ST1080 1080p Head Mounted Display Pre-orders starting March 1st w/ $100 Discount - Page 4

wow good if they fixed the 720p up scaling then i might buy it when the firmware is released.

I just stumbled on this thread.. Is this one of those glasses that you see a big screen while wearing them? Or is it that and 3D? Can you use it for PC games?

Yes, yes, and yes.

nice..sounds like it would be a while if you ordered one now..

Yeah. They've only just been released, and first impressions are no 720p upscaleing. But give it a couple of months and they could be the best HMD option.

Am I correct then that as of right now you have to do 1080p/30 if you want full size 3d?

I was planning on putting an order in over the weekend but I think I'll wait for more impressions and to actually hear that they've fixed the upscaling issue.

Here is another blogger who provided a short review on the ST1080.
Worry not, it is in plain english and won't kill your browser.
http://jeffreyvanbinsbergen.nl/2/ST1...w+%28Part+1%29

Part 4 is up (console game reviews) by that Veda guy
http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/2...w-part_23.html

It's funny how for part 1 through 3 he was so enthusiastic hyping up the st1080 then he got to part 4 and it's like someone stole his lunch money. He seems all bummed out that there is no scaling.

Anyway, we'll see how much input lag the scaler adds when the firmware gets updated (none I hope). In the meantime, I'm sure people who are using receivers with upscaling can simply connect the ST1080 to the output of their receiver to achieve 1080p on everything except 3D content. I don't think any receivers will upscale 3D content yet, it just passes it through unchanged. Keep in mind almost all upscaling from receivers adds some amount of input lag. I've heard it's about 30ms for a Denon 2312 for example. I'm looking forward to the Onkyo 818's input lag measurement with it's fancy new HQV/Qdeo chip.

Paul Jin of SMD confirmed to me that there is approximately 1 frame of input lag on he ST1080. No one has tested this so far to verify but if that's true, it's definitely one of the lowest input lag measurements for a digital display. I believe that's in the low 20ms.
Paul Jin's message:
http://www.siliconmicrodisplay.com/1...iguration.html

Why this veda guy uses Shakespearean quotes and weird english at all
is he a tech reviewer or a Shakespeare with tech toys to review by mistake !
i read the entire review but i cannot get the answers to the following :

1)the LCD panel - contrast , colors, brightness , sharpness , saturation / hue - are they better than that of HMZ-T1 ?

2)is he able to all four corners of the image without effort [SMD says no screen door effect becoz of large exit pupil) ?

i can say that i have this "effortless" experience so far only with eMagin Z800

3)is the 3D in all it's modes totally flicker-free ?

i had bad experience with vuzix AV920 when in 3d field seq. mode there were flickers [horizontal fine lines] all over - i returned it for refund

let's hope this Veda guy uses no Shakespearean english and answers the above in plain english or someone else here who got the st1080 shipped and trying to review

Lill downer that console games run in small screen mode on it but i do like the news that the 360 detects this as 100" as the sony hmz-1 is detected as a 72"

Slated to be fixed [upscale to full screen] in a months time via a f/w update as per Paul Jin, the CEO of SMD.

It sounds like the first shipped batch had to be pretty small if we don't have many reviews. I thought someone on here was going to post impressions as they received it last Friday? I'm curious if the screen appears bigger or smaller than the hmz (not counting 720p games).

As far as the 720p problem, I'm guessing if you have an HDMI receiver, you can set it to upscale to 1080p. I thought the 360 automatically upscaled depending on your preferred resolution. This has never been a problem because most displays upscale which is why this was an unexpected "surprise"

They have a lot of pre-orders with limited supplies so not many people have received them.

I pre-ordered mine on March 6 and I was told that mine will be shipped out tomorrow...all the way from Korea. It will take some time for it to reach the USA.

It looks to me like the majority of pre-orders (the first few batches) went to businesses. A couple of people from those - ala "The game veda reviews", have been posting the first reviews.

Could be wrong about this, who knows?

Individual consumers who I know that have ordered in the first hour of the first day haven't received tracking numbers yet and the latest SMD email that was posted on their community forum states that the persons order, who ordered on March 21st, would probably ship tomorrow.

Quoting the posted email from SMD's Community forum:

It looks pretty much like all individual-consumers, who ordered in March, may start hearing from them tomorrow.

Paul


Update as of 1:24PM PST:

From the SMD "comments" section in the 5/15/2012 Blog:

Rearranged for better Q&A clarity:

George: 1. Colors (compared to HMZ or compared to anything you tried, TV, PJ etc).
Jeffrey: 1. Colors seems to be a bit worse than my LED/LCD laptop screen. But still more than good enough for watching movies/playing games etc.

George: 2. Blacks (compared to TV/PJ, whatever).
Jeffrey: 2. Not great, Black is dark gray. It also seems to be having some light bleeding issues on the sides.

George: 3. Sharpness of the edges (is text uniform across the screen, legible in the corners)
Jeffrey: 3. Text is very sharp, good readable. Only the corners are a bit out of focus. If you focus on them they are also sharp.

George: 4. Perceivable distance to the screen compared to HMZ-T1 (is this really 100" at 10' away, or smaller/larger?)
Jeffrey: 4. Don't have the HMZ-T1, So can't judge on that. But it looks like a big screen.

George: 5. 3D pop effect in movies in 1080p. (don't care about 720p until scaling is added)
Jeffrey: 5. Depends on the movie. For some movies it is hard to see, and some are just amazing with floating stuff towards you and everything. For PC games you can sometimes adjust the effect to make it stronger. I liked the 3d effect in Unreal tournament 2004 (in combination with iz3D) the most. Especially flying with the redeemer .

