Very small field of view, black reflective borders, like blinkers, same on all versions of piplay

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1

Hi, i got my pimax 4k today, and the screen has black
reflective borders at both sides, and a little at the top if i angle it,
but always at the sides. This means the field of view is only around 70
degrees and the rest is these borders.

The closer i go to the screen,
the worse it gets, i would need the screen a lot further from my face
for these borders to disappear. It is like looking at a square screen or
through a window with big black reflective curtains at the sides.

I am using piplay 1.2.53, another user also says 1.2.53 causes his device to also have borders and reduced field of view.

I can’t try 1.1.92 as this does not detect my device no matter what i try
, and you do not provide download links for any other versions.

IPD
adjustment does not help no matter what setting i use, i try 50, 60
which is mine, and 70, nothing changes still big borders.

I am using firmware 1.0.0.248 which is what piplay updated it to.

Please help, i want to keep this device but it is not usable with these borders.

UPDATE: I have now tried piplay 1.2.50 also, and still these big black borders at either side. INterestingly they only appear reflective when a game or film is loaded, during the pimax logo screen, they do not reflect the stars.

Thank you
Dave

UPDATE: OK i can now clarify with 100% certainty that the
field of view in my pimx is 75 degrees (horizontal). Simply install virtual desktop
to play a 3d video, and select fisheye option which lets you change the
field of view. Keep increasing or decreasing the field of view until the video is at the edges of the pimax field of view. I get 75 Degrees, any higher and the video goes beyond the pimax field of view. I have also googled field of view which gave me many images all of which seem to
confirm it is around 75 degrees.

Please, everyone that owns pimax try what i just instructed above and see if you can get beyond 75 degrees.

UPDATE. Got 1.1.92 to work finally, but still black borders and also stuck in portrait mode. Fact that borders are still present even in portrait says it’s hardware to me.

Photo through lenses below…it is a lot more visible wearing it than i could get through the lenses, at least 1cm thick when wearing it at either side. Tighter the headset is bigger they get but even loose or just holding to face they are very visible.

CAM00048.jpg2448Ă—3264 990 KB

CAM00047.jpg2448Ă—3264 1020 KB

I will start a poll, do you have black borders on your headset?

Dave[poll type=multiple min=1 max=2 public=true]

  • I see black borders like blinkers in my headset.
  • I don’t see black borders in my headset.
    [/poll]
1 Like
2

Not a solution but an experiment. If you take the black face foam of and try it without the foam (uncomfortable as it is) does that look better ?

If that helps then put the foam back on but at the very edges. Away from the lenses.

I think that helps, if I understand your issue.

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No, the issue is opposite, the field of view gets worse the closer your eyes are to the lenses. i know what you mean, i own a vive, and the closer i get to screen better it is, but with the pimax, the closer you get to the screen, the more border is visible and the more square the image becomes. I have to add more foam, not take it away…remove the foam and it’s like someone is holding a 5x5 inch curved photo in front of my face.

Add more foam and the binocular effect overides the edges and i can’t see the edges anymore, but the pimax is nowhere near 110 degrees at all, and is 70 at best, 35 per side in this state.

5

I just got my pixma. I can confirm I have border on right and left edge of screen when looking straight, border goes away when I look at the border (lol). What the heck is this I though pixma was 110 deg or 100 or something like that?

6

Glad not just me, and yes when you look at it with eyes it goes away but look straight comes back…

Anyway, i have solved it by using packing foam that does not crush like stock foam with stock on top. If you hold the HMD and pull it 1cm from face it goes away, so i basicaly make it 1cm more from face.

This issue is the you can see the edges of the lens and holder inperipheral vision, hence when you look, they go away. Vive has fresnel lense which combats this, and oculus has normal lens with fresnel edges, that is my theory. Either that or its the screen is too far from the lenses OR is software, some people say it was fine then software update added borders, with it further from face though it is fine…pimax told me however that it is fixed in newer version but did not say if they meant newer hardware or software…but i’m using newest anyway…

Field of viee according to my testing is exactly 75 for pimax and 95 for vive, both say 110, but maybe they added horizontal and vertical fov together to get 110? Neither are really 110 however but vive can be increased by removing foam, with pimax you have to add more to remove borders.

If you read this page, it shows rift v vive and seems to agree with my tests more or less. Also rift cv1 seems to have same shape screen as pimax whe through lenses when borders are in view…

Vive according to that page is 93.5 degrees and rift only 81.3.

http://vrtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?1282-The-Field-of-View-Argument-Rift-Vs-Vive

Palmer luckey said in response

“You should be measuring the area of the field of view, not just the
horizontal and vertical measurements that most companies market with. A
diamond shaped image would have misleadingly good H and V, for example.
Same goes for a circular image, where the diagonal is equal to H and V. A
squared image is the worst case on paper, but shows more viewable image
than a “comparable” circle, diamond, etc, while also allowing for much
higher pixel utilization of current panel geometry.”

Anyway, no 110 headsets on market at minute, it appears, not what i would call 110 anyway.

7

Yeah I think I’ve read that FoV as advertised is usually the diagonal FoV (left bottom corner to upper right corner), so a combo of horizontal and vertical.

BTW I tried your nice experiment in v1.1.92, same result, horizontal FoV seems 75 on the Pimax. Interesting you’re getting 95 with the vive.

A side question I always wondered about, can you use vive’s controllers with the Pimax headset ?

8

Funny you should ask that , i tried using the vive controllers today with the pimax but no, it will not detect or see them even with light houses and controllers turned on, appears they only work if you are using the vive headset. Also tried using vive headset and pimax at same time but display just defaults to pimax and still dont see controllers. If plug vive in first defaults to vive.Shame really.

