Resolution after 4K?

[Markystal]

Supposedly, 2015 will bring about the coming of 4k/UltraHD in phones and even more powerful hardware to further improve our ability to render to keep up with this. There have been a good few discussions on whether or not the Rift CV1 will support this resolution due to some technical and logistical issues if it releases in 2015, but I'm more curious as to where we'll go from there in the near term (2016,2017,2018?)

So far, the HMDs have been taking advantage of the advancing mobile hardware of phones and tablets (Nexus 7 screen DK1, Nexus 5 in Google Cardboard, Note 3 in DK2, Note 4 in GearVR), which have continually been increasing their resolution in a pixel race since Apple pulled out that "Retina Display" marketing back in 2010, but diminishing returns seem to be kicking in and with 4k being the "new" standard being sold to people, I'm having a hard time imagining that mobile vendors will be able to continue selling things on the benefits of having 5k over 4k on a phone when quad HD isn't much of a jump from 1080p already. This brings to mind the question what VR displays will be doing going forward in that regard if mobile finally steers away from the pixel race (and towards batteries hopefully...just me?)

Facebook, Google, Sony, Samsung, these are some pretty large and pretty powerful companies all playing in the VR space so cost shouldn't be too much of an issue, but I don't think they can exactly justify upping the resolution race further beyond to 5,6, and 8k unless VR takes off next year like an antimatter rocket like phones did to catapult pixel densities, want to eat a loss, or are just simply going to be awesome to the community and dish out advancements for the good of mankind, I don't think they can support such releases year on year. Add in the standard issues with the lack of content much beyond 4k and the technological hurdles that would come in (I don't think a cable that can handle 5k at 90hz has even been announced, let alone made for consumers).

Really, it's making me wonder what kind of release cycle VR hardware will have. Will it be frequently upgraded like smartphones or is it going to be console like where you only upgrade every few years or in generations when new hardware is considerably stronger than the previous technology. In the former case, I think 4k may not be a bad move for Oculus to make since it's the modern standard in some respects and they'd likely want something to be future proof for their next iteration. In the latter, I suppose this wouldn't be too problematic as the tech would just continue to grow as it has for the current pixel race and I'm just thinking about nothing.

Personally, I'd be more interested in increases in the horizontal FOV (vertical fov is good enough for me, though more can't hurt), and curved displays, even if it came at the cost of a bit of resolution (1620 x 3780 seems fine if you ask me), but that's just my take. I wouldn't be surprised if Oculus went with a 1440p display for the CV1, but delaying to release in 2016 for 4k wouldn't surprise me either, but either solution should still provide a pretty awesome experience as far I'm concerned.

In the end, my question kind of hinges on whether or not mobile will continue to push pixels or if VR will do well enough to pay for itself I suppose. I'll be looking at the performance of the Samsung GearVR very carefully for this reason.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
TL:DR
Will HMDs ride off of phone/tablet screen advancements or will it have enough of a push to justify it's own resolution advancements year on year? If so for the latter, what resolutions are you expecting in the coming years.

[acarrilho]

The fact that the screen-door is still there, albeit much less noticeable, will probably put me off buying the CV1 if it comes with 1440p. Honestly, the jump for me has to be no discernable screen-door, for it to be worth switching from the DK2.

[EarlGrey]

I think 4K is a must for CV1, as is an increased FOV (hor/ver).

The DK2 FOV is not very good, but it's good enough. CV1 needs to have around 15-20% improvement in this regard I imagine. I felt the DK1 had a slightly better FOV.


There's no need for a mobile panel with a higher resolution than 4K, the eye simply cannot see any difference, so I imagine there will be a big slump in evolution of panel resolution, and more focus on other aspects, such as foldable panels, translucent panels, etc. Framerate advances also aren't much of a focus for current mobile panel makers. So we've reached a point already where resolution and framerate advances are becoming not that important priority for mobile panel makers, which means VR will be disadvantaged by not being able to piggy-back on those technologies.

So we'll definitely NEED to see VR panel development diverge from other panel development, as the requirements are totally different for VR than they are for mobile. But for CV1 a mobile 4K panel is what is good enough, but we'll need to go beyond 4K at some point, but I also worry it will take a long time, maybe a decade.

