XTAL 5K VR HMD has ARRIVED!

Sorry mate, but the only thing that is magic here is the placebo effect. The xtal does stretch those pixels across the full FOV, as clearly stated in the specs. I've now spoken to a few people who have tried both the Xtal and the Reverb, and the consensus is unanimous - the Reverb has far superior image quality due to its higher pixelbcount spread over a smaller field of view. There's no way to get around the lower res of the Xtal, not even foveated rendering will increase pixels per inch; even if it does come to the Xtal, all it may do is deliver performance benefits, as the entire screen won't need to be high res. I get the feeling that you're trying to justify to yourself that the high price was worth it, but I'm sorry to say it's simply an inferior HMD compared to the Reverb.

Hiya Gunslinger, :smilewink:

I physically own both the HP Reverb Pro as well as the XTAL, no placebo effect here. :) ( I also own the CV1/Vive, and Vive Pro).

The performance of the Reverb is also lacking compared to the XTAL, ie, with the same settings in DCS, the XTAL has better performance with the same (or better) Clarity + across the 170 FOV (whiich the Reverb obviously doesn't have)

The one thing going for the Reverb that utterly destroys the XTAL is the ergonomics and light weight / form factor.

Will need to wait for XTAL version 2.0 to start winning in that department. :thumbup:

More info / Comparisons to be had soon. Stay Tuned! :joystick:

GunSlinger, I have now had the chance to play around with the Xtal for several hours (there is one over in the media lab a few buildings away) and the Reverb is the better experience. I could launch into a ten page review but today is Sat and my little guy wants to practice soccer. Suffice to say, the better experience is had by the Reverb. The XTAL is also very heavy, does not fit the face comfortably for long sessions and becomes painful for me after ~ 30 min.

Now that is starting to sound more like a real review...

:smilewink:

GunSlinger, I have now had the chance to play around with the Xtal for several hours (there is one over in the media lab a few buildings away) and the Reverb is the better experience. I could launch into a ten page review but today is Sat and my little guy wants to practice soccer. Suffice to say, the better experience is had by the Reverb. The XTAL is also very heavy, does not fit the face comfortably for long sessions and becomes painful for me after ~ 30 min.

Hiya Aurelius,

I'd love to hear how you find the experience better.

It's strange that we have such a drastically different view on how the VR experience is between the two HMD's.

I own them both and have had quite a bit more hands on and not simply a short test of sorts in a media lab / testing it out etc like you did, so I'd love to hear about what you actually did or didn't do with the XTAL in your very limited 30 min session(s) over a few hours-period.

I will say that I have personally changed the XTAL's internal padding and swapped it with the one from the Vive Pro as I don't like the feel of the standard leather / pleather type face padding provided with the XTAL.

I also gotta say that, when I am not out flying real jets around, I've spent copious amounts of time having numerous upon numerous 2+ hour standing sessions as well as numerous 4 hour sitting sessions with DCS without a single bit of discomfort and definitely no pain of any sort so I'm not sure how your experience could be the way it was.

Point of mention: I have 20/15 vision in my right eye and 20/10 vision in my left eye. I am not sure what visual acuity you have or what your circumstances are, but I most assuredly try hard to critique the visual experience with the XTAL, but it's very hard to say that there is anything else better on the market at this stage that covers ALL bases like the XTAL does.

Now that is starting to sound more like a real review...

:smilewink:

Oh, Come now Dburne,

It most definitely sounds like a critique without any sort of data or reasons as to why the experience was as it was, not an actual review. Do be at least intellectually honest. :smilewink:

I've even included the basic through-the-lens video a few posts above by Sebastian Ang on his youtube channel clearly showing the visual acuity across the viewable FOV compared to what I myself have personally shown here with my XTAL videos.

Don't fret though, like I've mentioned previously, I'll be also showing BOTH the HP Reverb AND the XTAL side by side Through-The-Lens Videos.

It's fairly evident that the Reverb Pro exhibits the following shortcomings:

-The Reverb's lack of wide FOV

-The very narrow sweet spot

-The Ghosting and other visual artifacts that occur with the Reverb

-The windows mixed reality setup / implementation is basically inferior to out of the box ability with XTAL and SteamVR

-HMD Cable securing issues resulting in display faults / failures / etc

The absolute fact is the XTAL image quality displayed at the end of the render pipeline to the users eye (irrespective of it having a lower resolution number on paper than the Reverb) is:

-Just as clear as the Reverb

-In different cases even CLEARER than the Reverb

-Is Clearer across the ENTIRETY of the viewable FOV

-Has an insanely large FOV compared to the tiny FOV of the Reverb

-Has richer colors than the Reverb

-Has Darker "Darks/ Blacks" than the Reverb due to the OLED display

-Has Absolutely supreme Adaptability to various face shapes

-Has Actual mechanical PER-EYE- IPD adjustment

-Has EYE tracking tech already built-in

-Has Foviated Rendering software which will be used in DCS

-Has 170 degrees FOV with a nearly matching 1:1 Sweet Spot

-Has support for Multiple Tracking systems (large scale VR)

-Has support (in the near future for Inside-out Tracking via software update) driven by current leap-motion sensors.