George: 6. Were you able to play a game in 3D in 1080p 30Hz top-bottom full frame mode? How was the image quality? How was framerate (tolerable for fps games like Call of Duty or not)?
Jeffrey: 6. Didn't got that mode to work yet (Have to play around with programs on my laptop, to get different modes to work). NVidia Vision 3D detects it but only for bluray playback. 3DTV Play from NVidia does not seems to work right now (all options disabled). I personally prefer 1080p 3D SBS 60Hz (half resolution). Its 60Hz and still looks very good.

George: 7. Is focus easily attainable? Do you just put it on your nose like regular glasses and everything's immediately in focus, or do you have to adjust it to a sweet spot... and if so how big is it?
Jeffrey: 7. At first you really have to get used to the HMD. You can adjust 2 slides for your pupil distance. After that it is just putting it on and have fun. Ofcourse there is a 'sweet spot', where you can see most of the screen perfect. But you can still see everything good when moving the HMD around. You can even shake your head while the screen stays good .

this puts in doubt as to the optics !

i really like to hear from someone who has eMagin z800 also to compare with !
Hope someone reviews and compares to emagin z800 here @avs

i am only bothered with one thing - is the image in full focus without strain [effortless] from corner to corner (i.e all four corners of image in full focus without effort) ?

hope someone gets st1080 to compare with z800 soon on this question !

I'm really surprised that there aren't more impressions of the ST1080 out there to read yet. The gameveda seems to be the only site writing impressions. I get the impression that he is really down on the HMZ-T1 so I"m not sure how valid his glowing impression of the ST1080 in comparison really is. He talks a lot about the portability of the ST1080 but for me that is irrelevant because I would only use it at home the same way I"m currently using the HMZ-T1. If the fov really appears larger on ST1080 than the HMZ along with a more in focus screen image then I would be really interested in it once the 720p scaling issue is addressed. I can't wait to hear more people give their impressions on it

Join the group! From what I can gather except for allegedly some "businesses", every individual consumer report I've read on-line that has asked SMD what their personal shipping status is in reference to their ordering date, which for many was the first day, has been answered with a time-frame that has passed or now extended to next Tuesday and now, again, from some persistent people who are asking again, they get a date that is extended as far as a week into June.

Don't know what to think about who in the company knows exactly what is going on, especially about U.S. shipments. The one person who has one in hand is from NL (Netherlands?) and then the Game Veda (from the UK?).

SMD's last quote regarding a March 21 shipment: "we should be able to get to it either a week from this Friday or the week after that." Hopefully March 1st shipments will go out Tuesday. If SMD doesn't know, who does? People are getting impatient for a truthful answer.

Gameveda has posted another review update on the ST1080. I must say that I have been impressed with how often he has been writing updates on his experiences, especially since he is the only person doing so. The possibility of better focus across the screen than the HMZ-T1 has really peaked my interest though. In his latest report he talks about watching JJ Abram's Star Trek movie on the ST1080. He says that the impact of the 1080p presentation makes it a better experience than on the HMZ-T1 even if the black levels aren't up to par. He comments on the much improved comfort level again also. If this thing can truly be worn for several hours without any comfor issues then that will be a big point in its favor also. I have my HMZ modded with a welders helmet, had no choice since the strap broke on mine, and while it is more comfortable than the original straps were it is still not comfortable to the point were I can freely move my head. I find myself adjusting it every so often trying to get just a little better focus also.

Posted this on the SMD Community forum

To clear things up, the other cyberscott on the SMD website who posted the shipping confirmation is also me.
I did not order it myself but a dear friend had ordered one for me as a gift and had forwarded the shipping info to me. A big surprise for me, for sure!
Now the waiting begins.

I could not have said it better.

Until they ramp up to the 300mhz chips,1080p60 3D, I am sitting this round out.

Monnie

The 4000p ces prototype is even more intresting...

FYI:

The ST 1080 User's Manual page is now posted @

http://www.siliconmicrodisplay.com/users-manual.html

I'm surprised we STILL have no reviews on this. Does it exist? Did nobody pay for 1-2 day shipping? Why did SMD d9dn't submit one to engadget, pcmag, cnet or some other tech review site? Are they just going to go by word of mouh? Or is sending 2-3 free units is such a big deal for them? This release is kind of weird as it goes so far. Korea manufacturing, strange 'backlog'' and shipping delays, weird first reviewer, missing reviews for too long...

Agreed, this has been strange!

I sincerely hope, for the sake of those who preordered, that's all it is... Strange.

Ok, part 2 of Jeffery's review

http://jeffreyvanbinsbergen.nl/3/ST1...w+%28Part+2%29

not sure what you mean? March 1st WAS preorders. The pre-order phase is over and the product is technically released now. Although if you order now you won't get anything for probably at least a month. Apparently most of those who did pre-order on March 1st still haven't gotten theirs yet.

I am very ancious to read additional reviews once individuals start receiving their units over the next few weeks. I was a proud owner of a HMZ-T1 however while I modded the unit into a welders helmet and the comfort was there, I just did not receive the wow factor that I had hoped. The picture on the HMZ was specaticular however the 3d was so clear and natural that it almost did not seem 3d... there was not pop out effect that I receive on our LG passive TV or 3d DLP theater setup.

Now the initial reviews on the ST1080 are stating that the poput on the unit is good! I am now holding make my urges to order until additional reviews come in. The ST1080 does appear to have everything that I wanted out of the HMZ... lighter, comfortable, great 3d, etc... must... hold... back... alittle.... longer....