Nolovr looks to be the solution, out in may i think, 99 dollars on kickstarter. Only 180 degrees though not full room.

Dave

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Hi iDaver

I read your post with interest and in particular the part about how you added additional padding. I’m not really getting an issue with the blinker effect, but I do experience some discomfort on the ridge of my nose that I would like to alleviate. Furthermore, I notice that the screen is much sharper if I pull the headset slightly off my face. I have already noted that, if anything, the device’s foam padding is really very soft and would benefit from being a bit denser.

Can you post in more detail more information about how you added the additional padding please? Perhaps a step-by-step how-to or a youtube video to show how you did it. For instance, how did you remove the stock foam padding? I wouldn’t want to tear the existing padding trying to unstick it.

You also suggest that padding from rival devices (the CV1 and Vive) also fit the Pimax. Is their foam padding also denser?

Sorry to throw so many questions at you. I look forward to your reply.

10

To remove the foam just pull it, only held on by weak velcro, its made to come off, they all are.
Then find some rigid foam, draw round the stock foam, cut it out and stick it on with some velcro hook and loop tape, hook one side loop the other and put stock back on.

No the vive foam is no denser but is slightly thicker, 3rd party pu covered ones are denser i think, but not tried them yet.

1 Like
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Cool. Thank you so much for the swift reply. I’ll report back how I got on.

Update: I’ve ordered a 16mm thick 3rd party Vive face foam replacement from Amazon. Let’s see if one of those does the trick.

12

Here is the foam i used, at least i think it’s that, its semi rigid and barely crushes. Think a motherboard or tv or something came packed in it, i can’t remember.

13

Noted. Thanks. I’ll see how the 3rd Party Vive one works first.

14

OK let me know if any good ill buy some.

15

Ok. So I bought some Cusfull Soft Memory Foam Face Foam Replacement 16mm Eye Pillow Mask Pad for HTC VIVE VR (3 Pack) from amazon.co.uk. They are finished with a breathable PU leather cover.

When I first unwrapped them I was quite dismayed. They didn’t seem any thicker than the foam that came with the Pimax 4K, and seemed no less squishy. In fact I was thinking I’d have to send them back. But they came in a resealable zip lock bag, so I thought I’d try one; only briefly, because I wouldn’t want to perspire all over it and make it non-returnable.

Being for the Vive, they are curved at the sides instead of square, but despite this they still fit very well. Trying the headset on, I found the mask pad does, in fact, entirely alleviate the pressure on my nose. It makes wearing the HMD very much more comfortable. I ended up using it for a while.

But truth be told, I think I’d still like a touch more padding to move the headset slightly further off my face. So I think I may well explore your packing foam solution, but maybe not as much as 10mm any more. I have a tendancy to keep boxes and packing, so I’ll poke around and see what I can find. But I think I could live with these replacement pads for now and probably won’t return them.

Note: the Amazon listing was one of these multi-options ones, offering 7mm, 11mm, 16mm and 18mm pads, though at the time of writing the 16mm pad option has disappeared.

16

Thanks for the update, i think i might just cover the existing stock foam in some PU leather i have spare, as current foam i use is perfect for me with stock on top of it, and if i bugger it up i will just buy some of those that you bought now i know they are around the same.

cheers
Dave

17

Hey all haven’t tried it yet however has anyone considered trying weather stripping peal n stick foam? Putting velcro on both sides then use existing pimax foam.

18

That’s a good idea.
I put some on the nose piece cut to shape and it is much more comfortable now.

19

hi all, i got my Pimax yesterday. the same black borders issue is here. that makes this product a piece of crap, viewing area is so less, it seems you are looking through hole+ border . Although resolution is high but this feature cant overcome another issues, the visual quality is not clear, i noticed parallel fade lines if the background of the game is light colour,i also tried 1.2.57 version of piplay but same result please help if someone has solution …!!! .

20

The only solutions are A send it back or B use more foam that does not compress much to place the lenses further from your eyes which removes the borders. Not a single person mentioned borders until i posted about it as far as i know, and thats a lot of sales over around a year maybe with nobody having issues with borders, so it MUST be a lack of quality control and the screens or lenses are being fitted incorrectly in the latest batch or a firmware update is causing the issue but not for everybody…my opinion is it is hardware but i keep hoping it is software because the borders are so damn massive that the Pimax is not fit for purpose unless you modify it with more foam.

Somebody said in anothe post that they made the foam thinner which is putting people too close to the lenses so you can see the borders, but the exact same thing happens even if you add foam that is thicker like the vive foam, because it compresses to only a few mm when wearing it so not sure i can believe that. My opinion is a recent batch is very wrong, and just like when many people had blurry center lenses because they were putting the wrong lenses in the wrong holders but Pimax did not figure it out until months later, the same will probably happen with this if they ever figure out. All they do at the moment is ask for a screenshot which is obviously not possible, or say try older versions which I have already done.

It is blindingly obvious that there is no testing of the headset after it is assembled and they just box it and ship it off with no final human testing, all they have to do is employ somebody to look through the lenses of every single headset before boxing it to ensure it is correcly made, which would eliminate things like this happening. To make something like this and sell it without testing it is just silly… Problem is nothing else comes close in terms of sharpness or clarity, after using the pimax i cannot go back to the vive, its like getting a PS4 and trying to go back to a PS2, they just need to sort out their QC.

21

Actually it was mentioned before in terms of possible differences in eastern to western’s facial structure.

My post with the peal n stick weather stripping can work for the nose. & it also works if you use it with velcro on both sides to act as a spacer for pimax foam. At least if you find its better like me to have it a bit further from face.