-Has Leap-motion integrated

Like I've mentioned in previous posts, I am able to LOOK with my eyes LEFT or RIGHT across the 170 degree FOV while enjoying as clear of a view that I enjoy when looking STRAIGHT into the lenses): You can't do this with the Reverb Pro. :thumbup:

The Reverb Pro definitely has tangible benefits compared to the XTAL such as:

-Lighter weight

-Contains inside out tracking right out of the box whereas inside out tracking is being implemented in software in the near future for the XTAL.

-Cheaper (obviously as it's a low end gaming / basic VR HMD for the masses)

@Hammer

yes, I could see the difference of the sweetspot in comparison to the video of MRTV.

I think, VRengineers really perfectionized the lenses of their VR headset. The lenses didn´t so far got that much attention, needed for better results in the development of HMDs.

It seems to be also much more challenging producing good lenses for wide FOV headsets, than for standard FOVs. The fresnel lenses in most/nearly all VR headsets are very much the same.

Valve made an approach to improve the lens tech for the Index with some respectable results, i would say.

I guess the lenses of the Pimax are the reason, why there has to be a masked area in the FOV of the Pimax headset, as I would assume that a distortion made by the Pimax lenses need to be covered/masked. The XTAL lenses seem to be such perfect, that they dont need to mask and bring the full potential and resolution of their displays to the eye.

Also the XTAL lenses might be the reason for the high price of the device ( beside some additional tech ). Producing high quality lenses is in first step very cost intensive, as there has to be first created and designed a mold to fill with molten glass. I guess one mold only will be approx 10.000,- and god knows how much molds and lens prototypes they had to produce to come to the perfect shape of lens for their design.

But Prague is very famous for its traditional glass molting industry, I would further guess, that at least one of the VRengineers team is close connected to this industrie to get the quality of lenses they use.

So taking into account, that beside the huge compatibility of tracking solutions, while havin in focus commercial customers for their device, like VR theme parks or public VR experiences, VRengineers seem to set the price such high to get a return of their investment for producing the lenses quick. With this point of view it is not very optimistic for the future of VRengineers.

Also they surely will have difficulties to get into a consumer mass market, as the price to get into this, must be below 2.000,- at least, what is a huge step from 5.000,- $ per unit.

Surely the price for the lenses could get lowered, when they are going to produce numbers up and beyond 100.000 units, but these numbers need be sold in the mass market for rentability and I got doubts, that they could get into mass consumer market with a price tag over 2.000,- per unit.

Maybe if the radically reduce the features of the XTAL, like only having Lighthouse tracking and hardware IPD setting, no Foveated rendering, but when they got their product on a consumer level tech, the big company competitors might have a better product at lower costs at this point. Really difficult for XTAL as they started with a high end product at exorbitant costs and selling prices.

I do hope there tech will survive and being developed by big company investors maybe as they really achieved something no one else has so far.

@Aurelius

Did you ever tested Playstation VR in the lab? Maybe it´s a new winner for your personal preferences.

Hiya Aurelius,

 

I'd love to hear how you find the experience better.

 

It's strange that we have such a drastically different view on how the VR experience is between the two HMD's.

 

I own them both and have had quite a bit more hands on and not simply a short test of sorts in a media lab / testing it out etc like you did, so I'd love to hear about what you actually did or didn't do with the XTAL in your very limited 30 min session(s) over a few hours-period.

 

I will say that I have personally changed the XTAL's internal padding and swapped it with the one from the Vive Pro as I don't like the feel of the standard leather / pleather type face padding provided with the XTAL.

 

I also gotta say that, when I am not out flying real jets around, I've spent copious amounts of time having numerous upon numerous 2+ hour standing sessions as well as numerous 4 hour sitting sessions with DCS without a single bit of discomfort and definitely no pain of any sort so I'm not sure how your experience could be the way it was.

