ST1080 1080p Head Mounted Display Pre-orders starting March 1st w/ $100 Discount - Page 7

I can't image you'd notice any light bleed with that field of view.

Well the light bleed was adressed by a owner so seems it does

I don't yet have any HMD, so this is all speculation.

From the pictures & descriptions, it appears to me that the light leakage is light from the sequential color illuminator reflecting off the front face of the display. I make this assumtion since it appears the light leakage goes beyond the active area of the display.

One might be able to slightly improve the contrast by wearing a pair of polarized sunglasses if the light from the display is polarized the same way as the sunglasses. The assumption here is that the illuminator sorce is unpolarized, but given the nature of LCD displays, the light that passes through the LCD is polarized. The reflection off the front face of the display will not be polarized. This means that using a polarizing filter (polarized sunglasses) to view the display will cut the light reflected from the front face of the display by half, and only slightly attenuate the actual picture.
Don't expect too much from this, the eyes sensitivity is logrithmic, so cutting the light output by half will only slightly reduce the visible brightness.

Taking this a step furthur, one could design the display so that the display itsef has no polarizing filter (I doubt you could remove the polarizing filter from the existing display without distroying it) Illuminate the display with polarized light, and view it through a cross polarized filter. This would probably require a change to the software as it is likely to produce a negative image with the current setup. This should completely supress the light reflected from the front face of the display.

I better not see someone pattenting this idea.

Once I get my two units I will work on some cushion pads and a light blocker for this unit as well. Just as I did with the Sony HMZ.

Great news, maybe sum slight modding to the st will help the light bleed.. anyone sat in total darkness or coverd there head up so no light other than the lenses would show?

I've done this..The light bleed is internal to the unit and not caused by outside light.

Stick with your HMZ T1's. I actually hate my ST1080 and want to return it. The blacks are horrible, I have two dead pixels, the top, bottom and sides are blurry unless I position the unit to focus on just one area, the screen seems smaller than the HMZ, and I also have significant light bleed like described earlier. I haven't tried 3d because it doesn't seem to be working with my nvidia GTX 680 in powerdvd or arcsoft but frankly no matter how good it is I won't be able to appreciate it with all the other drawbacks. I'll take the HMZ's lack of comfort any day over the ST1080.

Had really high hope for this st and was close preordering it earlyer thhis year, but what u guys are posting and the posts on the silicon microdisplay community forum i see confirming the issues with the focus and now worse the masssive light bleed seems i have to pass on this.

Hows the colours on the st vs the hmz-1?

At the risk of sounding cynical, I think we now know why early units weren't sent to pro reviewing sites.

However - on a positive note.... Having seen the creative and extensive modding done to the HMZ, I have no doubt that addressing the light bleed and Focus issues with the ST will happen in the community. Probably soon.

With firmware updates to address compatibility issues, and some good tutes on how to fix hardware glitches... These glasses should still give SONY some competition.

Not shure how easy it will be to fix the backlight issue with diy modding but to block out the room light around it is deffo possible.

But then again is it any point? if the screen details get washed out from the bleed u wont get the sharp clear exsperience after all.

I'm sure the smart guys who disassembled and reverse engineered the HMZ would enjoy pulling the ST apart and coming up with ways to seal the displays... Maybe even swapping the displays to another style that's electrically compatible.. Who knows.

I mean if some smart-alek can reconfigure a HMZ into some ski goggles, fixing the ST should be easy!!!

Never underestimate a ski google for shure lol

I think the people who were creative and brave enough to mod the HMZ are great and innovative but NONE of us should have to. Sony should have addressed this issue by now considering the amount of time and number of complaints about the unit. Now the reviews about the ST seem even worse.

I understand early adopters are ginny pigs but manufactures have a responsibility to release a product that's usable and does not require the customer to cannibalize it to make it work as advertised. Just my opinion.

You are dead right - of course... But it's all about market pressure/competition.

SONY is the only mainstream manufacturer making a consumer high-def HMD. I really hope LG and Samsung and others take up the challenge...

Once some real competition starts up, we'll see new versions and improvements like we should.

The early review by the GameVeda sounds like it must have been a paid off marketing plant now. The User reports that are coming in don't match the glowing impressions that were given there in comparison to the HMZ at all. After reading that I was seriously considering picking one up with the promise of a larger sweet spot to get better focus. Maybe sony will release a follow-up that gives better comfort and focus range. If they do I'm sure it will be a long ways off though. Too bad.

No comparison. Reference quality on the HMZ-T1.

Not a chance. The main problems are in the technology that the ST1080 uses.


My feelings are that I can't see how the problems can be fixed given the technology being used.


Not a chance.

HMZ-T1 have REFERENCE QUALITY PICTURE DISPLAYS now that I can see it in the context of a visual choice.

Well u experience the 2 hmds and i trust ur findings
U gnna keep ur st?

Returned them per SMD policy.

