3D he states that the ST1080 should NOT be your choice if you are a Console-3D-Gamer because the screen will be minimized to 60" instead of the full 100" due to the 720p-limitation of the Consoles which causes the ST1080 to display only a smaller picture.
As far as I remember he mentions this 720p --> smaller screen problem only for Console-3D-gaming and not for PC-3D-gaming. That is the point that confuses me. Afaik using Nvidia 3D Vision you are bound to 3DTV Play to enable your ST1080 - PC connection. But 3DTV Play is also limited to 720p @ 60Hz in 3D mode. Shouldn't the problems with the small screen the Veda-guy mentions only for Console-3D-gaming exactly be the same for the PC - ST1080-3D-Connection?
How is it possible that he didn't mention the small screen when wrote about PC 3D gaming in conjunction with the ST1080?
Because that is a driver limitation, not a limitation of the ST1080 or even graphics card. I am not sure if nvidia's driver can be set to the proper modes, but AFAICT DDD Tridef should be able to pull off at least 1920x1080 side by side. Could people with experience with the different drivers tell us which modes they support? Also, SMD did already announce the upscaling for a future firmware update.
Last edited by yann on Wed May 23, 2012 9:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
Can someone confirm that 1080p 3D@24Hz is bearable for gaming?
You might know Bloody's 3D-Vision-Blog and he tested several games in 1080p@24Hz (long time ago)with really positive results. In that case there would be no "small Screen"-problem with the ST1080 and you could even game @1080p 3D since 3DTV Play also supports 1080p@24Hz.
lohan wrote:Can someone confirm that 1080p 3D@24Hz is bearable for gaming?
You might know Bloody's 3D-Vision-Blog and he tested several games in 1080p@24Hz (long time ago)with really positive results. In that case there would be no "small Screen"-problem with the ST1080 and you could even game @1080p 3D since 3DTV Play also supports 1080p@24Hz.
Dunno about 1080p 3d 24Hz, if its anything like Frames Per second though; used to play a lot of flight simulator on online servers, formation flying and all that jazz. We'd actually limited the game to 20 Frames Per Second to reduce lag issues, But then you cant pull any neck breaking moves of actions. Anything below 10 to 15 frames would be considered choppy.
On a note; I have just ordered my ST1080, I'm using a Nvidia GTS 250 Green at 1 GB, double GPU's, Dunno the exact Driver version but I'll post how it turns out playing a game on it (Battlefield 3 Enough of a game to test it?). Just gotta wait unit I get a confirmation email of my purchase and of it being shipped, plus about 7 to 10 days for shipping itself... I CANT WAIT!
I just need one solid review of the unit and my order will be placed. I was disapointed with my HMZ - comfort and 3d effect has not what I hoped (in terms of 3d effect it did not have the same POP that our passive TV has). The ST1080 appears to have more pop (based on one review) however I am still hesitating on pushing the button lol until I read a better review!!!
cybereality wrote:@pierreye: Totally random and off-topic, but I just noticed we both registered for this forum on the exact same date only about an hour apart. Freaky.
Yeah. What are the odds? Luckily it's not "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named"
There are some additional comments posted from an individual who received their unit (see below) - seems like blacks are not as black as the HMZ (more grey) however the 3d is strong (however he can't compare to the HMZ). I am hoping that one of you receive your unit in the next week or so - once I receive a review from here I will sned over my order!
From the SMD "comments" section in the 5/15/2012 Blog:
Rearranged for better Q&A clarity:
George: 1. Colors (compared to HMZ or compared to anything you tried, TV, PJ etc).
Jeffrey: 1. Colors seems to be a bit worse than my LED/LCD laptop screen. But still more than good enough for watching movies/playing games etc.
George: 2. Blacks (compared to TV/PJ, whatever).
Jeffrey: 2. Not great, Black is dark gray. It also seems to be having some light bleeding issues on the sides.
George: 3. Sharpness of the edges (is text uniform across the screen, legible in the corners)
Jeffrey: 3. Text is very sharp, good readable. Only the corners are a bit out of focus. If you focus on them they are also sharp.
