Please advise: Should I RMA/exchange again?

[flexy123]

My previous unit had the "green milky way" display problem, that is, one half of the display had a large greenish fog/band in the lower half of the display. (Among black backgrounds, most evident in the "adjust your lenses" screen)

I now got a brand-new replacement unit (not Oculus, a German retailer), and the unit has the exact same thing going on. The shape of the greenish band looks almost identical, I could almost swear it's the same unit. (I wrote about this issue with the new SKUs multiple times already on reddit and here).

Here is the thing: I now finally tried to Disable Spud with the registry entry, and it actually works. Although I notice maybe a slight reddish hue with blacks but this is totally fine. I am however still assessing whether the unit is really ok. (Testing various apps).

My question is: Should I exchange this unit nevertheless seeing that the unit 100% and absolutely requires not to use SPUD? Otherwise at the default setting without the Spud registry entry, now there is TWO large greenish areas in BOTH displays. I have never seen this with my old Rift...but now with two units from the new SKU. (Heaney from reddit and others can tell me as long as they want this is a fluke and this and that, but I don't believe this any longer. TWO UNITS..exactly the same...and low and behold I was scared testing my unit today...and of course....it had the same thing going on so all my fears had been confirmed)

If I require to disable Spud (which basically could be considered a hack since it's something not active by default, and also means that I cannot take advantage of display/mura calibration [because this is the purpose of Spud], so do I need to exchange this unit again?) Please advise.

[Anonymous]

im sorry i cant help you but how can i check for the green tint? do i look with only one eye? also what is this "Spud" you disable? im new to this got my rift a week ago

[cybereality]

That's not completely abnormal. There is some grain visible on the panels, usually most evident on dark or black scenes. It should not be noticeable in bright or colorful content, but it's probably there on all units (more or less). 

[Anonymous]

cybereality said:

That's not completely abnormal. There is some grain visible on the panels, usually most evident on dark or black scenes. It should not be noticeable in bright or colorful content, but it's probably there on all units (more or less). 

I'm on the second unit which has the same problem and as you have stated, its evident on dark/black scenes.  If the grain was covered equally across the screen hen I think it would be less of a issue. On my unit it appears more grainy in some parts of the screen than others which appears like 'banding'.

[flexy123]

Cybereality, the green patch is NOT uniform, this is the issue here. This is not the normal film grain.

HOWEVER: With Spud off it actually works beautifully. I can't see any fault right now. It is just very, VERY odd to me that it seems that a number of units have this problem right now. If Oculus has not looked into this (??), they really should. In particular since SPUD off (which is not the default when you install Oculus, of course) does not produce these awful artifacts. There is something awry, either with h/w..or I am actually guessing with calibration from the factory.

At this moment, I am actually holding off with yet another exchange. If it works like it does now...ok with me. The issue here is that "the average user" doesn't know about the Spud registry "hack"...

[flexy123]

ruskie666 said:

cybereality said:

That's not completely abnormal. There is some grain visible on the panels, usually most evident on dark or black scenes. It should not be noticeable in bright or colorful content, but it's probably there on all units (more or less). 

I'm on the second unit which has the same problem and as you have stated, its evident on dark/black scenes.  If the grain was covered equally across the screen hen I think it would be less of a issue. On my unit it appears more grainy in some parts of the screen than others which appears like 'banding'.

Have you tried Spud off?

[Neme2017]

Welcome to the club, Milky way green as you say, we enjoyed quite a fever with these new summer cv1, I take with her from the first day and is quite remarkable, especially on the left screen is a hell ... but it is One of many problems that I have, besides the banding and the gamma by the clouds, the tool spud, what creates me when I deactivate is a generalized gray .... I have 2 weeks with an open ticket waiting for answer ... that says it all.

[Anonymous]

flexy123 said:

ruskie666 said:

cybereality said:

That's not completely abnormal. There is some grain visible on the panels, usually most evident on dark or black scenes. It should not be noticeable in bright or colorful content, but it's probably there on all units (more or less). 

I'm on the second unit which has the same problem and as you have stated, its evident on dark/black scenes.  If the grain was covered equally across the screen hen I think it would be less of a issue. On my unit it appears more grainy in some parts of the screen than others which appears like 'banding'.

Have you tried Spud off?

Yes and it fixes the problem albeit the blacks don't look pure black anymore. I'm wai a proper answer from tech support why so many units are affected.  Can somebody in support give us an official statement on the issue?

[flexy123]

This is exactly the reason I am not exchanging yet another unit, because I a have no doubt that the next one would have the same issue again. (The entire Oculus Rift thing is really slowly giving me headaches in the last few weeks with returning units and seeing that they all have something wrong with them).

Right now I am trying to understand what exactly SPUD does, it is correct that deactivating SPUD gets rid of these "bands" and the picture overall I guess looks passable - although at the cost of black levels. (This is clear also seeing that Spud off also means that the display doesn't turn off pixels anymore when they are black).

(Technical blablah:)
I see that the *.spud files are actually a .ZIP archive, which allows me to extract them and do some experimenting. I was enable to interchange/ some of these "singlepixel" files, and also experiment with this "spud wall" setting...with the result that I can indeed change the appearance of the greenish mura correction pattern.

It is clear to me that the distracting greenish bands/artifacts are a direct result of what SPUD is applying. Whether this is ultimately the result of poor displays (?) or a wrong calibration....I don't know. The filenames in the SPUD archive also have the dates of the calibration. My two flawed units have been calibrated 7/12 & 7/13 and the other, previous unit I had 7/14 and 7/15 in 2017. (Both from the new SKU). My old unit that didn't have a display problem had been calibrated back in June 2016.

At this point I don't think I have another option than keeping this unit and never use Spud rather than annoy caseking with an endless barrage of pointless returns. Caseking probably knows less than I do and there is no such thing as pre-testing with them anyway, all they could do is send me another unit which will likely be one from these same batch anyway. As said I am already getting headaches from all this, also since I was without a Rift now for approaching 8 weeks because of all this.

I have to say that I am not "all too happy" right now, mainly because of the now poorer black levels with Spud off. (And also the fact that I could possibly never re-sell such a unit as I have right now, since Spud is on for everyone by default.) Alternatively, the only other thing I could think off would be an exchange via Oculus directly, say if Oculus would send me a unit without this problem for my unit in return. If there is a possibility for this, please let me know. I am more than willing to assist there.

[Anonymous]

flexy123 said:

ruskie666 said:

cybereality said:

That's not completely abnormal. There is some grain visible on the panels, usually most evident on dark or black scenes. It should not be noticeable in bright or colorful content, but it's probably there on all units (more or less). 

I'm on the second unit which has the same problem and as you have stated, its evident on dark/black scenes.  If the grain was covered equally across the screen hen I think it would be less of a issue. On my unit it appears more grainy in some parts of the screen than others which appears like 'banding'.

Have you tried Spud off?

Yes and it fixes the problem albeit the blacks don't look pure black anymore. I'm waiting for a proper answer from tech support why so many units are affected.  Can somebody in support give us an official statement on the issue?