Paul

Edited by Paul H - 6/6/12 at 8:33am

The HMZ-T1's are very dim though, at least the ones i tried, at maximum brightness. I like life-like brightness i get from LCD's.

Are the ST1080s brighter by chance? That, for me, would make up for black levels, which i think are over-rated anyway.

I read multiple reviews that they were very bright. I haven't tried one yet but might stop by a Sony store to check one out.

Dim? Not the HMZs I have by no means also excellent contrast and clarity.

Yeah, the HMZ is definitely not what I would call dim. I think that picture quality is the one area where the HMZ excels.

What a bummer... I was sooo waiting for this. Refreshing threads about St1080 every 15 minutes for the last 2 weeks (no kidding)...

Looks like PJ is the way to go these days, unfortunately...

Of course each is $$$ and a challenge for my small condo, but the way things are looking now... HMD technology is in infancy still... will be 3-5 years before anything useable appears, I don't feel like it's worth waiting that long.

Bummer.

lol HMZ is dim then your eyes definitely have problem as it is very bright and colorful with the default setting and some set up advice from Paul H bring the HMZ to one of the best color and blackest picture i have seem in it which no TV can match it then only biggest problem sony hmz is the comfort and focus but once u modify it all the issue is fixed.

Well i feel the colours on the hmz-1 is a lill off vs a proper oled tv but the blacks are good on it

Here is Paul Gin's response to customers' concerns:

http://www.siliconmicrodisplay.com/blog.html


We are aware of some comments by customers and the pursuant comments and concerns by others. I'd like to take this opportunity to address some of them.

There are comments based on a photograph of an ST1080 with what's described as "opaque light" and "haze" in dark scenes. This is a 3 part answer.
Manufacturing variability. There is some manufacturing variability in the product. Most customers have not reported this problem. However, the reality is that there are some customers who see this problem and it's real. The severity and pervasiveness of the issue is relatively small at this point. But we are monitoring it carefully both from the customer feedback side as well as outgoing quality control. For those who know and care about quality control, OQC is not a particularly good way to manage quality since it only catches issue before going out instead of finding the issues in the process. We are address all quality control methods that we have in place.
Prism delamination. In some cases, the prism component may be partially or completely delaminated from the optics. The partial cases are obvious to detect because you will see a segment within the image where the delaminated part has poor image and the line between the two regions is clear. In the complete delamination case, the overall image will appear to be hazy. We are also addressing this in our manufacturing process where the prism component is assembled to the optical module sub-assembly.
Nature of LCoS technology. The Liquid Crystal on Silicon technology used in the ST1080 is by design a reflective technology with edge LED lighting. This means that like your desktop monitor or HDTV, the edge lighting is always turned on even in dark scenes or when there is no video information to be displayed. So, when viewing very dark screen, the viewing experience is similar to viewing the same scene on your HDTV or desktop monitor in a normally lit room. However, the overall viewing experience should be evaluated from a full range of content including dark and bright scenes. Similarly, any displays overall image quality is not just one factor like contrast, but about the combination of all factors including resolution, color reproduction, display fill-factor, gamma correction, CLUT, etc.


There are also some questions about blurry corners in the display.
Viewing angle. Viewing angle is determine by the angle at which the unit sits on your nose. We supplied each unit with two nose pads (one installed and one in the box), so, one nose pad may give you a better picture and focus. As you can imagine, people's nose and ear geometries and angles differ so widely, so though we tried to accommodate as many variations possible, but it may not be a great fit for everyone.
Distrance to display windows. The distance between your eyes to the display window can also affect the focus. The farther away your eyes are from the display window, the greater the possibility that you will see focus dropping off towards the outer corners and edges. The effect is similar to wearing glasses and looking at object near the outer edges of your glasses. Also, users wearing glasses can also be affected by distance to the display window.
Minimum font size. We recommend a minimum of 12 point font size for viewing near the outer edges and corners.


As we gather more information from users and comments online, we will try to address them to the best of our abilities. We also hope for two things: (1) Please consider the online comments as well as your personal experience together to formulate your opinion of the ST1080. We have many customers who don't read the blog or comment on other websites that are perfectly satisfied with their ST1080 experience. Although the issues raised here and at other places are legitimate experiences, we hope that you will formulate your own opinions. (2) We hope that you will continue to engage with us in this discussion about what is good and bad about the ST1080. We value your opinions and we're doing everything we can to respond to your feedback. One advantage of a small company like ours is that we can respond very quickly. We hope that in addition to our ST1080, our response to our customers will be equally amazing.

Sincerely,
Paul Jin
CEO
SiliconMicroDisplay

blah blah blah. I trusted this company but I feel completely ripped off. They even deleted my honest review off of their forums. DO NOT BUY THE ST1080. I don't believe their quality control bs for a minute considering practically everyone is reporting the same issues. They also didn't mention anything about my two dead pixels including one nearly dead centre. I'm sure many more have them as well.

Shocked how a company can comment on the issues like that this device may have more issues than first expected

So it got 1 color right, black?

When was black regarded as a colour