The future headset that could win me over is one with:
high resolution OLED displays so that I can lay on my back in bed and watch movies on a big screen in awesome quality.
reduced scub-diving feeling.
larger FOV which might help a ton on the scuba-diving feeling
better passthrough cameras
And off topic. I would like to see phones that are capable of shooting VR. That would open up so many possibilities for solo performers to shoot VR content.
@fenderwq @sogman @rerun119 @harigeharry @OliverDK Hopefully, more VR headset manufacturers invest in this optics system. This is the best way to have a headset with high resolution displays, clear pancake lenses, large FOV without distortion in a small form factor all at the same time. It can reach up to 240° HFOV which is even wider than Humans HFOV at 210° which is crazy.
Display heat is an issue, but it can be resolved with active cooling and more efficient displays and optics in the future, hopefully.
They even made Software Distortion Correction for all the current VR games and videos to look perfectly fine with this optics system.
sogman I have owned 2 Pimax 8kx. The first one I had for a long time and bought it in the early times of it coming out. There was a learning curve for the headset. Like @fenderwq said about it being big. I did end up buying these weighted sand bags that you velcro to the sides so that the weight is even. It worked like a charm. I can now wear it for hours without any side effects.
Also I use a pillow to lay my head down on so I don't notice anything from the back of it.
Also it took my a long time to realize that you don't need the base stations for it to work. Before if the base stations lost site or whatever then the headset would go wonky. I ended up moving the base stations a bunch of times to try to get it perfect. Then finally one day I turned off that feature and bingo it doesn't need then for porn. You don't move enough for it to lose where it is in the room. No problems since.
One of the biggest things was that the first one I bought finally crapped out. So I went and got a Quest 3. I used it for 6 months to a year and kelp thinking about the Pimax so I bought a furbished used one from Pimax. This one is way nicer. Like @fenderwq said about the edges being blurry was true for the first one I had. It is not true for the second one. I'm guessing because it was made later on and they figured something out.
Over all the picture in the Quest3 is crisper and with brighter colors. But I notice the sides being a black ring of nothingness that all other headsets have. The second I notice it it takes me out of the imagination of being there. The Pimax is so big that it is almost everywhere you look. If you are looking straight ahead then you will not notice any black anywhere. It's a complete view of VR world. Maybe my eyesight is not 20/20 anymore but the trade off of image is well worth it. Also I don't watch many so called 8K videos because they all have the same problem with scaling.
I always vote for give me life size image over beautiful gaints.
harigeharry Personally I'm interested most in the Samsung's Project Moohan
I know little to nothing about it. Any ideas what the cost may be? Will it run on a pc or standalone?
Sounds like a lot of sets out there in the works etc. But what Im most interested in is a reasonably priced ($500-600 standalone) headset that does not require a tether to a $$$ PC... but the headset must have a very wide, like 170 degree FOV, otherwise for me its just another nice headset with nice clarity and bla bla, I need something different. Love passthrough, but I want a large FOV. Hopefully there are some out there that go more this way or ill just stick with my quest3.
Side note, any you guys keeping up on this "gaussal splatting"? Dont know how to spell it, but I think this could be the new thing if they could do it with live action somehow. Google did something years back with a sphere of cameras, there was a demo for it when the Rift first came out. I think it could be done with live action. Would be totally mindblowing.
sogman Everybody wants a headset like this. But a standalone 500-600 headset with better specs then Quest won't exist for the foreseeable future as Quest headsets are heavily subsidized by Meta and at a similar price. Also large FOV and passthrough are very technically challenging to mix.
As for guassian splatting and similar technologies: They are ways to make volumentric images/videos. There is a lot of promising research in this area lately and a lot of people see the potential for volumetric porn in this format. There are also already some companies that use this to deliver volumetric porn (walk around porn so to speak).
It's not really high quality yet but research in this area is moving very fast. So it will be exciting to see where we are in 1 to 2 years here. Decent quality (e.g. the equivalent of good 4K) volumetric porn will likely be a thing then. Even the current demo's are pretty cool. Not high enough quality for me but it makes you ache for when this gets good.
sogman Yeah, volumetrics are super. Best I've seen so far (in porn) is this: https://www.patreon.com/c/XXXDimension/home. Still just short and low res experiences but still found it cool to try out and imagine how crazy this will be in the future. Can't wait
sogman If you just install the Voluverse app that you will need for this you can watch two SFW Micky Muffin examples and some other stuff without signing up to anything. If I remember correctly, the free account lets you watch some XXXDim samples but most of the content you can only watch with the paid subscription that gives you full access.
SchnuppiLilac Are you paid or using free? If so, in its rough state, is it worth the cost looking back or would you wait to pay for more than the free stuff. Im cheap lol
Yeah volumetric is definitely very cool. SLR is also doing some experiments with it, can't wait to see what they're going to come up with! But there are several threads on this forum (volumetric/6dof) already on that topic, best to continue any volumetric related discussion there and keep this thread for discussion regarding upcoming headsets.
sogman I have been a paying user for two or three months. If the free samples still make you curious for more, I think it's worth paying for one month since it's only like 5-10 bucks. One month will be enough to explore all the content.
The reason I finally decided to cancel was that content updates are rare. I think what you can expect at best is like one new 'scene' per week with a duration of a few minutes.
Image quality-wise, I thought it was quite okay considering the early state and limited resources behind it. What bugged me more was the app which can be a pain to handle, but it's working. Another thing I noticed was that performers never seem to look you in the eyes. Would be so much better if they did.
An unsolved problem of this tech which also occurred in what Naughty America was doing is open mouths. It seems to be a problem to properly scan body cavities and faces with open mouths look a bit weird.
What's definitely a great experience is to get an idea of how it would be to walk into a scene and become part of it. If they had a huge content library, I would have definitely stayed for longer.
harigeharry You are right, noticed your suggestion only after posting, and I always knew there must be a reason for off-topic being my middle name
It's all coming together, guys. We just need to wait a little bit:
