Apology Letter
Hi Pimax community:
Please accept our sincere apologies that we made a mistake on the communication, and the team didn’t address 75Hz/90Hz issue in time and precisely, both with our staffs and community. That’s our fault!
First of all, no doubt the 4K CLPL display panel supports 90Hz, and another project with Qualcomm platform can reach stable 90Hz. What’s more, the whole system including cable/interface/processor/display panels is all designed for running 90Hz.
As you know, our previous solution is using 2HDMI 1.4b. then we moved to 1DP1.4 solution by introducing a new interface chipset. During the first round roadshow (V1.5 with two HDMI cables, each cable is ~2 meter), we did some steam VR games demo ( The Blu and Fruit Nijia ), and the games can run up to 90Hz at that time, but not so stable, sometimes we have to spend ~1 hour to run the demo successfully, by keep trying plug in\plug out\restart computer. Even we succeed in demoing the game at 90Hz, some frame skips occurred, that’s why Tested reviewer feel some random lags while playing Fruit Nijia. At the beginning, we though it’s individual issue. After the first round roadshow, we got more time to investigate this issue deeply and finally found the stability has something to do with the frame rate: higher frame rate, worse stability, and no improvement on V2 version (2*HMDI with 3.5-meter cable plus some other design changes). Unfortunately, the stability of high frame rate (>85Hz) is a little bit worse in the new DP solution(V3 prototype). The firmware engineers took a wrong assumption that they can fix this issue soon and just make a simple decision to lower down the refresh rate to 75Hz for new public demos.
Here, our team did a bad job in communicating internally and externally, and didn’t update real status in time with the staffs in the events. We admit, we did drop the ball by neglecting to relay this to staff at the events. Our new staffs tried their best to answer as many questions as possible during the demo show, but obviously not ideal when they don’t have all of the information!
Internally, when we meet the challenge, the first thing comes to our engineers’ mind is to solve it by ourselves, other than let the community know as soon as possible. We definitely need to be more transparent and update our progress with the community more frequently in the future.
Here we have learned the lessons and take some actions to prevent such thing happen again.
Action 1 - We will share our progress with the community more frequently. especially when we find some new issues or challenges.
Action 2 - We will provide better training for our reps to make sure they only answer the questions that they know clearly. If they are not sure, we will make sure they get back to the team to get answers instead of to give a rough guess.
Action 3 - We will provide better training to teach the team becomes more effective in internal and external communication. especially for new staffs.
So we have updated the risk analysis as below to let our backers do the final assessment before Kickstarter campaign end.
Although we have still been a small team, we are expanding fast and have new faces joining us every week. We understand we have allocated most of our resources in R&D and have limited resources in marketing and communication, and we didn’t take time to provide all of our staffs proper, professional, and enough training in terms of communication.
Meanwhile, it is our first time to meet with global enthusiasts and backers in person, who are usually professionals and even experts in VR. We are still learning the best way to communicate with people from all different regions and cultural backgrounds. If we made mistakes, please let us know and we will do analysis and improve next time.
We are passionate about VR and work very hard. We will do out best and always stick with our goal of creating the best VR experience ever.
Thanks for your support, understanding, and criticism, we will keep learning as an organization, enhance communication, be stronger and deliver even better products to our community.
Best Regards,
The Pimax Team and,
Robin Weng, the founder of Pimax VR
8K project risks
- Refresh Rate
The display panel supports 90Hz according to it’s specification, and it has proven a stable 90Hz in another project. The display port is DP1.4 and the chip we used supports DP1.4 as well. So theoretically, Pimax 8K can support 90Hz.
But the stability is much important because our HMD should work out of the lab in thousands of computers condition. In the past two weeks, we have done more stress tests from 75Hz to 85Hz base on V3 hardware (latest DP 1.4 solution). Up to now, the 80Hz is confirmed stable. 82Hz just pass the initial test standard. And now we’re trying to optimize on 85Hz and 87Hz. Since 90Hz is the upper limit of the whole system. Several hardware reasons might make the refresh rate drop: the clock rate, cable length, display adapter FPC, EMI desense issue. Contact impedance from different Video Card’s DP connectors, etc.
Native resolution and frame rate per eye base on latest DP V3 prototype:
3840216080Hz (no risk, passed sufficient stability test, guaranteed)
3840216085Hz (medium risk, not passed initial stability test, not guaranteed)
3840216090Hz (high risk, not pass initial stability test, not guaranteed)
We will keep updating the progress. In a worse scenario where the refresh rate falls between 80 - 85Hz in the final product, we believe we can still guarantee to deliver the best VR experience with dual 4K resolution panels 、200 degree FOV and lighthouse tracking system, plus some other methods, such as the ASW/ATW/Brainwarp.
As we all know, the below facts of MTP (motion to photo)
MTP = sensor response time + GPU rendering time + 1/refresh rate + display switching time
The refresh rate is one fact of the MTP. Not all facts. There’re many other solutions could get good MTP performance.
- Pimax 8K Module Status and Pimax Realizations Policy
All backers, thanks for your strong supports. As you know, our 8K HMD is modular designed, so we ourselves will mainly focus on the HMD devices developments and provide interfaces to partners, as for the modules, we will mainly open to 3rd party vendors.
We will open HDK for modular design, hope more and more partners and DIY enthusiasts to join us to create various exciting modules!
Please check the latest status as follows:
Eye tracking
We have 3 partners, one of them have already produced commercial level eye tracking module for vive, the other one is Adhawk introduced by our backer. We are evaluating the technical solutions and the detailed schedule, our target is to ship the modules from Q2 2018.
Risk level: low
Wireless
Our partner has the experience on commercial wireless products, we are working with our partner in adaptation, the shipping time estimated to be Q3 2018.
Risk level: medium
Hand motion module
We have finished the technical verifications and demo, currently working with our key partners on the detailed schedule.
Risk level: low
Inside-out tracking
We have designed the interface, currently working with partners with the detailed schedule.
Risk level: low
Scent enabling
We are working with Japanese partner to discuss the solution and development schedule
Risk level: low
VR frame/cooling fan
Estimated to ship on Q2 2018.
Risk level: no risk
All in one module
Will be developed in-house. Estimated to ship on Q3 2018.
Risk level: low
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pimax/comments/7a1wve/apology_letter_updated_project_status_and_risks/
), but could you give a brief statement on the perceived lack of clarity in BigScreen with the V2? Is this something the team are working on, or is it just an issue with overexpectations given the render resolution? Assuming it’s being worked on, a risk level on this would be super!