Sony HMZ-T1 HMD Owner's dedicated thread - Page 22

I have noticed with this setup that if you select, on the ps3, opti out only, you will get all formats of surround, etc. But if you elect to output through BOTH HDMI and Optical... HDMI will get the surround treatment, but optical will only get stereo.

Whichever audio outputs which are connected that aren't the "main" one will output in stereo. If you chose hdmi to output your surround you would get stereo from optical and so forth.

I would like to hear others opinions on this myself. When I use my F 3D laptop it gives me the options of 720P/3D or 1080P/3D and I think when the HMD receives 1080P/3D the picture looks more detailed.

Just guessing that the micro-pixel structure of the already miniature displays may help mask down-conversion artifacts, because I just can't see any.

Paul

The headphones have a very balanced sound: the bass is smooth and not overwhelming, but easily ample. The vocals are clear and not muddy, the soundstage is rendered respectably with a good sense of ambience. Cymbals and the like do not sound "chintzy". Drums have punch and instrument placement is well perceived. There are no annoying peaks in the highs, midrange, or bass. They are not nasally or boomy. These headphones have a pleasant, uncolored sound. They easily surpass my $70 klipsches, which have a slight cardboardy sound in the midrange where hi-hats sound like they're lacking upper presence. The HMZ headphones have better bass than my AKG studio monitor headphones, and a more solid soundstage.

That said though, I still need to try them more for sound. For instance, I noticed the other night, while watching a streaming movie (stereo, not 5.1) that turning off all the surround sounds by far the best for stereo information, rendering the pleasant sound I've described. Next would be cinema, which adds a bit of reverb, even to center vocals, I was surprised to hear. But this does in fact end up giving an audio impression of a typical theater, with a little ambience from loud speakers bouncing sound around a padded (but not sound-isolated) large room.

Yeah if a 1080p sbs movie breaks up into 540 lines for each eye that would be better than 720p set to 360 lines for each right? Unless it first downscales to 720p which I'm guessing would be less impressive.

I set the size to 110'' the first time I tried the HMZ-T1, and have just kept it there since. I get great 3D, so I haven't changed the value.

Killzone uses (I believe) half-resolution textures when running in 3D, so that's why it looks bad. None of the other games I tried do this.

-Pie

Well, my preorder was CANCELLED from Sony due to lack of inventory. So, I took the plunge and bought a set on ebay. I got them today!! They look absolutely amazing! They were everything I've been so excited for.

Unfortunately, they make me nauseous

I've listed them on ebay.

**EDIT** they have since sold.

Super bummed that these didnt work out for me...I had such high hopes for them

lol I'll be willing to sell mine sealed for over $1,000 as well with a 2 year warranty.

if I ever got my preorder, those cost $950 with a 2 year extended warranty. I've never had sony cancel a preorder on me before!

Right, but I assumed the ps3 defaulted to HDMI as main. There's a way to have BOTH outputs on and specify opti as main so that it gets surround and HDMI only gets stereo? Sometimes I need this, but haven't been able to do it.

Yeah, after selecting auto for the HDMI Video set up and confirming the resolution (and tv size if our doing 3D) go into the Audio Output option and select optical and manually click the formats that you can support. My PS3 outputs to my dav-is10 in dolby and dts and stereo through the tv speakers.

Okay, I haven't found the link, but I believe I know the issue with the negative parallax (Pop Out) on the HMZ-T1.

In a cinema, you are far from the screen and your eyes are nearly parallel looking at almost anything. When things pop out at you, you start to cross your eyes to focus on it (think pulling your finger toward your nose and maintaining focus). But given distance to screen, you only need to cross your eyes a little bit when negative parallax (pop out) occurs. (I think the eye crossing is what causes fatigue.)

With the HMZ-T1, however, you are dealing with tiny distances, so you are forced to cross your eyes a lot more to maintain focus on a "pop out" object. You quickly reach a point of diminished returns, and the negative parallax breaks down because you lose focus... you can only cross your eyes so much!

As I said, I'm pretty sure this is from what I've read, but I could not find the link. So take it with a grain of salt.

-Pie

This sounds like it could definitely be true but Sony could have positioned the screens at the proper angles to help out. But I definitely have noticed that I can feel my eyes cross when playing a 3DS (which I'm sure they could have adjusted the angle for too) so the same could be true.

I don't think that's it. Even though I don't have one of these yet, here's a (hopefully) easy to follow explanation of optical illusions.

Negative parallax, as with FOV, is about the angles. If you want to stare at your fingertip held 3" from your nose, your eyes are going to be crossed at pretty extreme angles, to the point where it is uncomfortable to maintain for any significant duration for most folks.

Achieving the 'effect' of something popping out of the screen and coming THAT close to you requires your eyes to cross at those angles, regardless of whether the image is displayed on 2 separate screens an inch from your eyeballs or on an 800" wide screen 60-70 feet away. This is also what the 'display size' settings in some players are there to compensate for. The manufacturers assume that most folks are going to be seated within a certain range from displays of certain sizes, for instance, they might assume a seating range of 7-12 feet away from a 55" TV, and a seating distance range of 10-15 feet away from a 130" FP setup.

