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RE: My VR920 Impressions

Pix — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:53:02 GMT

Its true enough that my opinions of this haven't been helped by edimensional. It was quite definitely faulty which also didn't help. I can understand something developing a fault but I don't expect it to be faulty out of the box. The inevitable £50 customs bill arrived from fedex a couple of days back for a faulty product I've returned which I'm not too happy about either.

The vr920 is fairly cheap, I just feel I would rather have paid a bit more for something better. As things stand I'm better off without it whatever the price is. You can pick up one of those 19 inch zalman 3d monitors for £300 from Scan which isn't a huge leap from the price of a vr920. Since it works at a decent resolution (1280x1024) and could replace your existing monitor its arguably better value for money. I wouldn't buy one of those either until working drivers come out but you do at least know that the nvidia drivers (when/if they arrive) will work with it whereas vr920 support is not guaranteed.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

cybereality — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:24:03 GMT

The VR920 isn't without its issues but I think it is a good product, although it may not be for everyone. I, like most other people, was probably expecting a bit more from the VR920 (or HMDs in general), but once you get past that its a great product. Its basically just a screen for your head, you are not going to jack into the matrix like keanu reeves with this unit or anything crazy like that. However, when it is working with stereo-3d the experience is really something.

The 3d is essential to a product like this (which is why I hope nvidia releases something already). There is really not much point in using them if you aren't going to take advantage of the headtracking and/or stereo 3d. As just a 2d monitor is suffers from a number of issues that make it cumbersome compared to playing on say a nice widescreen monitor (already mentioned like the wasted out colors, etc.). However in stereo3d your brain performs a sort of natural dithering of the images to produce something that appears to be higher quality than it is. So much of the banding and color/contrast related problems become a non-issue.

You can also tweak the color very in-depth using the nvidia control panel. A quick hot-key (for the nvidia stereo 3d driver) is ALT-G / CONTROL-G which adjusts the gamma. This will help a lot in dark games like Quake4 or FEAR.

Many of us choose to look past these minor issues due to the fact that there are no competing products in the consumer price range. Even some of the more expensive products aren't necessarily better or suffer from similar issues. So clearly Vuzix cut some corners so they could provide us with *affordable* technology, which should be taken into account.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

akdennis — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:14:36 GMT

Sorry you had so many problems with the vendor and product. It sounds a little like you are partially blaming Vuzix and the product for your bad experience with a reseller...no offense intended, I completely understand your frustration over being misled. However, I just have to weigh in on my take on the quality of the VR920.

I received my VR920 about a week ago and, unlike yourself, had absolutely no problems with the vendor. The glasses arrived in a timely fashion and in good order. Like you, at the first few uses of the glasses I was rather disappointed. I didn't know what to expect from the product but somehow I expected "more". However, after some tweaking, trial and error, and just general experience with the product I reassessed my initial opinions. I realize now that most of my issues were due to my general firsthand unfamiliarity with head mounted displays. After using the product frequently I am now accustomed to it and I think it works great. I really don't have any issues with the quality of the display. Anyway, I had no expectation that the resolution would be as good as my desktop monitors. Indeed, I think the video quality is quite adequate now that I am more accustomed to wearing the glasses and figured out how to set the contrast and brightness. I agree that the glasses can get a little uncomfortable over time but I can wear them for at least one hour without really noticing it. Again, it's something you get accustomed to over time and usage. As far as lag time with the head tracker, I don't find it too annoying. But then again I'm not using the product for FPS games. The lag is not much of an issue with flight sims and RPGs. I'm wondering if the lag time will improve with a more powerful processor. I'm upgrading to another motherboard next month so we'll see. Additionally, it sounds like you may have received a defective unit as you were experiencing some problems that I have not encountered.

Another problem I may have had was unrealistically high expectations of what the product should do. No matter how you slice it, the product provides a lot of bang for the buck...er, pound? I think the people at Vuzix has done an outstanding job in bringing this product to market at a price the average consumer can afford. I, for one, I'm quite satisfied and feel that I certainly got my money's worth. I'm not trying to sound snide here but who else is offering an HMD with and incorportated head tracker...at even double the price. I've looked and other products that can do what the VR920 does generally cost in the thousands of dollars. What, precisley, were you expecting for under $400?

