Not necessarily.
HTC Wireless Adapter has a PCIe card and needs computer power.
TPCast does not need any computer power.
I use TPCast on a mini-ITX PC. Mini-ITX has only one PCIe, and that is occupied by the graphics card.
I use an Intel i5-6500 CPU.
That’s the advantage of the so “maligned” TPCast solution.
I assume there is nothing compressed.
Pimax 5K has a resolution of 7.3MP. UHD is 8.3MP.
But Pimax needs up to ~ 80fps.
Simple HDMI video only needs 25fps.
I think we need an HDMI video transmitter for 8K.
That’s four times the resolution of 4K/UHD.
That should be enough to transfer 80 fps with UHD resolution.
80fps with UHD is the same data like 20fps with 8K.
We do not need a dedicated VR wireless module if we can transfer USB data back.
Maybe with some kind of Raspberry PI “Wireless USB Transmitter”?
I believe ready wireless USB devices do not exist, or not anymore.
Considering the solutions available today for wireless transmission like ALVR and VRidge to Oculus Quest, it feels like the 3rd parties have taken too much time and money to do their accessories for wired HMDs. If some guy in a basement can support the Quest on day two, you wonder, what are TP-Cast and HTC\Intel doing.
I know we are not talking about the same resolution.
DisplayLink are the guys/gals behind the “HTC Vive Wireless” solution:
DisplayLink XR builds on over a decade’s experience developing products where users needed to connect a computer, smartphone or tablet to a display across a standard wired or wireless connection such as USB, Ethernet, WiFi or WiGig. Its latest DL-6000 range of chipsets supports dual 4Kp60 displays with latency that is indiscernible from a direct connected display, while maintaining very high image quality, even in fast-moving scenes.
DisplayLink’s customised DL-8020 chip supports 4K resolution VR displays, enabling VR headsets with up to 4 megapixels per eye resolution, driven from a single DL-8020. (First-generation VR HMDs such as Vive and Rift support 1.3 megapixels per eye at 90 frames per second.) Combining massive video bandwidth, very low latency, and a highly integrated single chip solution, the DL-8020 is ideally suited to Gen 1, Gen 2, and Gen 3 VR applications.
As they mention, this was showcased at CES 2017:
In 2017 at CES we were pleased to showcase the industry’s first multi-platform, high resolution, low latency wireless display solution specifically targeted at the VR head mounted display market. Specific features of the DisplayLink solution are:
Feature
Specification
High Resolution
Supports up to 24 Gbps total video throughput via single or dual video ports. This includes current Gen 1 headsets (2160 x 1200) 90 fps as well as future 4K panels (3840x2160) and features high dynamic range (HDR) for Gen 2 and Gen 3 products
Excellent Quality
No visible motion or compression artefacts
Low Latency
Typically sub frame of 3-5 ms in a normal radio environment such as a domestic living room, meeting room, or conference booth
Wireless
60 GHz radio with beam-steering active antenna
Battery Powered
2-hour operation from standard pack (head or belt mounted)
If that’s where they were at in 2017, they’ve probably gotten a bit further by now and chances are that they are the ones Pimax has been cooperating with.
I think one of the main problems is that it is not technically an easy thing to do. Like, it’s at the absolute limits of what the very smartest people in the world can manage to create.
i don’t think its about physics or engineering, its about money, whats the point if you have to pay >1000$ for a 5k/8k wireless unit
the last we saw from display link was on CES 2019 and it was about using eye tracking to reduce bandwidth
also wireless thechnology is not there field of expertise - they tried to team with intel for 60GHz wireless
i guess if 60 GHz wireless get common (if ever) we will see more solutions
just as a example, tpcast has a business pack where 4 units can be used in one place so in theory it might be possible to use a 5k+ wireless, you would still need to develop a more power saving chip and better antennas (we already see mimo in 2.4/5 GHz Wifi and LTE)
the VR market is just to small for justifying huge investments and maybe the development of mobile horse power will be faster and make that way pointless (lots of shortcomings with high frequencies like short range/occlusion and there is the power consumption too)
we already see that development in mobile headsets and 5G
Well. I think we are kind of agreeing. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. The reason it costs money is because it’s butting up against the laws of physics (which are hard and set in stone), and current engineering. So you need to engineer/innovate novel ways around the problem. Shortcuts, slights of hand, and trickery no one has come up with yet. And because no one has done it there is a lack of network effects/an ecosystem of technology/players to prop it up.
And agreed more money/a bigger market would get us there faster. But they are hard problems. I think Intel & Sony are working on it too and they aren’t small players.
Some of the serious problems:
Available bandwidth in a given spectrum.
Latency.
Coverage/uptime.
Power usage.
Weight.
It’s like battery tech. How do you get more water into a full glass of water? Batteries only increase capacity at like 5% per year, and that’s with the weight of huge multinationals pushing the tech forwards.
Conversely, how do you get more bandwidth at a given spectrum? Given we likely used all the low hanging fruit ideas long ago as we’ve been at it for a long while in those fields (Wifi,Battery, Encoding). Same with codecs and compression etc.
Can’t imagine ever wanting it for my use case. Wireless means batteries. Batteries means limited single-session time with charge time in between, and means gradual degredation of that limit.
That means no endurance racing. Which means no buy.
most of us in seated experiences would not use wireless as we don’t move much so the cord doesn’t bother us, but we would greatly benefit from wireless for room scale!
I mean 60Ghz wireless is already here just look at the NETGEAR Nighthawk R9000. So in theory so long as the router is in the same room as your VR HMD/PC and it mounted in an area such it has unobstructed view to your headset it could be possible to stream media to VR hmd/phone without the need for the current setups. The question with these devices is the latency from encoding video packets over ethernet back to something the headset can display. I do not believe that the TPCast gen 1 approach was good. Too much compression artifacting same as RiftCat, Moonlight, Relive, Trinus, KinoVR etc The displaylink solution I have been using with the Vive Pro has been dang near flawless for me. I have no doubt with more refinement that hardware will be the way forward for local wireless VR. But in its current state the wireless adapter on the vive requires the latest CPUs to avoid compression and is very picky about motherboards… That is definitely something to work on and I am sure other companies will leverage intel’s WiGig and DL XR tech to better effect than HTC has so far.
So how many years? I mean 40, 50, 60 years? You do know that cancer rates are rising…
Great Idea for a book: 50 years after 5G-6G-7G was mass adopted humans are incapable of having babies do to DNA/RNA damage from high powered low frequency wireless signals. The human race is in the fight of its life to find a cure… but wont give up their wireless AR/VR contact lenses
