Your Predictions: WHICH of the following emissive displays (OLED / Crystal LED / Quantum Dot /... - Page 2  

"I just cannot even begin to explain how few people are willing to don VR headgear."

I don't know the answer to this. I sure haven't seen any market research. But I would guess it would be no different than a person wearing a headset...kicking back... to listen to music in their iPhone...iPod...or iPad. The emphasis is on kicking back to do it.

"I can less explain the maximum time limit people are willing to wear said headgear even if you get them in it."

Probably longer than said music experience. Since they will be playing games...browsing the web...watching movies/TV...etc. But I suspect you are really on to something here. Fatigue factor and eyestrain could be serious issues...along with nausea, epilepsy...etc. That is a risk factor that must be accounted for like any other visual device. IMO that is the biggest threat to VR devices like this. As a parent, I would certainly take pause before subjecting my kids young eyes to prolonged exposure to huge HD images that close to the eyeball.

"The idea this is going to become mass-market appealing is beyond far-fetched to me. Far, far beyond."

Mass market appeal is not an issue. Mass Market safety is. If their technology works...All Oculus Rift has to do is get a bunch of young, popular recording artists do video rifts for it, along with their endorsements...Athletes using it for Madden football & etc, with their endorsements...and get it plugged into a few movies, like I'm sure Sony will...And it will be off to the races just like Walkman was in its day.

Will it seriously challenge HDTV displays. Not IMO. But it could become a preferred accessory/alternative medium for private applications like Gaming for example. And thorugh that medium...really take 3D gaming to a whole new level you can't achieve even with a gigantic home projection system. And that market alone has enormous potential...with few barriers to entry except the safety issues.

It's very, very different. I put on my headphones when I'm out walking, when I'm doing light work, really any time. I'm like Mr. Anyperson Intheworld in that regard. While it shuts out a bit of the world, it's complementary to the world. Nothing about VR headgear in any way relates.
I'm going to guess you're in your early to mid 20s. Maybe I'm wrong, but either way, this research has been done. People can't wear VR-type gear for extended periods without serious side effects. It's part of why the VR revolution died at the end of the 1990s/early 2000s and a good reason why it will never be a mass-market, extended-hours entertainment medium. Hell, people aren't even tolerating extended time in 3-D glasses.

Even if this is the coolest thing ever -- and I doubt it will be -- it's going to be something that some people do for short periods of time. Zombified people in VR masks is just not happening.
I am missing something about Oculus Rift obviously, so I'm going to plead ignorance. But it sounds like -- to me at least -- some attempt to bring VR back to a small enthusiast community because the industry is indifferent, having tried and failed with this several times before. The project -- like many Kickstarters -- raised significant funding, but has delivered nothing. It's not at all clear there will be any follow-on support from developers, certainly none that matter. Currently, gaming is moving in directions that are highly detached from the idea that some Kickstarter device is going to be at the nexus of some revolution in gaming... Much of the development community is focused on iPhones and Android, a lot is distracted trying to decide what to do about Wii U/Xbox 720/PS4, the rest is writing the 11 millionth Call of Duty sequel.

I know you are excited about this thing and I appreciate that. The idea that a $200-300 set of goggles from some company that doesn't really exist is the next big thing is so far removed from any reality I believe exists, I wonder how you believe it does exist. But, hey, you're more than entitled to that belief. It has nothing at all to do with the future of television viewing either way.

rogo: You're pretty smart--let me ask you?

It doesn't seem like OLED is going to come in 65-inch and above sizes at prices comparable to a Panasonic VT-50 anytime soon. Mitsubishi announced that they'll no longer produce rear projection DLP and Laser DLP.

Panasonic is clearly into an exit strategy with plasma.

Sharp isn't in the best financial shape.

When DO YOU think that outside of cave man front projection that LCD will be the ONLY game in town?

Is there enough demand in the ENTIRE world for ANYTHING outside of LCD?

It is hard for me to believe that it is the ONLY technology that is economically viable at an affordable price.

What's the real deal? People laugh at me for saying that we're doomed to an ALL LCD world in 2015 but I haven't heard any arguments why that won't be the case.

Do you have any?

When WILL Plasma have its last year? When that happens will LCD be all that's left?


P.S. I'm asking you because with as many posts as you have here--if you can't answer these questions--who can?

I do know something though--if you don't answer them then I really DO KNOW that we're doomed! If that is so just get ready for all the AV Industry plant posts here telling us how we don't need large TVs. This will be similar to the long range plan where they told everyone they didn't need large cars and now how we don't need large SUVs in the car enthusiast sites and mags.

You know the kind of reviews--the ones that say that Cadillac's "flagship"--a car with the size of a current Chevrolet Malibu is "BIG and ROOMY"!

If Sharp dies watch for them to tell us how 55-inches is MASSIVE! They'll probably try to tie in something lame such as energy usage to sell that garbage!
Edited by Artwood - 12/20/12 at 1:48pm

So, VR tech is a couple of decades old. They have never solved the "you can't wear it for very long" problem. I really cannot see how they are going to solve it with this Oculus thing, nor do I believe it is actually solvable with a head-mounted display. That doesn't mean it will never be somewhat popular, but it does mean head-mounted VR will never be mass-market, many-hour popular.

