A night of sleeplessness and heartburn... lot of time to thing about silly things like VR and the Rift...
I did a list of the improvements of the CV1 with respect to the DK2 in another thread and realized that I missed the IPD adjustment. What a prominent absence, as it may be the main reason for the high cost of the Rift.
Before it was revealed that Oculus was using dual screens in their prototypes I was sure that the consumer version would be a single screen design. It couldn't be any other way. The key point on Palmer's design was that single screen design that set it apart from all the other expensive VR solutions available at the time. I was so wrong... 😕
What if they would have kept the single screen design and avoided all that extra complexity of the IPD adjustment mechanisms and the high precision electronics needed to send an accurate measure of the adjustment to the computer? They may have created a set of versions of the lenses holder piece to account for a set of IPD ranges and sell the Rift in several "sizes". So, a single screen, none of the extra complexities of the IPD adjustment, and the only drawback of having to manufacture a single piece in several sizes, what sounds relatively trivial to me in comparison. May it have kept the price of the CV1 where we all expected it to be while still delivering a high quality VR experience?
You know, it turned out to be not somewhat more expensive than expected, but more than double. That's a lot...
Multiple changout lense frames or similar method won't do the trick.
Just the IPD you've been discussing of 74 vs 70 would be drastic. 2mm in each eye constitutes a large percentage of the overall pupil size. You would swing an image pretty wildly with just such a "subtle" adjustment.
We're really talking about one of the most advanced displays for humans ever made. For the first time the technology to make it happen finally exists. Undoing this achievement to save a few bucks on parts is heretical.
I sincerely doubt that a mechanical slider added considerable cost to the Rift. If anything added cost, it was the headphones. I've never once heard Palmer mention the IPD adjustment, let alone going on and on about how the IPD adjustment is awesome. If any one thing added considerable cost it was the headphones. You can't shut the guy up about them.
Not a Rift fanboi. Not a Vive fanboi. I'm a VR fanboi. Get it straight.
Also adding: For new display designs that have a higher dead pixel and failure rate than more mature technologies, the cost of two screens would be cheaper than a single screen equal to their combined size.