But for now 4K is not only the best you can get and do. It's not very practical to go beyond 4K due to the fact that the rest of the pipeline simply can't do it, rendering/processing power, HDMI transfer rate, and other things are simply not there yet.

[Darcanis]

"EarlGrey" wrote:
There's no need for a mobile panel with a higher resolution than 4K, the eye simply cannot see any difference,

There will always be that guy who says "I can tell the difference!" and there will always be those sales guys who say "You totally need to experience this with a 20k screen! It's like nothing you have ever seen before!" feeding the ones who say "I can totally see the difference". Much like the "audiophiles" who swear they hear the difference between $5 and $2000 audio cables and when told what they were listening to were even better $5000 cables they swore they could hear the difference and were ready to buy them. Only to find out it was a experiment to show digital signal is the same over anything and they were actually listening to a coat hanger instead of $5000 cables.

As long as there are those who think more $$$ means better experience or higher specs than humanly possible to tell the difference is better they will make stuff to sell to those people. Sadly the bulk of people out there fall into this group, but happily this is good for VR screens and gaming. 🙂

Kinda like a friend who bought $5000 headphones because he could totally tell the difference with the larger rage that extended waaaaaaay beyond the human range of hearing. lol But yeah.. he could hear it... Sure I have headphones that extend beyond human hearing range as well, but not by as much and cost way less. I have above normal human hearing range and can't tell the difference between the two (his and mine). HE swears the difference is there and can hear more of the sound. At a certain point there really is nothing more to hear with current audio tech. This is what will power the 6k, 8k, 10k, etc.. screen development. Also those ranges are needed for really good glassless 3D in the future for 3D interfaces without any glasses needed.

There are already plans according to various articles of 8k screens in a couple years so they are not done yet upping cell phone screen tech.

[AlexiGVS]

People who tested Crescent Bay, say that "screen door effect" was greatly reduced. But it still there..
I agree, for games probably, it will be enough, but there are not so much games out there with Rift native support.
So, when people will replay all Rift games for 5-10 times... then what? The answer is Oculus Cinema, Virtual Desktop and 3D 360 Movies. And 1440p is not enough for that stuff.. So, my opinion.. 4K OLED Display in the CV1 is must have thing.

[Anonymous]

I just want to make this clear... resolution and SDE are NOT the same thing and they DO NOT go hand in hand. Asking to increase the resolution to fix the SDE is flat out stupid.

With that said, 4k vs 2k you can tell the different in image quality witch makes immersion feel more real to the user as the human eye can see a ppi of 300-900 depending on the user and the distant from their face. In the case of our HMD here, we be looking around the 4k-8k resolutions to help deal with the image quality from a few inches from the face.

Your best bet to removing the SDE is finding a way around the black bars between pixels, moving the middle pixels together, and working with the lens so they do not "zoom" so hard in the middle.

1) You can always allow "bleeding" of the pixels in the middle between pixels once the resolution is high enough. From a distant (in this case a few inches) wouldn't look different than you standing a few feet from a screen in terms of SDE.

2) Moving pixels around as needed will help combat what the lens are doing to the image by allowing the "zoom" effect not to be so harsh for example in the middle on the screen were we are told to look.

Personally, I'd be more interested in increases in the horizontal FOV (vertical fov is good enough for me, though more can't hurt), and curved displays, even if it came at the cost of a bit of resolution (1620 x 3780 seems fine if you ask me), but that's just my take. I wouldn't be surprised if Oculus went with a 1440p display for the CV1, but delaying to release in 2016 for 4k wouldn't surprise me either, but either solution should still provide a pretty awesome experience as far I'm concerned.

FOV will increase once we start using bendable screens. That's the best way to do it anyways going forward pass CV1. It'll help remove the lens allowing the screen to be place a bit closer to the face. That alone will help with SDE, FOV, and weight of the device. No more delays tho... 2015 is a good year with a 2k screen if you ask me. They can always release the next version in one-two years time or even a "special edition" version in between years to help fill the gap. It's best at this point to release something that game makers and hardware venders can work with to make VR better. No one is going to spend thousands on research when only a DEV kit is around.

Going forward pass CV2, will be displaying images on the retina instead and that comes with a whole new issues by it self, but new rendering methods will have to be design at that point to deal with the increase bandwidth over cable anyways.