My point is: They've been aware of the issue, research has been done, they tried to build these VR "arcades" for years... If there was a way to fix this, it would have happened.

As for this Avatar thingy and whether "enough people will pay $300", my answer is, "some people will pay $300" and the question is, "is this merely a novelty, or will it catch on at all?" I don't know. It might have some legs or it might just disappear in a year after the Oculus device ships. It's not going mass market. I just don't see it.

Augmented reality, on the other hand, I'm very bullish on. In part, that's because Google, Microsoft (and likely Apple) are all pursuing it. But also because I think it has amazing applications....

So, I don't see a future for plasma R&D because the economics of making them rely on two companies, one that's struggling (Panasonic) and one that really doesn't need to care (Samsung).

I suspect we move to an LCD world -- we're kind of already in one -- that sees OLED slowly (and hopefully surely) develop into a real replacement over the 2010s. But let's be clear, LCD has always sucked at offering big sizes. Until Sharp's 70", it was rare for any 65" LCD to either (a) exist (b) be cheap or (c) remain on the market for more than a few months. Thankfully, Sharp has changed that. If they don't go under -- and I'm cautiously optimistic Apple and others won't let them -- we'll at least have someone offering big TVs for a few years. We see now that Samsung and others are repurposing 8G fabs to make 84" and 110" TVs. That's a good sign, even though 84" TVs are probably too big for the vast majority of us and what we really want is a reliable set of choices in the 65-75" range. OLED seems to be a good few years from offering those at anything resembling a reasonable price. It's hard to believe anything will be out before 2015 that fits that criteria.

VR failed so far not because of the "you can't wear it for very long" problem, but because even few years ago, there were no screens, no processing power and no required sensors cheap enough to do VR right. It "failed" only because it couldn't have possibly succeeded. It's the marketing hype that actually failed, not the core technology. And now these finally-cheap components have all arrived, which is why devices like Oculus Rift are popping up.

And, before someone declares how OR is irrelevant or that it will not work, even early prototype reviews are mostly glowing so there's no point to use past failures as arguments for why OR will fail. And to claim that these things will NEVER become more comfortable, is just silly, sorry. I mean how difficult it is to imagine and extrapolate this technology to stylish glasses? Are Ray Bans impossible to wear too? Again, for video applications, these things will mature into hot and comfortable fashion accessories rather than what they look now.

Other than that, we have to realize that some people will not like this technology, no matter what, not becasue it's inherently bad, but because it's just not going to be their thing, just like some older people shun computers while inventing many justifications for how new technology is no good. Some people will get it, some never will.
Edited by vtms - 12/20/12 at 4:27pm

@Rogo who said:
"I'm going to guess you're in your early to mid 20s. Maybe I'm wrong, but either way, this research has been done."

Wow! Thanks for the compliment. I do try to stay young minded...especially about technology. I am 65...still curious about just about everything....a retired Engineer/Cyberneticist...and having a ball. Video and Audio has always been a passion of mine. And we can disagree as friendly comrades on VR. I think it has a big future in gaming along with augmented reality. Oculus Rift may be a small fish. But Sony is in this game too. And they are a Big Shark. And so is Microsoft and IBM in a tangential way. IMO this is just a baby step finally in the right direction for realistic home based 3D viewing and gaming. As other writers here have suggested...this technology will only get better and more ergonomically functional after early adoption by its audiences. I appreciate and respect your skepticism. But I remain excited about the potential of VR and AR. I hope OR is successful.

Wow, I'm struggling to sort through the veiled personal attacks there, vtms.

The idea that a head-mounted display that shuts out the universe is going to be as appealing as Ray-Bans -- ever -- is silly. Patently silly.

Quite frankly, TV-with-glasses is failing (aka 3DTV) in large part because it involves glasses and those glasses are tiny, lightweight and don't shut out the world. A head-mounted display won't be as light or comfortable as even those for years -- plenty of time for this non-trend of VR to die off yet again.

As for "reviews" of early prototypes, I think the words you are looking for are "hype for early prototypes".
Edited by rogo - 12/20/12 at 11:13pm

3D glasses are failing because they are components of a badly-implemented 3D technology, that's all. Glasses alone are not to blame here.

Yes, it's hard to distinguish deserved from undeserved hype. But, even if OR hype is undeserved, someone else will eventually do it right, probably Apple.

Right, they are not alone. But they are most certainly not helping adoption.
OK. Your bet is clear. My bet is clear.

I would agree that there are definitely a myriad of reasons why people hate 3D but the glasses are the biggest, IMO. 75% of people I speak with on a daily basis about the possibility of having 3D in their display hate the idea. Of that 75% probably 90% hate it mainly because of the glasses portion. They feel as thought it's a nuisance or hassle to have to wear some sort of peripheral to experience something, even if it is a pretty nonchalant pair of passive glasses, or the new $20 Samsung active glasses.
Edited by hoozthatat - 12/20/12 at 6:55pm

People wear prescription glasses all day and don't complain. Some people wear 3D glasses and complain. Conclusion? Improve comfort of 3D glasses.