George: 4. Perceivable distance to the screen compared to HMZ-T1 (is this really 100" at 10' away, or smaller/larger?)
Jeffrey: 4. Don't have the HMZ-T1, So can't judge on that. But it looks like a big screen.
George: 5. 3D pop effect in movies in 1080p. (don't care about 720p until scaling is added)
Jeffrey: 5. Depends on the movie. For some movies it is hard to see, and some are just amazing with floating stuff towards you and everything. For PC games you can sometimes adjust the effect to make it stronger. I liked the 3d effect in Unreal tournament 2004 (in combination with iz3D) the most. Especially flying with the redeemer .
George: 6. Were you able to play a game in 3D in 1080p 30Hz top-bottom full frame mode? How was the image quality? How was framerate (tolerable for fps games like Call of Duty or not)?
Jeffrey: 6. Didn't got that mode to work yet (Have to play around with programs on my laptop, to get different modes to work). NVidia Vision 3D detects it but only for bluray playback. 3DTV Play from NVidia does not seems to work right now (all options disabled). I personally prefer 1080p 3D SBS 60Hz (half resolution). Its 60Hz and still looks very good.
George: 7. Is focus easily attainable? Do you just put it on your nose like regular glasses and everything's immediately in focus, or do you have to adjust it to a sweet spot... and if so how big is it?
Jeffrey: 7. At first you really have to get used to the HMD. You can adjust 2 slides for your pupil distance. After that it is just putting it on and have fun. Ofcourse there is a 'sweet spot', where you can see most of the screen perfect. But you can still see everything good when moving the HMD around. You can even shake your head while the screen stays good .
I think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy one of these soon. Perhaps this weekend.
The reviews are sufficiently good, and I am encouraged by those who reckon that I can probably use 1080P SBS @ 60hz. I have lots of SBS movies and the quality is fine - the loss of 1/2 the horizontal resolution is not so noticable as it seems to antialiases itself with the other eye. Assuming that SBS mode is going to be useable from 3D Vision, 3D Play, or TriDef...
Hopefully the scaling issue will be sorted soon, although it may well be better going with 1080P SBS than scaled 720 anyway.
SMD is telling people that they will probably be done shipping the March 1st orders by next Tuesday 29th, and that those orders constitute a huge portion of their backlog. The rest of the pre-orders are supposed to be shipped by June 8th. I estimate that it would take 2 weeks after that to get the remaining orders out - so let's just round it off and say that it would take a month from today to get your order.
PS. I think I'm on track for the first week of June. gimme gimme gimme
I asked SMD if a unit was ordered today when were they estimating when it would ship - I was surprised to hear that it would be mid June... looks like they are catching up to the pre-orders!
I am thinking more and more that I might as well place my order tomorrow.
FWIW, I still haven't received a shipping confirmation, so there are some 2012-03-01 orders left. My receipt from paypal is marked Mar 1, 2012 08:11:17 PST, while SMD confirmed the payment Sun, 4 Mar 2012 20:36:40 -0500. The next shipping batch is supposed to go out on Tuesday 2012-05-29.
One thing I have noticed with the veda pic's of the ST1080's screen and I believe the Palmer pic's from some time ago, is that even when the camera is held farther back, not tight in and really close to the screens, it seems you can still make out a picture. Seems with the Sony it would just show a blob of colored light if you tried to snap a pic from that far back. So you would think, it must also be very easy to focus on the ST1080's screens with your eyes.
Veda's reviews are getting slightly less crazy. Maybe he has calmed down a bit after his initial excitement. One thing that is encouraging is his confirmation of PalmerTech's impressions that the exit pupil is indeed large, and that motion does not easily move the image out of focus. Maybe the stability of focus is what is giving him the perception that the FOV is larger than the HMZ because we know that is not technically true. It is nice to think that the subjective difference in FOV between these two units is not significant, since that is one of the strongest selling points in favor of the HMZ. Or maybe he is just a fan-boy deluding himself. I am anxious to read a more rigorous comparative review of these two units.
