sickpuppies Any extra FOV will give you more around all the peripheries (including the top and bottom), but yeah- mostly on the left/right sides, which makes sense since we see far more degrees horizontally than vertically. And no, FOV does not affect what's directly in front of you, though obviously some headsets like the Quest 2 and Reverb G2 will be sharper/etc, which is dependent on resolution, pixel type/count and whatnot.
With any VR headset it's a bit like looking through some binoculars: what you're looking at directly ahead will be clear, but a bunch of your vision to the top/bottom/sides will be black where there's no screen/video input. The Index gets you a bit larger of an area that you can see all around and a bit less black than Oculus headsets. The Pimax 8k X give you a huge amount of area that you can see and very little black.
Basically just do this and make the circles gradually bigger and that's the gist.
No idea on the exaggerated fishbowl effect you're coming across- my best guess is either older scenes from like 2017 and earlier (which tended to have this effect), or your VR player is defaulting to the incorrect dimensions for playback of some files (playing a 200 degree scene as 180 degrees, etc).
But yeah, for the "cost for what you get" you really can't really go wrong with the Quest 2.
