Can anyone recommend me a Head mounted display please?

[sam1275]

Hello everyone, I'm looking for a HMD that have a high resolution(at least 720p) and a large FOV(at least 60 degrees, the wider the better, I want a 120 degree one...), I found sony HMZ series, but their FOV are still narrow(45 degrees HFOV), can any one give me some advices? Many thanks.

[Psi]

When you say FOV do you mean viewing angle?

FOV means the field of view which isnt a monitor spec.
It's the content you display on it and how close you mount it to your head that governs the FOV.

You haven't specified why input you want. HDMI/DVI/VGA/COMPOSITE etc..

[sam1275]

When you say FOV do you mean viewing angle?

FOV means the field of view which isnt a monitor spec.
It's the content you display on it and how close you mount it to your head that governs the FOV.

You haven't specified why input you want. HDMI/DVI/VGA/COMPOSITE etc..

Thank you for your reply.
Yes, FOV=Field of View, the same meaning as view angle.
It is not a monitor spec, but for HMDs, or maybe called "video glasses", FOV is a spec that cannot be changed by user. For example, a sony HMD spec: http://store.sony.com/wearable-hdtv-2d-3d-virtual-7.1-surround-sound-zid27-HMZT3W/cat-27-catid-3D-Personal-Viewer
For input, I want HDMI or VGA, because composite doesn't have such high resolution, however, I'll happy to find a HMD with composite as a second input choice.(Such as HDMI+composite or VGA+composite+HDMI...)

[GeoffS]

Have you looked at the Oculus Rift
Our local hackerspace has one. Very impressive if  a little nausea  inducing.

[Psi]

ah, yes.  Sorry i didn't notice when you said HMD

Yes FOV is correct.   Viewing angle is different though, thats where you look at the display from the side and the picture starts to get washed out and disappear.

Yep, the oculus rift is your best option.  The 2nd developer version is available for preorder or you can pickup the older dev version cheaper on ebay since people are selling them to buy the newer one.
The consumer version will be even better but likely wont be available for another year.

[sam1275]

Have you looked at the Oculus Rift
Our local hackerspace has one. Very impressive if  a little nausea  inducing.

Thank you, I just watched it and found it seems really great. 1080p+wide FOV for only 350$. However, I have a few questions about it.
1. It seems to be a demo version for developers, so will it work if I just connect it to my video source without programming?
2. It is one 1080p panel devided into two eyes, so what will I exactly see? I don't want a verticle looking screen...
OK, maybe I should just send them an email.

[sam1275]

ah, yes.  Sorry i didn't notice when you said HMD

Yes FOV is correct.   Viewing angle is different though, thats where you look at the display from the side and the picture starts to get washed out and disappear.

Yep, the oculus rift is your best option.  The 2nd developer version is available for preorder or you can pickup the older dev version cheaper on ebay since people are selling them to buy the newer one.
The consumer version will be even better but likely wont be available for another year.

Thank you very much!

[sam1275]

It seems the Oculus Rift can only run on 3D programs modded for it, the only way to show 2D contents such as windows desktop is to use "deskope" software, which cannot display any directX content, I want the HMD to display some real time camera scene, so it won't work, right?

[Psi]

There is a program called VRPlayer which lets you play movies and stream data from VLC to the headset.
It takes care of the splitscreen requirement and warps the image so it shows correctly on the curved oculus lenses.

It can show data from dshow capture devices but there is some lag issues which maybe a problem.

You can download and run the VRplayer software without a oculus rift, but you may need to sign up on the developer forum to get the download link.

I have hopes that the consumer oculus rift version will have composite input with some settings for built in optical warping.
This would make it useful for FPV flying which would be awesome.

[miguelvp]

Oculus Rift at least to the first inception that I've seen, is really just a display.
It takes HDMI and DVI in and then it has a decoder that drives the screen directly via lvds signals to the lcd display (probably an Ipad mini or galaxy display).

So they avoid latency by using twisted pair shielded signals to the lcd on the HMD but all it is is just a display.

That said...
The display is flat, the optics only can show only a circular portion, so you have to modify the displayed output to map the screen to what your eyes can see.
This is not done (as far as I know) internally in the Oculus Rift box. So the signal has to accommodate the display, and that makes sense because they want to reduce the lag between the video signal and you seeing it on the display.

Think about tapeing your display you are reading this to your head, but a smaller display and your eyes can only see a non overlapping circular part of the display. (lots of pixes wasted).

So I do have a set of HMD from well... 20 years ago, 320x240 per eye, they were called virtual io. I just need to find higher res displays and keep the optics. That too send the lvds signal through the tethered cable.