Note that the FP setup is going to have a wider FOV than the TV setup because (with the exception of some crazy gamers), most folks don't really tend to sit within 4-5 feet from a 55" TV.

In order to achieve significant popout, the images on the 55" TV from 10 feet away would have to be further apart (as a ratio of screen width), and hence, closer to the edges of the display's screen than the same image on the 130" wide screen from 12 feet away (to achieve the same angle of negative parallax between your eyes).

The closest popout object I've ever seen in a mid-sized theater was the 3D demo in Universal Studios 15 years ago. Back then, they were using passive angular polarized glasses, so you got doubled images if you tilted your head from vertical, but if you held your head straight, there was this carton character that appeared to fly around the theater and then come to a stop directly in front of you, perceptually just out of arm's reach, then the character says, "Everyone thinks I'm talking to them, but I'm really talking to YOU" and when it says "You", it's nose elongates and appears to stick out to about 6" from your face.

The visual effect was SO good even back then, that it appeared to be an actual solid object floating in the air before you even though you knew it was a computer animated cartoon character. I found it particularly amusing that when it says "YOU", everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in the theater reached out in thin air and tried to grab/touch this cartoon character, even me LOL! I was so impressed by this short 3D experience that I went back to view it again, and in that scene, I closed one eye, then the other. The left eye image was quite close to the right edge of the screen and the right eye image was pretty close to the left edge of the screen. Your eyes need to cross that much to perceive an image/object as being that close.

To achieve that much of a popout effect required that the screen be quite wide (there has to be enough screen width to accommodate the crossed left and right eye images within its left and right borders).

The problem is that with no easy frame of reference (seats and people in a theater, objects in your HT/living room etc.) there is no frame of reference to popout. In my own room, when viewing 3D with popout, I'll usually sneak a quick glance at the room to see how far the image appears to be popping out of the screen. Is it popping out as far as my extended feet? Only as far as the center channel speaker? Somewhere in between etc?

With this display, there is no such frame of Reference, but if it's implemented well, as some folks have claimed, it should provide an incredible 3D experience that comes as close to simulating what you see in real life as can be duplicated with commercially available 3D displays these days. The image though, will have no frame of reference and the effect is going to be akin to what you see through a pair of ski goggles for instance. There is a real perception of 3D depth, you may not be seeing things that evidently pop OUT of the screen so to speak, although subjectively, they may appear to come very close to the viewer. How close though, is going to be entirely subjective.

The problem is that the perception is subjective, as someone else has illustrated from discussing how close the cod fish appears to come to each individual viewer under identical viewing conditions.

An odd test a few of us did out of sheer boredom in college was to see how good a person's depth perception was by having them sit in front of a bare white wall with flat lighting. We then had them close their eyes and we had an assortment of balls of different sizes that we mounted to poles using fishing line. The test subjects wore a simply made visor that prevented them from seeing the floor or ceiling as a frame of reference. A piece of cardboard served to block their vision completely, then we placed one of the balls in their field of view and gave them a quick look at the object (about 1 second) and then obscured their vision with the cardboard again and they had to decide if the ball was within arm's reach or not. It was amusing how many times people got it incorrect. All those UFO sightings where folks think they see a large object far away, moving erratically at super speed? Well, the experiment gave us an idea that they could have very well been smaller objects at much closer distances moving at earth attainable speeds.

That's also why estimates are all over the place as to whether it looks more like a 750" screen from the middle of a theater, or a 120" screen from 10 feet or a 2" screen from an inch away. People's opinions are subjective when they don't know how to obtain a frame of Reference, which is why I asked owner's to test the focal distance of the optics to compare how they focused on the image in comparison to focusing on something else in the room or outside a window.


Max

From what I have seen I'm pretty certain the pass through on the MHZ only works if the HMZ is off is that correct?

If so is there a way to use a PS3 and watch a movie on the HMZ, but still have the image go to a tv as well to enjoy a movie experience with a group of people?

Yesterday I had a chance go to Sony store and try out 3d personal viewer, so what I can tell, I would never buy it for 800$, Wires for headphones are so thin,it's will break up easily, trust me it's not 150" in screen, just about 80", but quality is pretty good , but I think a projector is better in size and quality, maximum I would pay for this device 250$. And big minus,this thing is heavy, my neck is almost fall off after 10 minutes of viewing, so my last hope is ST180, this
device looks promising
P.S My wife said about HMZ-T1, no I would buy it

unless the pixels are dead in the exact same spot you will never see them. Thats kinda cool even though no one likes dead pixels

No matter what people think of the headphones, they are garbage.

Went even down to a smaller virtual screen size (ie much more depth): 43 (from 64, Nvidia deafult A0).