I think that if you had received a properly functioning unit and had given it a few tries you might have grown to like it the way I have.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

Pix — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:37:37 GMT

I got my refund last night - they've managed to refund me the wrong amount but its close enough that I won't argue. I didn't have a problem with blurred screen edges but you definitely do need to get these as close to your eyes as possible.

I don't see that this product is exactly stressing the graphics card with a 640x480 screen - a bigger screen must be possible if you sacrice the small size of the glasses themselves. If you kept the same dpi and upped it to 1920x1080 you'd have nearly 7 times the screen area. No doubt it would cost 4 or 5 times as much but that would be like playing on your own cinema screen. As it is, its like a low definition 19 inch monitor with bad colour. Its still quite an impressive gadget to be able to get a 19 inch monitor into something that small and light but basically pointless unless you can get stereo and right now hardly anyone can.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

Simba — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 06:21:19 GMT

I did not like it at first too. But after you fit it in the right position the image quality becomes much better. Now there's no blur corners at all and I can read msn messenges even at 1024x768. I needed to took of the nose piece and put the glasses very close to my face. force it down makes the image much better. I'm thinking in making something to keep it in the right place.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

CarlKenner — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:24:13 GMT

The screen size looks bigger when you sit further away from the wall. The screen theoretically looks like it is 3 metres away, but that illusion is shattered when there is a wall closer than 3 metres and the screen is obviously in front of the wall. The FOV is the same either way, but the apparent size varies.

High FOV HMDs are very hard to get. And some of them require 12 graphics cards to power them.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

Pix — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:50:39 GMT

I'd definitely agree there is nothing to compete in this price bracket. I expected minor problems and limited title support but the screen size was my single biggest disappointment. With all the other issues, if I'd had the effect of a truly massive screen I would have held onto them (after getting them fixed). I would gladly have sacrificed the small size/weight for this.

My biggest issues are not with the product but with edimensional. I don't appreciate being lied to. This is made worse by the fact they were completely unapologetic. Their customer service is fast while you are asking simple questions but they either ignore the question or fail to respond completely otherwise. Despite the 24 hour support, the moment you file a RMA request you are expected to wait 24-48 hours. They still hadn't responded 5 days later. I did get an RMA number out of them eventually after asking repeatedly and they will have receieved the returned parcel yesterday. They gave me a UK address for the return which has saved me some time/money and allegedly will refund me 7-14 days after receiving it under their 30 day satisfaction guarantee. I really do not trust edimensional at this point and doubt it will be that simple. Fortunately, I will just be inside the time limit to file a paypal dispute if I haven't received a refund after the 2 weeks are up. They may at least have taken the hint since I notice that they now are shipping from the UK also. The last thing I want to do is send business their way but I'm guessing they are the first people in Europe to be selling this?

RE: My VR920 Impressions

CarlKenner — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:13:31 GMT

Sorry I didn't reply before, I think I missed seeing this review earlier.

The 256 colour problem is being fixed sometime in January with a firmware update. But even if it wasn't, the problem is only that bad in dark games, in brighter games it looks more like 16-bit colour.

The stereo problem is also being fixed sometime in January for a couple of games on non-nvidia cards, and for most games on Vista if you have an nvidia 8xxx graphics card.

The black circles can be fixed by turning down the lamp brightness if you are playing on a hot day, and by not leaving them plugged in while lying on a flat surface. The black circles are rare, they are not something you normally see while you are playing.

The lag in yaw may be due to the game. However the yaw is more noisy than the pitch and roll, so they may use a lot of filtering on it. A smarter filter might be able to filter it without being so laggy.

When emulating TrackIR using GlovePIE, most games introduce their own TrackIR lag deliberately, which is annoying, so those games tend to be laggy. But I don't mind the lag so much, perhaps because I don't play fast action FPS games so much.

Those kind of white lines on the left screen are unusual. You could probably send it back and they would replace or repair it.