[EarlGrey]

"Darcanis" wrote:

"EarlGrey" wrote:
There's no need for a mobile panel with a higher resolution than 4K, the eye simply cannot see any difference,

There will always be that guy who says "I can tell the difference!" and there will always be those sales guys who say "You totally need to experience this with a 20k screen! It's like nothing you have ever seen before!" feeding the ones who say "I can totally see the difference". Much like the "audiophiles" who swear they hear the difference between $5 and $2000 audio cables and when told what they were listening to were even better $5000 cables they swore they could hear the difference and were ready to buy them. Only to find out it was a experiment to show digital signal is the same over anything and they were actually listening to a coat hanger instead of $5000 cables.

As long as there are those who think more $$$ means better experience or higher specs than humanly possible to tell the difference is better they will make stuff to sell to those people. Sadly the bulk of people out there fall into this group, but happily this is good for VR screens and gaming. 🙂

Kinda like a friend who bought $5000 headphones because he could totally tell the difference with the larger rage that extended waaaaaaay beyond the human range of hearing. lol But yeah.. he could hear it... Sure I have headphones that extend beyond human hearing range as well, but not by as much and cost way less. I have above normal human hearing range and can't tell the difference between the two (his and mine). HE swears the difference is there and can hear more of the sound. At a certain point there really is nothing more to hear with current audio tech. This is what will power the 6k, 8k, 10k, etc.. screen development. Also those ranges are needed for really good glassless 3D in the future for 3D interfaces without any glasses needed.

There are already plans according to various articles of 8k screens in a couple years so they are not done yet upping cell phone screen tech.

Those sales guys cannot sell anything beyond 4K in the next 5-6 years because something beyond 4K simply won't exist. Oh believe me, 8K won't exist this decade. It will take at least 5-6 years for 8K to get any attention.

It took 1920x1080 resolution around 10 years to become mainstream, and I expect the same of 4K, a decade to become what 1920x1080 is today.

In a decade we'll be chatting about 8k and when 16k will become reality.

[sotti]

"EarlGrey" wrote:

Those sales guys cannot sell anything beyond 4K in the next 5-6 years because something beyond 4K simply won't exist. Oh believe me, 8K won't exist this decade. It will take at least 5-6 years for 8K to get any attention.

It took 1920x1080 resolution around 10 years to become mainstream, and I expect the same of 4K, a decade to become what 1920x1080 is today.

In a decade we'll be chatting about 8k and when 16k will become reality.

I disagree, this is not 20 years ago. We do not need broadcasters to upgrade their transmission equipment to provide a digital broadcast to support 1080p. I think the transition to 4K is going to happen much faster as the primary means of transition is now streaming media. The same is true of upcoming HDR technologies, they are planning on leading with streaming services.

The real driver of any technology like this is content. Once the content is there, the demand will follow, previously there was a serious chicken and the egg issue as the amount of infrastructure needed to transmit the updated content required such a significant investment that it deterred content creators from pursuing new formats. Not to mention the computing requirements have changed to the point where you can put together a viable 4K editing station for probably what an input card cost at the advent of HD.

[Darcanis]

"EarlGrey" wrote:
Those sales guys cannot sell anything beyond 4K in the next 5-6 years because something beyond 4K simply won't exist. Oh believe me, 8K won't exist this decade. It will take at least 5-6 years for 8K to get any attention.

It took 1920x1080 resolution around 10 years to become mainstream, and I expect the same of 4K, a decade to become what 1920x1080 is today.

In a decade we'll be chatting about 8k and when 16k will become reality.

Hate to disappoint but 8K is already here just not phone size yet. Current 8K tv cost about the same as 4K a couple years ago.


Sharp Prototype 13.3-inch 8k OLED Panel http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20140610/357380/

Qualcomm can't wait for 8K phones, before we even have 4K phones
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/35072/qualcomm-can-t-wait-for-8k-phones-before-we-even-have-4k-phones/...

Forget 4K, it's an 8K TV you want http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/08/samsung-8k-tv_n_4560159.html

Windows 10 To Support Display Resolution Up To 8K And Better DPI Scaling - http://microsoft-news.com/windows-9-to-support-display-resolution-up-to-8k-and-better-dpi-scaling/

[acarrilho]

If I get very near to a 4K TV (about Rift panel distance) I can discern the pixels, in which case I'm not sure 4K is enough... :?