This may tip the scales........
http://www.androidauthority.com/htc-vive-price-667174/
http://www.androidauthority.com/htc-vive-price-667174/
Certainly an important application but I think lifting the HMD a bit to take a look at you beer is just marginally more cumbersome than pressing a button to enable the camera. The advantage of the lifting method is saving both the additional weight and cost of the camera.
I've owned a DK2 and I was demonstrating the HTC Vive at the EGX this year (as others have mentioned).
The PlayStation VR price leaked yesterday and it was $800 (ex VAT & shipping), so the later VR's are not going to be any cheaper for some time.
This may tip the scales........
http://www.androidauthority.com/htc-vive-price-667174/
I've owned a DK2 and I was demonstrating the HTC Vive at the EGX this year (as others have mentioned).
I opted for Oculus. Why not a Vive?
Due to the amount of time I play Elite, especially on the DK2 I had already, VR was going to be a must-have. If I can spend £200 on headset or £150 on a joystick, £500 isn't a huge leap for an HMD I'll use for three hours a day.
The implementation of the Vive has sadly ruled it out for me as a viable option. Why? Because it requires two wall-mounted sensors that are roughly 6cm cubed, with bright-green always-on LEDs. Not something my wife would accept in any room in the house (especially not the bedroom where my PC resides) and since I don't have a dedicated VR room where I could bury the cables in the wall, it ain't gonna happen.
The biggest issues (for me) with the DK2 were heat, weight and resolution. With the big plastic front-section and large straps it was very hot to wear in the summer. Although not heavy, after an hour of wear your neck notices. The CV1 has a fabric-like shell instead of solid plastic and weighs a fraction of what the DK2 did; it has much thinner head straps and has the same video resolution as the HTC Vive (which I've tried using Elite) which eliminates visible pixels, so it ticks all the boxes.
The revised version of the Vive recently announced (with front-facing camera) has slightly smaller sensors than the prototype I used last year, so they can be tripod-mounted - but do you have 15 square feet around your PC to accommodate two tripods with associated cabling across the floor? I don't. It also doesn't look to be any lighter than the prototype, which was a similar weight to the DK2 as just as strappy (read hot to wear).
I suspect that the Vive is going make people blow coffee out their nose when they announce their price. They've said theirs will be "premium" HMD. They also made a (presumably costly) last-minute revision to the consumer version to include the front-facing camera and they plan to include motion controllers, so the whole package is going to cost a lot more. That's not a bad thing, but the people will look back and see the Oculus as the entry-level HMD option.
The PlayStation VR price leaked yesterday and it was $800 (ex VAT & shipping), so the later VR's are not going to be any cheaper for some time.
On the upside the current generation of top-end 28nm graphics cards are £400-500 and there aren't many to choose from, but both AMD and nVidia are set to release a range of 14nm video cards this year. Now while the top-end cards will probably cost over the £500 mark, the huge boost in performance these cards should offer means the mid-rage offerings (GTX 960 price equivalent) should outperform the likes of the current GTX 980s. So look forward to cheaper super-powerful graphics later this year.
So it boils down to preference & what you can afford. If you have lots of room and don't mind the big sensors and have a bigger budget, you can go for the Vive and benefit from the premium headset and the augmented reality options the new camera will offer. If your PC doesn't have it's own study or office or you want something portable plus a smaller budget, you'll probably want the Oculus.
This may tip the scales........
http://www.androidauthority.com/htc-vive-price-667174/
With regard to price, it will defininately be more than the Rift. To get a fair comparison in price you would be lookign at the price of the Rift + the price of the touch controllers. My prediction is the touch controllers will be around $200, so I expect the whole occulus package with touch to be around $800. Based on this I would expect the Vive to be priced competitively so would most likely be in the range $800-$1000, maybe upto around $1200, depending on HTC/Valves desired profit margins.
- They a small cubes that do not need to be connected to the computer, all they need is power. So you will not need to trail cables across the floor. (I think there might be the possibility to use batteries, but we will have to wait until they show the final version)
- The boxes are synchronized wirelessly, so again no cable required, (although the vive pre version still allows you to use a cable if you want).
- They have two standard camera tripod sockets, one on the bottom, the other on the back, to allow you to use existing tripods/wall/ceiling/desk fixings if you want, or you could just rest them on a desk/table. (As you mentioned)
- Earlier I was reading a discussion and somebody mentioned that someone at Oculus publicy admited that the lighthouse system is better, however, Oculus could not use it due to a patent that Valve owns (I'm pretty sure its Valve, although it might be HTC)
- They do not use bright green LED's. They use a wavelength in the Infra Red band that is outside of the wavelengths that the human eye can perceive.
- Only one is required for 3D position tracking, but more provide the capability to deal with occlusion.
- The system will support more than two (but currently the SDK only supports a maximum of two).
Like I said, Vive is very good, but based on my personal experience not good for me.
(pre-ordered for March, baby!).
oculus.com states:
*Expected Ship Date: June 2016. Limit 1 per Customer
Soooooo, maybe don't get your hopes up. After all these are 'pre-orders' which also means 'How many of these should we make'. Demand is more than likely going to outstrip supply, as is par for the course for any piece of super shiny tech, even when backed by the deepest of pockets.
If you're going to go VR, you need HOTAS, and if you have a decent one, you really don't need any more keys.
Okay, the ones I saw on HTC's stand at EGX had green LED's on the sensors - I realise the sensors themselves use IR - but whether these were power indicators or whatever, they had them and they were VERY noticeable.
The boxes are NOT small. Maybe the prototypes were larger than the final version, but the version I saw were wired (for power only perhaps, but they had what looked like speaker cable to them) and they were larger than two inches square.
I was told two were required - if that's not the case, great. But my wife still wouldn't go for it. They did say as long as you had two lighthouses in the room, multiple headsets could be used with them.
I would really like someone who has used the prototype and tried the release version to let everyone (me included) know what has changed.
Like I said, Vive is very good, but based on my personal experience not good for me.
What about folks who can't touch type? Might be hard to find "COL 285 Sector UG-3" on the galaxy map. Maybe VR games will come with virtual keyboards. Works on my Roku.
The revised version of the Vive recently announced (with front-facing camera) has slightly smaller sensors than the prototype I used last year, so they can be tripod-mounted - but do you have 15 square feet around your PC to accommodate two tripods with associated cabling across the floor? I don't. It also doesn't look to be any lighter than the prototype, which was a similar weight to the DK2 as just as strappy (read hot to wear).
Just saw this... HTC Vive + MOCAP using Perceptron Neuron:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R0TVLGne3U
The other devices I have been keeping a keen eye on for potential future upgrades that I think will really open up VR to all games, especially FPS are:
- Virtuix Omni (Omni directional treadmill, now available for $699 + taxes + shipping, unfortunately for UK shipping is $100-$200, so UK price incl VAT + shipping is about £650-£720)
What about folks who can't touch type? Might be hard to find "COL 285 Sector UG-3" on the galaxy map. Maybe VR games will come with virtual keyboards. Works on my Roku.
The ESD changes as orders are placed.