Nobody really disagrees with your review's facts, in the sense that those problems all exist, and are acknowledged by everyone (although Vuzix haven't really acknowledged the black circle problem we all know about). But they are either being fixed, or are considered minor problems that would be expected for what it is. If you like affordable, stereo, head-tracked virtual reality HMDs, then there are only two real choices, and this is less than half the price of the eMagin Z800, which has problems of its own.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

Pix — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:04:46 GMT

Edimensional still haven't got back to me with an RMA so in the interests of being fair I went back and gave these a second chance. The black dots have gone although the white lines are there as before so my headset is definitely faulty.

I played through quake 4 past the stroggification part, and tried a few other games. I was probably a bit unfair about the image quality in that its clear enough to see what I'm shooting at, although I still say it looks more like 256 colour than 16 bit. It reminds me of the video in old games like rebel assault 2 or wing commander 3. The worst I've seen was in one part where I fell off a bridge into a dark foggy area - the fog basically covers most of the screen and goes from black to a fairly bright green - this was translated into about 5 bands of colour and looked truly awful. Lighter areas don't look as bad. On the up side, theres a definite 3d effect despite the game not being in stereo - nothing major but its noticeable and does draw you in a bit more.

The lag on looking around doesn't seem half as bad for up/down, and when you tilt your head as when you try to look left or right where I can have stopped moving before it starts. This could be more to do with the quake 4 drivers than the headset. I'm unconvinced about the benefits of head tracking anyway, now I've tried it for myself. In real life you would usually move your eyes first to look around, not your whole head while staring straight ahead - it does not feel remotely natural at least for me. It would be far more immersive with no head tracking but a much larger screen size. The tracking is slightly shaky - in the interests of hitting what I'm aiming at i basically have to keep my head absolutely still so my aim doesn't go off which defeats the purpose. I also found that the calibration started drifting off so to keep the view straight I had to tilt my head more and more. This does not do your neck any good.

Finally, after a few hours I found these seriously uncomfortable. I think the problem is I've got an unusually large head and they dont open wide enough. I took them off about 15 mins back and it still feels like theres a clamp on my head.

All in all, after spending a good few hours trying these now, I stand by pretty much everything I said the first time. They are going back in the box and definitely not coming out again.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

bikbok — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 10:25:05 GMT

bah.. I'll buy them anyway.. to see for myself.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

Pix — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:04:06 GMT

I did change the contrast and brightness. It helps but the image is still poor and in no way could be described as being 16 bit color. I expect quake 4 is a bad offender here since its a dark game. I don't see any real benefit to playing a fps with these when its not in stereo anyway given that the image is the same size as my monitor, the head tracking lags and its quicker, easier and smoother to look around using the mouse. If nvidia are doing new drivers thats good news but I still wouldn't touch this product (assuming i had vista+an nvidia card) until I knew they were out and working.

All of this isn't intended to be a review or objective - its just my experiences and opinions and is entirely subjective. I would be highly surprised if many people in these forums agree with me but my view is as valid as anyone elses.

Thanks for the welcome - I don't expect I will be around here for very long.

RE: My VR920 Impressions

Decoril — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:29:47 GMT

You are incorrect about Nvidia, they are lauching the next 3D driver in janyary with total support for multiple cores, 8xxx and Dc10, the only bad thing is that for this moment they are only releasing this diver for vista and the postproccesing effects are not totally supported yet but be syre there is a new driver at tthe doors by nvidia.

Aksi you must play a little with your visors settings becayse the washed coliurs arent there if you increase contrast, and maybe lower brightness; if you like this kind of technologies you may not be waiting for absolutely out the box configured and working for masses products (this is near but no this time) and be posting discouraging reviews without any experimenting, because if you want this industry to grow and get benefit from it kije newer and better devices you must at least be serious when reviewing and make an objective review in deep; sorry i wish you can understand me, um not english and i have to hurry no.

welcome ;)

My VR920 Impressions

Pix — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 06:19:01 GMT

I got a pair of these yesterday, thought I would share my experiences. First off, I live in England and didn't want to import a pair and have to pay customs and run the risk of having to send them abroad if I had to return them. I saw them on www.edimensional.com. It says in their FAQ that all European orders ship from the UK, then it says that again on the page with the list of products, so I just click the buy now button, chose "From uk Royal mail next day delivery" and expect them to be sent from the UK.