Nice analogy, but I don't think it's a comfort problem necessarily. It's more of a psychological thing in the sense that people have it made up in their minds that they don't want to be bothered with wearing the glasses. They feel as though the action-to-benefit of wearing the glasses, and experiencing 3D isn't high enough to participate.

Which is precisely what devices like Oculus Rift are going to start to address. Yes, absolutely, the current 3D tech isn't making people think "this is so mind-blowing I don't care how silly I look wearing these things," but that will start to change. People will wear these things because the experience will warrant temporary shame and discomfort. Temporary, because all that diminishing cultural stigma will drive manufacturers to make more fashionable versions that people will eventually not be ashamed to wear.
Edited by vtms - 12/20/12 at 7:38pm

Bottom line of this whole thread: Get ready for LCD that SUX!!!

^That's the bottom line of quite a few threads in this subforum as of late.

Hey, but at least they could be blue phase LCDs, which might not suck. Anyway, the bottom line for me here is all I care about now is a 6" OLED/QLED 4K/8K.

I have to ask what you are using to define "virtual reality" because Sony are on their second generation of OLED head-mounted display that supports current 3DTV standard formats.

With console games that support 3D, or the majority of PC games (there is much better support for 3D on PC) we already have VR.


The oculus rift is a development platform, and not a consumer product. I'm not sure why it keeps getting brought up.

I don't think VR is ever likely to replace televisions though, it will be a secondary market, like tablets are to laptop computers. For mainstream adoption they really do need to be as light and compact as a pair of sunglasses, and be completely wireless though, which is a long way off. (if it ever happens)


I agree that Plasma seems to be on the way out in the next few years, unless something major happens.

Augmented reality is walking around in the real world with information overlaid on top. That prototype is essentially Sony's head-mounted display with a camera mounted on the front to allow to AR applications.

Virtual reality is watching films or playing games with a 3D head-mounted display. Some might not consider watching 3D films "virtual reality" though, and others may require things like head tracking for it to be considered "VR" (but head-tracking is easily added if you are using a PC as a source)
Like I said it's a development platform, not a consumer product.

640x800 is laughably low resolution, especially when you consider the extremely high FoV it covers compared to most other head-mounted displays. (110 vs 45 degrees or less)

The oculus rift in its current state will not be sold as a consumer product, to my knowledge. A future revision of the hardware may be sold as a consumer product though.

Yeah, they have nearly nothing to do with one another. I honestly think you are confused a bit.


Chron defines augmented-reality well here. It has some gaming applications for sure (think heads-up displays for example) but relatively limited entertainment implications outside of that for now. It has huge implications, however, for human-technology interaction as we could begin to see the world with information superimposed, which frees us from staring at the screen for certain kinds of activities (think navigation most especially).

While a few of the enabling technologies between virtual reality and augmented reality are similar, the two do not have much to do with one another. Google's Project Glass (https://plus.google.com/+projectglass) for example is an AR tool, not a VR tool at all. In no way does it try to immerse you in a virtual world or a 3-D entertainment-space. It tries to place information at your disposal to use in the world around you. (And even there, the AR stuff is in its infancy. It's almost a "3rd screen" tool right now as opposed to true AR. That's even further removed from VR than something like the Wii U, which no one would confuse with VR -- except perhaps someone who doesn't know what VR is.)

EDIT: Before the pixels were dry on this post, I read a really good article at Engadget. I'm linking it here:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/21/our-augmented-selves-the-promise-of-wearable-computing/

It's worth 10 minutes of your life.

Then if you are really interested, go to the linked article:

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-into-the-future-of-wearable-computing-part-2-ar/

It links back to yet another one about VR... And gets into brass tacks about why VR isn't AR and vice versa... You might draw different conclusions than the authors, but the idea that these things are the same is not likely one of them.
Edited by rogo - 12/21/12 at 4:28pm

AR and 3D movies and TV will be serviced by stylish glasses (eventually). For, VR, though, all outside light must be blocked to preserve the illusion so VR device will look like goggles. VR headset will, of course, do 3D TV and movies too, but, at first, almost nobody will be walking around town wearing these. Eventually, though, when transparent OLED/QLED displays are perfected, people will start to wear them outside more often, and turning the VR-mode only when sitting on bus or waiting at doctor's office, etc. Transparent displays have now found its most perfect application, so I don't think LCDs will be a part of this imminent revolution for too long.

LCD SUX. How much less does it suck if it is 4K?

The reason I ask is it seems like there won't be any plasmas to display it on and OLED doesn't seem like it will be reasonably priced in very large sizes and don't you have to have large sizes to enjoy the impact of 4K?

Which LCD producer seems like it would be the first to offer 4K at $5,000 or less?

They have really very little in common.

The VR example has to make the contractor feel like he's in a building or space he isn't. It has to create a high-quality illusion and close out reality.

The AR example has to be "good enough", it has no need -- or purpose -- in closing out reality.

Both involve some kind of head-mounted display, so, yeah, they have something in common. But not a ton.

Sure, it goes without saying that the right optics are needed between a display and eyes.