The 8kX will have better rendering due higher native rendering res. Many have reported even the 8k has less distortion than the 5k+ likely due to higher panel resolution(less blocky).
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I doubt they are handling everything, somethings are definitely being pushed back Iād guess. Personally I donāt think the 8kx should take priority over the accessories we were promised. Especially considering 8kx backers received a lender unit to use.
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I find this hard to believe. As far as I know (from telescopes & astronomy) it is not possible (because of laws of physics) to create perfect lens. It is āchoose your poisonā - e.g. the more you correct for one distortion, the more other distortion will show. For example rectilinear distortion (barrel/pincushion) is related to angular magnification distortion, you canāt correct both.
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I remember reading about this new meta lens. Very cool. Hereās the article. Revolutionary ultra-thin 'meta-lens' enables full-color imaging
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Interesting, however as I understand it has nothing to do with rectilinear & angular magnification distortion I mentioned. On the other hand it seems to be solving chromatic aberration (light of different colour focusing differently). In telescopes/eyepieces this is solved by several lens elements and exotic glass, but that is not practical in VR.
Still, computing reverse of chromatic aberration is probably much simpler than fixing geometric rectilinear distortion, so I donāt think it would save that much performance in VR. On the other hand, if the lens could be thin (lightweight), that would be big plus for comfort and perhaps could remove that god rays effect caused by current Fresnel design.
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Check this out. Also, I think weāll have eye tracked distortion correction before we have perfect lenses, so perhaps a lot of this doesnāt matter for vr headsets.
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Again interesting, but it is very recent and very little information, so Iām bit sceptical, also it is not clear how other aberrations are affected. It is not that difficult to correct for single aberration, the problem is to correct them all. In abstract it says that for given spherical surface the formula calculates how the 2nd surface (I suppose on other side of lens) should be made to get rid of spherical aberration. So far so good, but how does it affect rectilinear distortion? There is no mention about this in the abstract of the article (full article is paid and I probably would not understand it anyway).
Maybe the new thing is that they can fix the spherical aberration with spherical surface (while currently you probably need aspheric surfaces for it?).
I suppose we will see if something comes out of it in future.
EDIT: Looks like I misunderstood a bit, it is actually not spherical surface but some kind of wave surface (to replace sphere surface). I think this will not be practical and very difficult to manufacture, I donāt think it will make it to actual product, but who knows.
The update gives a completely different excuseā¦ 
4 months ago Pimax was promising the base stations shipments were about to begin:
whereas Pimax support now gives this awful shipping timeframe estimationā¦
When will Pimax stop with this base station JOKE ?..
This is an unbelievable lack of respect of the backers.
Pimax keeps giving contradictory informations about the base stations, you are not reliable.
Iām now more inclined to believe this is just a matter of money.
Either Pimax doesnāt have the cash to place the base stations order (which would explain why they also donāt fix many issues of the current products and focus on next products like the 8KX to make some new cash), or maybe they donāt agree with the current price valve is asking so Pimax is just waiting in hope the price will fall, like was already suggested earlier:
One sure thing Iām fed up with some Pimax staff still trying to persuade people this would be valve preventing supply to Pimax when it has been admitted by Pimax the reason is cost saving.
It was admitted here in this update, and was already admitted before in the forum at the time backers should have had their word to say about if the base stations should be delayed to meet the controllers or not (and backersā choice was in the end ignored by Pimax who has decided to force the delayā¦ ).
If the delay is for cost saving like said in this update then other staff accusing valve are lying, and if valve is really the one blocking our base stations then the update about saving cost on shipping is a lie.
And what a joke to suggest saving cost on shipping for the base stations when in the mean time you are going to ship gifts for the Amazon Prime Day offerā¦ .
This is so unprofessionalā¦
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Valve only just started producing LHes in March. Pimax just started to receive LHes as per Dallasā(pimax) update said. So pimax is in process of getting production up & running.
No one said Valve lied. Valve is in control of LH v2.0 production as even HTC told folks in their support forum when ppl were angry they couldnāt buy LHes seperate.
Now it is true those whom have no controllers to wait for shouldnāt be delayed on LH shipping.
This is the situation. Valve has control & they are starting to play nice with their Index release. As even demonstrated by Index order backlog being worked on clearing ahead of schedule.
The biggest problem we have is even with folks like Kevin info is not as clear as it should be.
Ie He should have been clear with his March interview that Valve had an issue with manufacturing LH v2.0 but has reported they have resumed Manufacturing. And pimax is hoping to in the near future be receiving their order.
Unfortunately his update was vague & created the appearance pimax was manufacturing Lighthouses. Which we know was false & caused folks to resume speculating on his earlier miscommunication earlier in the year about looking into solutions that could eventually replace LH tracking.
Unfortunately for them, AFAIK no Pimax employee has even commented on their existence as of yet.
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Also, if the Lighthouses are already in production, it follows that they have the lighthouses from the assembly line for internal testing and QC. We should ask them to give us pictures.
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I miss seeing the pictures of box after box of headsets. 
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The good old timesā¦ Ahhhh 
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No no no, this update was crystal clear.
All production issues were resolved, production was running and it was now just a matter of adding the right power supply and manual for each country (and most of us know valve is the manufacturer, this has been discussed enough here for more than a year we are waiting for them).
Shipping to the backers (and then pre-orders) was said to begin soon. When you say ānot in 1-2 weeks but shortly after thatā you certainly donāt mean āin more than 4 monthsāā¦ No, no, no.