I then get an email in the middle of the night from www.fspilotshop.com with tracking details for a delivery from Florida, USA. There is absolutely no way, I'm paying customs duty on these so I complain to edimensional who point out that the product details page for these says they ship from the USA only. To be fair it does, they don't draw attention to it and I didn't even go on that page when I was placing the order since I'd already seen the specs for these elsewhere. After a lot of haggling and some threats by me to withhold payment they agree that if I refuse delivery they will only charge me the same rate of postage for the return trip so I only end up about £25 down for the privilege being lied to, as opposed to the £80-90 it would have been had I had to pay the full fedex return fees so to keep things easy I say I will take them up on this offer. They then ask me how much I would want refunded to just keep these so I ask for the full customs charges + about £20 in compensation. They never replied.

Fedex don't show up on the day they were supposed to, so after waiting in all day I'm not around the next day when they attempt to deliver them. I haven't rung up fedex to cancel as I'm giving edimensional chance to reply but I'm slightly surprised to receive an email while I'm at work from fedex saying they have delivered the parcel and left it at the "front desk/reception" and they have been signed for by M. Audsley. I wasn't aware that my house had a reception, they have in fact left them with one of my neighbours and seem to have forgotten about customs altogether. I expect they will attempt to extract the money out of me at some point however.

Since I've got these now anyway, without paying extra I figure I'll give them a go. Setting them up is easy enough. At first impression, the picture is not too bad. I'm less than struck with the size of it - for anyone who hasn't tried these the 62 inch picture at 9 feet translates in real life to exactly the same size as my 19 inch monitor at the distance I always sit from it. It does feel more like looking at a big screen thats further away since thats where your eyes have to focus but it hardly fills your field of vision. The edge of the pictures are pinched in rather than square - its the same as having a CRT monitor with extremely bad pincushioning.

The problem with the colors is worse than described here - there is no way its as good as 16 bit. It looks far more like 256 colors used to the banding is that pronounced - I think the problem is with the processing rather than the displays so its hopefully fixable. The colors are also quite washed out however which isn't. After a couple of minutes of use I then see white lines start to appear on the left hand display rolling in from the right hand side. These keep coming in until about 10 percent of the screen is covered. If I turn the glasses off for a while they are gone, then roll back in again as soon as they have been on for a minute or two. To make this worse I now have a black spot creeping in on the right hand side on both screens - looking at the forums this seems to be a common problem but people just put up with it.

Not to be put off I try them out in quake 4 with the headtracking. While they do work to some extent, the panning around lags quite badly - if I look immediately in any direction there is a very obvious delay - this doesn't exactly make you feel like you are there and doesn't help your gameplay any. The color is that bad that I'm also struggling to tell who is human and who is strogg. Since looking around doesn't feel even vaguely natural, I found that I basically don't end up moving my head and use the mouse instead. So to summarize, you just end up with a screen the same size as a 19 inch monitor, except with massively worse image quality and you look like a complete geek while you are using them.

Since I've got an ATI card I'm pretty limited on what I can try out in stereo but there are those axysoft games which have it built in. I have to say that I'm much more impressed with what I saw from these here. The stereo effect works pretty well, its completely flicker free and if I actually had it in any games I wanted to play it would make these potentially worth owning. Having said that the current state of affairs is that nvidia aren't supporting stereo in their new drivers even if I did have one of their cards so we are relying on native support/vuzix, or attempting to get by with out of date drivers/hardware. Even if they weren't faulty I'd be returning these, they just aren't worth owning at this point in time. Unless nvidia start to support stereo again or vuzix come out with stereo drivers for games you play enough of to justify spending this much to get them in 3d, I personally wouldn't go anywhere near these. Put your money towards a bigger monitor instead and you will be better off. My pair is now sat in their box waiting for edimensional to send me an RMA number. I've played with these for a grand total of about an hour and I have no desire to use them in the meanwhile which says it all.