Edit 0330
Hi Futurists, here are few more updates for this month:
M1 closed beta
We have already sent invitations to 8 testers. We will send out the testing units as soon as finished. The name of the testers will be announced here after they have received the testing units.
More info: http://community.openmr.ai/t/about-m1-closed-beta/5547
Controller ID
We made a few more tweaks this week, and it requires some time to review the new design. We will share the new ID with you asap.
Kickstarter stretch goal gifts
Free face cushion, VR frame will be shipped along with the headsets.
Additional headstrap with earphones and the cooling fan will be shipped in Q3.
3 free content, eye tracking is estimated to ship in Q4.
Pimax 5K
The only difference between 5K and 8K is the display. Pimax 5K backers may refer to the updates about Pimax 8K.
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[March Update]
Hi Futurists,
In the last update in Feb, we have shared the iterations of Pimax 8K and updated our solutions to the issues of v5. http://community.openmr.ai/t/pimax-8k-progress-updated-feb-6-2018/5124
Meanwhile, we have filmed several v5 through the lens videos to give you a better idea about what it looks like inside of the headset: Pimax - YouTube
After the national holiday (when our vendors usually take annual leaves and start getting back to work by the end of Feb / early March), we have synced up the progress with the team and our vendors, and here is the current status:
Timeline
We suppose to receive the new T0 lenses from our supplier in Feb, however, we didn’t get the new lenses until yesterday. It requires around one week to test the new lenses. We will start the production of M1 after the testing of the lenses, and then move to M1 testing. If everything goes well, we will have the M1 units ready in early April.
As planned, we will ship a few units of M1 to a small and closed group from the community to take a close look. Based on the result, we will give you a more realistic shipping time of the final version. Given the current progress, we are looking at a delivery window of Q2.
CES issue list
“Blurring effect of objects.” “Blurred objects outside the middle 100 - 120 degrees field of view.”
As mentioned in the previous update, we used different lenses in v5 thus magnification changed. We have already optimized the lenses and eliminated the blurring effect.
“Tracking issues” “Jittering and latency issues”, “delay” “Choppiness, rotational latency, jumpiness”
The factors that may impact the tracking are narrowed down to a few: the position of the LED lights, algorithm, paint. When two lights get too close, it may impact tracking, we have adjusted the position of the lights. The design of the mainboard fixed and the impact of the additional LED lights to the current supply is eliminated. We are keep testing and conducting comparative trials.
“Reflections at the edges of lenses” “weird reflections at edges of lenses” “slivers of moving imagery at the periphery.”
We have optimized the new lenses and added texture to the inner face to avoid reflection and eliminate stray light.
“mura”
It would be an individual case, we didn’t find mura during the tests yet, but we will keep monitoring the issue while assembling and testing M1 units.
“eyes were straining a bit to keep the images fused”
We have aligned the center of the image and IPD, i.e. the lens shift equals to image shift. The stepping was changed from 1.6mm to 0.2mm to make IPD adjustment smoother.
Controller / lighthouse progress
Starting from the M1 prototype, we will adopt SteamVR 2.0 tracking in all of the controllers and lighthouses with TS4231 chips.
In April we will have a working sample of the controllers ready. We will share the new design of the controllers by the end of March.
Refresh rate
M1 will be stable at 80Hz.
The team is aiming to improve the current prototype for now, and we have assigned a separate team to study the refresh rate.
Beta testers
There will be very few testing units and we already have a lot more backers on the waiting list. The next step is to double check the number of units available and then announce the tester list in the forum. A tester should meet the criteria as below:
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Pimax 8K Kickstarter backer
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Trusted community leader, professional reviewer, or both.
If the number of the backers that meet the criteria is larger than the number of units available, we will select those nominated by Pimax community the most and those offer the team generous help during Kickstarter campaign.
Best regards,
The Pimax Team