 

Point of mention: I have 20/15 vision in my right eye and 20/10 vision in my left eye. I am not sure what visual acuity you have or what your circumstances are, but I most assuredly try hard to critique the visual experience with the XTAL, but it's very hard to say that there is anything else better on the market at this stage that covers ALL bases like the XTAL does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, Come now Dburne,

 

It most definitely sounds like a critique without any sort of data or reasons as to why the experience was as it was, not an actual review. Do be at least intellectually honest. :smilewink:

 

I've even included the basic through-the-lens video a few posts above by Sebastian Ang on his youtube channel clearly showing the visual acuity across the viewable FOV compared to what I myself have personally shown here with my XTAL videos.

 

Don't fret though, like I've mentioned previously, I'll be also showing BOTH the HP Reverb AND the XTAL side by side Through-The-Lens Videos.

 

It's fairly evident that the Reverb Pro exhibits the following shortcomings:

 

-The Reverb's lack of wide FOV

-The very narrow sweet spot

-The Ghosting and other visual artifacts that occur with the Reverb

-The windows mixed reality setup / implementation is basically inferior to out of the box ability with XTAL and SteamVR

-HMD Cable securing issues resulting in display faults / failures / etc

 

 

The absolute fact is the XTAL image quality displayed at the end of the render pipeline to the users eye (irrespective of it having a lower resolution number on paper than the Reverb) is:

 

 

-Just as clear as the Reverb

-In different cases even CLEARER than the Reverb

-Is Clearer across the ENTIRETY of the viewable FOV

-Has an insanely large FOV compared to the tiny FOV of the Reverb

-Has richer colors than the Reverb

-Has Darker "Darks/ Blacks" than the Reverb due to the OLED display

-Has Absolutely supreme Adaptability to various face shapes

-Has Actual mechanical PER-EYE- IPD adjustment

-Has EYE tracking tech already built-in

-Has Foviated Rendering software which will be used in DCS

-Has 170 degrees FOV with a nearly matching 1:1 Sweet Spot

-Has support for Multiple Tracking systems (large scale VR)

-Has support (in the near future for Inside-out Tracking via software update) driven by current leap-motion sensors.

-Has Leap-motion integrated

 

Like I've mentioned in previous posts, I am able to LOOK with my eyes LEFT or RIGHT across the 170 degree FOV while enjoying as clear of a view that I enjoy when looking STRAIGHT into the lenses): You can't do this with the Reverb Pro. :thumbup:

 

The Reverb Pro definitely has tangible benefits compared to the XTAL such as:

 

-Lighter weight

-Contains inside out tracking right out of the box whereas inside out tracking is being implemented in software in the near future for the XTAL.

-Cheaper (obviously as it's a low end gaming / basic VR HMD for the masses)

I mean I don't really have anything to disagree here with you aside from the comments about center clarity of the reverb vs the Xtal. Which is mainly interesting both from the Spec side of the house and the fact several other people say that the reverb is better. What is your IPD like? Could it be that your sweet spot on the reverb is not a good fit, or maybe you got a bum reverb ? That could explain your experience vs other folks.

I mean, its not like I'm not gonna run out and buy an Xtal one way or the other. But I mainly wonder why you are having a different experience with it than others.

I don't consider myself poor by any means, but I do consider VR tech to be "disposable" as in a few years there will be something better coming along much like computer products in general. If it were "mature" I'd consider spending more than 1-2k for headset (max), and I'm very happy spending less.

I think the "market" price for pro-sumers here in DCS land is gonna be in the 1-2k range for most people. And even then the majority of guys aren't gonna drop that, and will stick to the sub 1k market.

Honestly if they could get a stripped down version of the Xtal with a OLED resolution equal to the reverb and somewhat better FOV and good clarity edge to edge I'd buy it for ~1.5k. But thats a pretty big ask. I don't care that much about Foveated rendering since I don't think its gonna actually happen, so don't care about eye tracking. IPD adjustment, well make it manual, easy enough. As for hand tracking, I don't think there is clear winner there right now, so I don't care too much about some version of it being integrated. And since I play DCS I don't care about room scale tracking. I just don't know if cutting that sort of stuff out would save them enough to build it.

Plus I think on the top end of the market they have some pressure from Varjo, which by the looks of it has near retinal level resolution already. But no one here owns one so no one knows if its BS or not.

Nice review Aurelius.

There is absolutely no eye tracking in the Xtal. It can measure retina position to adjust the IPD, but actual foveated rendering via eye tracking is not included, and I really doubt it ever will.

BTW, great review there Aurelius, but as a former reviewer, I think your scores are rather weird ;). Given the Xtal price, which is a key point in any product review, I'd suggest the Xtal is lucky to get even a 5/10.