Wow, this is the single most important setting for me. It makes a tremendous difference and it's astonishing which depth the HMZ-T1 allows for. Again my question, please, which screen size do the great folks here use?

Yes, this is exactly what I said in my review and at the moment is the most plausible explanation. However some users claim that the pop-out is the best they have seen. So as you also mentioned, subjectivity is also a key factor here. One thing I would say, is that "any" light intrusion affects the brains ability to accept what it sees as reality. So for those not yet enjoying the 3D experience with their headsets, do try in a 100% dark room at night and see if that improves things.

I am not sure this is true in the case of the HMZ-T1 because the optics simulate focusing distance much further away than reality. I will see if I can figure out what distance it does make your eyes focus but as it isn't too easy putting the glasses on and off quickly, that is easier said than done.

I saw various replies to your post but I am a bit confused as to what the problem is. Did you have a chance to read my review?

In your situation you would unplug the HDMI cable running from the PS3 to your HT-IS100 at the back of the HT-IS100 and connect it to the IN of the HMZ-T1 control box. Then you run the extra provided HDMI cable from the control box to your HT-IS100. This way when the headset is off, it will function EXACTLY the same way it did before. When the headset is on it will cut the video and audio from your HT-IS100 and direct it only to the headset.

Were you trying to get both operational at the same time?

NOTE: Your PS3 may not output 3D until you re-run the PS3 display wizard while the headset is on. It is easy to re-run it and this will force the PS3 to detect a 3D device is available.

Oh?! Does that mean the end of production already then. This matched what some Sony staff said in the UK...its a limited run, and when they are gone...that's it.

Did you manage to try out the Kinect head tracking? We have few light-sim fans here at the office who would love to know if it works.

It's not the pop-out itself that impresses me so much (there's a lot of pop-out though if you increase convergence to the corresponding value) - I agree that with some clearer points outside the screen to relate to it would appear stronger. At the same time such relation points would break the immersion though:

What literally b-l-o-w-s me away (like thinking I get an unbelievable glimpse into the future) is the overall steereo 3d impression. I can go to m-u-c-h deeper depth with this than I ever could ever bear before (perhaps the lack of ghosting makes it possible, perhaps response times, perhaps the virtual screen size , perhaps the use of actually two differnet screens...). True, a dark room is required for this feeling. Things are so ... real. And this screen is big (for those measuring with arms in correlation to their computer monitor when sitting a meter from it: do the same test from five meters away and tell us the screen size again) - well actually it's no screen anymore once you get into it. You forget that you see through a screen - you rather start to wonder if your clothing is warm enough for these Sykrim snow flakes falling on you...

It's a strange thing, the human perception - this device seems to leave us with so varying impressions. I am an enthusiastic guy, no denying that, but it leaves me really astonished that I don't read more reports on people actually totally blown away by this. Perhaps my brain is just extraordinarily simple structured and just eats the illusion without further questions .

Don't worry youngneil1, you're not alone. I find the stereoscopic 3d to be very impressing. Skyrim is awesome, but the outdoor scenes are hard to bear with the broken skies and water - but that's obviously not the HMZ's fault. The game I enjoy the most so far is Stardust HD on the PS3.

After a week I have to say, I don't find the HMZ very comfortable yet, but I'm still trying to improve that. I needed to build my own smaller forehead-thingy - I used some foam to get my eyes closer to the displays. I wished there was one more step on the eye-distance sliders. I'm on the max and I guess my eyes are just a tiny bit too far apart. Head size is also at the limit but at least I have no issues with the nose. It would be nice if there were more adjustment options.

But the 3d image is extremely awesome. For me it's worth the troubles but I wouldn't use it all day because of the comfort issues and also because I'm a bit worried about taxing the eyes too much.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. Recent studies show that watching 3D can actually strengthen eye muscles. Of course if you get headaches or feel ill you have over-done it...same as you would if you over-did weight training too. But latest indications are that you won't do any permanent harm to your eyes, and possibly good with muscle strengthening.

Thnaks a lot for the input, fluXa! Good to know I am not fully delusional here. Concerning the Skybox in Skyrim this temporary fix is a life saver (in the same thread there's also a link to amod removing the crosshair for stealth):
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s...post&p=1325622

I know what you mean here although I tune that out very easily. However, if you are using the glasses in a totally blacked out room, do ensure you switch off the blue LED on the front of the glasses. Some of the light from it leaks back round to the display area and makes that "goggle" effect more visible. They don't seem to have sealed off the blue light internally properly. It is easy to switch it off in the menus. I think the option uses the word "illumination"

Here's some directions on Nvidia's forums on how to get it even smaller:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s...post&p=1326765


I couldn't actually get my hands on one (since I waited, believing the non-sense that it was wide scale and coming to Amazon and Best Buy), but have been following impressions on the 3D Vision forums. They've at least worked out a hack for the sky (not perfect, but better). Have you done that? Seems like it would make a big difference.