Then again, there is a big push into VR and AR now a days, Sony is releasing project morpheus? I believe that's what is called for full 1080p and true HDMI 3D standards, so you can hook it up to a BlueRay player that outputs 3D. Including the PS4, the PS3 and all the 3D BlueRay players and anything that adheres to the HDMI 1.4a standard for 3D (what all the 3D TVs out there do).

So as long as you can do real HDMI 1.4a (and that means 120Hz at 1080p for both eyes, so 60Hz 3D at full 1080p)
then get the Sony glasses. The rest, they will be just catch up later.

Edit: linky

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/03/18/introducing-project-morpheus/

Disclaimer I don't work for Sony but I'm a game developer, that said, I haven't seen this thing yet.

Edit2: the video in the link gets boring really fast, I mean it's cool but no serious content, just a lot of what we developers should do to make VR work.

[sam1275]

OK, thank you guys, your replies do help me, in fact, I have a crazy idea, I'm considering to build a "fusion type night vision", like the "nanovision" in Crisis for my personal interests, I plan to use the following hardware:
1. A HMD, for main display, must be HD and wide-angled.
2. 2 webcams, one front as main camera, one for rear sight, both for capturing real-time scene around. Front one must be HD and wide-angled, can detect both visible light and near-infrared, maybe autofocus for better image.
3. A thermal image camera, for capturing far-infrared, I want it to be 320*240@30Hz or higher, wider FOV is better.
4. A console, using to process images from 3 cameras, combine the image from the front webcam and thermal imager together to show a fusion image, zoom to real size as human eye sight, show rear camera scene on the corner, perform digital zoom for cameras, recording videos, mark objects in the image(people faces for example), and display system information(such as battery, tempreture...). I'm not sure whether I should use a UMPC like OQO, or use a raspberry Pi, but I know little on programming so maybe I can't run these on a ras PI.
5. A helmet, mounting the cameras.
This is just in planning now, I have to wait to have enough money, and the software maybe also a problem for me. I'm happy to hear your guys opinions.

[miguelvp]

for the console, consider GPU's. Cuda, OpenCL whatever. For prototyping FPGA's, some allow OpenCL as well (Altera does as far as I know, don't know if Xilinx or other FPGA's manufacturers offer OpenCL yet).

Looks like a lot of integration, but one thing, you don't need near infrared if you have far infrared. Unless you want to detect plants
But I bet RGB and far infrared can find vegetation too

Edit: my take, think parallel not sequential for mixing all that data. And read up on digital signal processing, that will pay-up quick and make your systems simpler.

[sam1275]

for the console, consider GPU's. Cuda, OpenCL whatever. For prototyping FPGA's, some allow OpenCL as well (Altera does as far as I know, don't know if Xilinx or other FPGA's manufacturers offer OpenCL yet).

Looks like a lot of integration, but one thing, you don't need near infrared if you have far infrared. Unless you want to detect plants
But I bet RGB and far infrared can find vegetation too

Edit: my take, think parallel not sequential for mixing all that data. And read up on digital signal processing, that will pay-up quick and make your systems simpler.

Thank you very much for your reply!
I'm sorry that I don't have the ability and knowledge to do such "chipset level" developing as you described, I know little about programming and circuit design, so I thought maybe I just need a UMPC... However, if anyone can provide me a finished console for my project, maybe I can buy it if I can afford. (This is for my personal use, not commercial, and I wish it can be affordable)
I need near IR to have the HD nightvision with details. As you may know, the resolution of thermal cameras are lower than a normal camera.

[miguelvp]

yeah, far infrared is lower res than a regular camera with the IR filter removed, but in signal processing that doesn't mean much.

You'll be amazed on color space imaging how they use lower res for some signals and you won't notice a difference.

For what you are telling us, you can't program sequentially, well, the ideas are one thing. We all know about what is possible to do, the only problem is to get it done before someone else does. It's the nature of the industry at large.

It will be like if I say: "I'll use a set of  fast switching re-writable optical media to produce 3D holograms in real time using a fast processor that will generate the reference signal."

See, easy to word it.

[sam1275]

yeah, far infrared is lower res than a regular camera with the IR filter removed, but in signal processing that doesn't mean much.

You'll be amazed on color space imaging how they use lower res for some signals and you won't notice a difference.

For what you are telling us, you can't program sequentially, well, the ideas are one thing. We all know about what is possible to do, the only problem is to get it done before someone else does. It's the nature of the industry at large.

It will be like if I say: "I'll use a set of  fast switching re-writable optical media to produce 3D holograms in real time using a fast processor that will generate the reference signal."

See, easy to word it.

I want to capture a clear image and display it on the HMD in the night to enhance human vision, not just process it, so I think resolution is still a factor for this.
OK, I know you want me to do it all myself, I'll try my best, thank you.