Another argument is the update was expecting those lighthouses could be available for shipping before the controllers hit the market, and thatās precisely why it has raised the question if the lighthouses should be intentionally delayed BUT that was ONLY to be considered IF those controllers would have been ready ālike 1 month laterā.
But 4 months later the controller is still a prototype as we speak, and this is not even the controller planned before the update that has revealed it will be split in 2 versions. We are just talking about the most simple versions of the 2 and even that one is still a prototype in July.
This leaves no doubt at all the lighthouses shipments could have began already.
We see now that the controller was not ā1 month away from the lighthousesā, it was several months away and more importantly thatās not even for the controller version we were waiting for at that time but a more simple one that may not please everyone. The other version will take even more time according to the informations shared in the forum by Pimax.
So there is really no reason to delay the lighthouses. Their shipment was planned soon after this update in March, and we were not in that scenario where the controllers would have been āclose behindā.
Just another pimax broken promise, that"s all. If Pimax had sticked to what they were saying in March many of the backers should already have received the lighthouses from their pledge.
Thatās why I think it is just a matter of money. The most probable reason I can think about is Pimax is forcing a change in the deal that was made with the backers (=ship the lighthouses asap) just because it make them save money.
This is my current conclusion from the informations we have now, and I was already suspecting such plan from the very beginning with the wording and tone alone when it was fisrt suggested the lighthouses could be delayed if the controllers were close.
All the updates and facts after that just came reinforcing the idea the lighthouse delay could have been planned from the beginning. Shortly after that, the split in 2 controller versions was revealed (needed to try to speed up the controllers to be able to justify the idea of a lighthouse delay), but unfortunately for pimax even that more simple controller is not ready fast enough to justify the lighthouse delay (of course, when a small team develop a 3rd HMD at the same timeā¦ And a ruggerdized housing for the pro marketā¦And several accessories for the KS).
In the mean time v2 lighthouses are delivered everyday to index customers who have paid for them a few weeks agoā¦ While us backers, who have paid for them 1.5 year ago, and who were told last year by pimax they have placed their order to valve, we are still waiting with nothing but unjustifiable reasonsā¦
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The March update by PimaxUSA interview Was vague. & the recent update is only really clear on wanting to package controllers with LHes to save costs.
Other than reallty the headset Mask improvement pics. The update only has robot statements on things like housing issue being rare & was caused by micro fractions & deburring. (Which pimaxusa said lomg ago & results do not appear to support it as being rare issue now).
Valve altered the terms on price & availability. Just because you place an order doesnāt mean a supplier cannot changes details if contract is not sound to prevent it. For example item on BO & will ship asap. HTC had to tell folks the same; Valve controls LH v2.0.
The way i understood the Pimax cost saving approach was they delay shipping for a combined shipping with the controllers instead of managing and paying twice the effort.
Thatās why I asked for immediate shipping for the likes like me that didnāt back/buy controllers.
The discussion about savings is likely an indicator that the business plan of ramping sales isnāt going too well, at least not good enough to justify several shippings for the āfewā backers.
Which of course is also due of a lack of base stations version 2 in the open market that is literally still non existent holding back buyers.
As soon as V2 Base Stations are available from 2nd source the discussion is a different oneā¦
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Our options for providing information is either best data we have at the time or no information at all until there are items on the way to customers. Problem with the latter is it leaves people in the dark while you prepare and the problem with the former is there are all sorts of NDAās in place that limit what you can reveal.
So here we have two parts 1) the LHās and 2) the controllers. First item is produced by a partner (who we are completely reliant on for these) and 2nd item was/is an ongoing development effort.
On interviews there needs to be some context. I was also later asked specifically what is the process for production which I said sampling, then ~50-100 units, then if all goes well more (this process is true for both us for controllers and our partner for LH). During each stage manufacturers have to decide āis it readyā or does it need a little more refinement. (this can apply either to the device being produced OR refinements to the production process itself).
At no time during any interview has anyone at Pimax made the claim any devices (LH or Controller) would suddenly appear for sale or provide dates and times for deliveries. I was also asked if I thought that meant people would be getting the LH this summer where I said I hope so.
When shipping dates for any product are at a point where we have a specific shipping date we will be sure to announce that. Just know that at any stage of the process there is always the possibility something can affect the timing.
In internal discussions the team constantly puts forth methods we could accelerate the process. IMHO itās important to balance speed and quality. A little too much speed can hurt the quality and our hope is we can continue to drive down the rate of issues and avoid new ones.
Our thought process is to continually improve across the board. Iāve been with the company just 7 months and the improvement has been steady and considerable the entire time.
Growing with a startup can be very difficult for both customers and employees alike. Iām here because Pimax has been willing to push the envelope when others arenāt. I think people here will be amazed at how much we accomplish the rest of this year.
Thanks again for making this journey with us.
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Yes please Kevin please amaze us this year , that would be awesome .
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I honestly think we will surprise and maybe even shock some people.
I guess some of my enthusiasm comes from exposure to behind the scenes activities, testing samples etc. The headset itself for example itās amazing to me how much effect some of the changes make to the visuals and comfort. It will seem like a whole new company towards the end of the year.
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Can you discuss if you havenāt already about including Oculus SDK version support number in pitool? & maybe about patch updates?
Personally I think with the average of 2 pitool releases a month is decent. But the added info at least would be quite welcome. 
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