Quick links for those who want to skip to individual headsets:
0:53 - Overview of top 3 headsets.
9:34 - Testing the Samsung Odyssey + in Bigscreen Modern Cinema
12:54 - Testing the HP Reverb in Bigscreen Sci-Fi Cinema
15:47 - Testing the Pimax 8KX in Bigscreen Grand Cinema
Over the years I have tested a lot of VR headsets starting with the early headsets of the 1990’s and then again when the DK1 and DK2 were released and every time I did there was always one question I would ask: Is this a headset I would feel comfortable watching an entire movie in? Well up until now that answer was sadly always a big fat nope! The resolutions were too low and the SDE looked like staring at a jumbo-tron screen. There was no way that those early headsets could ever make watching a movie enjoyable… Cool experience for it’s day for sure, but not easy on the eyes in any way!
Then came the consumer release of the Rift and Vive and they were both in some ways worse even though they were much higher resolution. What made them worse? Well for me that was because of the introduction of God Rays from the new generation of Fresnel lenses that Oculus and HTC were using. Now we had shafts of light streaking all over the screens and off any anything that contrasted. So needless to say I was disappointed. Over the next year came some better offerings but it wasn’t until 2018 that I saw the first headset I would deem worthy of saying I had comfortably watched a movie in it! Over the next year and a half we have now seen the first 4K VR headset hit the market and a new high end wide FOV dual 4K per eye headset in production. So now IMHO we have 3 headsets that I would say are good, better and best for watching movies in Virtual Reality. And they are…
The Good: Samsung Odyssey Plus - Can be found as low as $250
This was the first headset I really though was good enough to watch films and TV shows with. The 1440x1600 AMOLED screens Samsung used look great with colors that pop and with the introduction of the anti SDE layer, it really doesn’t have any SDE! This comes at the expense of an extremely slight softening of the image which IMHO is actually beneficial for movie watching. Where this headset slightly fails is in it’s small sweet spot and the fact you can see the concentric rings of the Fresnel lenses when the light hits them sometimes.
The Better: HP Reverb - $649 (New G2 model was just teased)
From the minute I put this headset on I was awestruck at just how much of a jump in quality the Reverb was over any of the other headsets I had tried! The image looked so bright and sharp but I will say that with the fact that HP chose to use two 2,160 x 2,160 pixels per eye RGB stripe LCD screens instead of OLED or AMOLED takes a slight toll… The colors just look slightly washed out and there is a very fine SDE still visible in high contrast and bright areas of the image. It is easily overlooked and melts away seconds after starting to watch a movie.
The Best: Pimax 8KX Prototype - Pre order base price of $1299 (Add-on and accessories make price vary)
In many ways the upcoming Pimax 8KX is the headset that delivers what I have always dreamed that VR was going to be like. With its dual 4K per eye displays and ultra wide FOV it just makes VR seem more lifelike! The 8KX also uses RGB stripe LCD panels but because in the Pitool launcher users are given the ability to set their desired level of brightness and contrast and color saturation levels for each individual screen. Because of this I can fine tune this headset to almost look as good as an OLED screen and when done so it has colors that pop and blacks that look deep enough which makes it especially good for movie watching in VR!
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