Oculus Rift

Calibos

Think about it Zillah. Does the sound in your VR games sound like its emanating from a source in the centre of your Skull like when you listen to Stereo music on Headphones? Of course not. 3D spacialised audio, HRTF etc while been around for a few decades now has finally come into its own with VR. Something that we never had before till now was headtracking. Sound sources can be locked in position no matter what way we turn our head. You are conflating what I'm talking about with Dolby headphones because in this use case I happen to be talking about Dolby surround sound and my VR headphones. This is not the same thing as crappy Pseudo Dolby headphones at all. TLDR: You are already experiencing 'Surround sound' better than you've ever heard on any headphones in every VR game you play.

We just need an efficient transcoder to take the 5 or 7 channels of conventional multichannel audio, run it through the VR 3D POsitional audio engine and route them to the correct point in virtual space where the speakers would be in real life. Given Dolby ATMOS is closer to addressable point source its actually closer to VR audio than conventional 5.1/7.1. So ironically trying to replicate 5.1 in VR is kind of a step backwards in some respects but I desire it for compatability with the last 50 years of surround sound content. ATMOS for VR like the earlier video will be cool too but the ATMOS content is more limited.

Fian

Kiith wrote: »

Mine was shipped earlier anyway, and is due in NI tomorrow.

And on the front page for Amazon, it still shows the 5th as estimated delivery to NI. So you could always parcel motel it and have it by Monday.

I have lodged a ticket to cancel rift and ordered off amazon. now says delivery on 9/10 august, and is "preparing to dispatch". Only costs a few extra euro than ordering from oculus.

I didn't PM it though, since free delivery to Ireland is available.

Edit : cancellation with oculus was essentially instant, within seconds. I cancelled by following the link from the "order status" page.

Zillah

Calibos wrote: »

Think about it Zillah. Does the sound in your VR games sound like its emanating from a source in the centre of your Skull like when you listen to Stereo music on Headphones?

Stereo music sounds like it is in stereo; ie, coming from left and right. VR audio sounds like it provides a rough approximation of 3D sound, and it is nothing compared to my actual 7.1 surround sound audio system.

I do actually understand the topic, I've edited surround sound audio tracks for cinema.

Calibos

Can you try this simple VR Desktop/Cinema app I found Zillah. Seems like the dude implemented some simple Virtual speakers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/5actin/are_there_any_cinemavideo_players_that_use/d9iwqyp/

You have a Vive right?

https://sites.google.com/a/rauschit.de/vr-video-player/file-cabinet

I followed the instructions in the reddit link and got it working first try for my Rift. I tried a few movies on my server and also downloaded a few Dolby/DTS demo files from here:

https://thedigitaltheater.com/index.php/dolby-trailers/

Let me know what you think assuming you get it to work. I really like the surround effects of the rear channels and unless its placebo felt that I was hearing back to front pans when looking forwards at the front. Obviously when I turned my head to the left for example with my left ear facing the back and my right ear facing the front, I heard those sound effect pans going from left ear/back to right ear/front. That said I would have liked more emphasis on the front channels. Dialog and music wasn't pulled forward of my listening position as much as I would have liked. Still felt somewhat over my head/inside my head if you get me unless I turned my head. As I'd turn my head to the left the dialog/music would pan to my right ear indicating they were coming from the virtual front channels. Maybe it would just be a matter of increasing the volume of those channels.

[EDIT] Just tried it with my KODI install there. Works. KODI was able to play a few of the DOLBY/DTS demo files that VLC couldn't too.

Inviere

Oculus took two hours to cancel my order, and Amazon took one day to ship it...hard to argue with that. Posted earlier, I didn't opt for PM or the like because I wouldn't trust something of that value with them. Should have it by Monday

Zillah

Calibos wrote: »

Can you try this simple VR Desktop/Cinema app I found Zillah. Seems like the dude implemented some simple Virtual speakers.

It's a great idea and it works better than ordinary stereo, but only slightly. It took me about forty minutes of fecking around to get it to work properly, eventually just restarted the PC and it stopped failing without any other changes (and now it seems I get one use per restart, if I restart SteamVR it dies again).

I tried a bunch of the demos, and a couple Hollywood movies I had lying around with 5.1, and my opinion remains unchanged: my actual 5.1 speakers are vastly superior. For sounds coming from the screen I was still very aware of the sound source being right beside my ears, and while there were rear 'speakers' I only really noticed them when I turned my head experimentally.

On the physical speakers the different channels are quite clear. For example, in a scene in Arrival the helicopter sounds were quite distinctly separate from the music - in the virtual theatre they blurred together a lot more and really didn't have much spaciality, there's just a sense of the channels being mushed together near my ear rather than coming from a more distant source (but if I turned my head I could tell the sound was coming from in front of me).

It manages to create a crude sense of direction, especially if you turn your head so that the source changes relative to your point of reference, but at no point does it feel like the sounds are coming from the room around you in the way that real speakers do.

Incidentally, spending that much time in a virtual cinema cements my opinion that the resolution and weight of the current generation of HMDs isn't good enough for watching whole movies yet. I had to keep my head moving side to side a tiny bit for the interpolation to help hide the extremely noticeable screen door effect, and the sweet spot is far too small to encompass the whole virtual screen, meaning I had to turn my head to be able to see things outside of the centre properly.

Calibos

I'm somewhat in agreement. Its certainly not a replacement for real 5.1 speakers just yet. That said, its quite a bit better than plain ol' non positional stereo in BigScreen at the moment.

I went through the posts of the guy who made VRscreen on reddit. He's only posted once in the last 9 months. He had this to say in one of the posts.

Yes it adds that much to the immersion, especially for movies and games. I did test some implementations like XAudio2 X3dAudio (only 3D position) but best result was to use the MIT HRTF data and do my own implementation based on the that data. But this ist only IMHO, the X3DAudio is already in the app, so I will give you the choice to switch and try by yourself in the next releases. The problem w/ this approach is, that it needs some very low level sound capture and a user configuration (configure your sound card for 5.1 audio and do not use the Vive or the HDMI sound card). So It may be not save in a commercial app, there the user expects a plug and play setup.

VR Cinema would seem to be one of the areas where Rift has a small advantage it seems. Larger sweetspot and pretty clear out to the edge of the FOV. The HMD box is lighter too. I've watched several full movies with Bigscreen in my Rift at this point.Less SDE too. I imagine we are going to see much more R&D on the movie audio for VR Cinema front for future generation HMD's once they can actually do the visuals justice with no compromise. Theres likely not the incentive there at the moment when VR Cinema won't be a killer app till we have higher resolution HMD's. Theres much more important things for devs to be working on at the moment. However, the fact that a single dev on his own put something together this early albeit crude, gives me hope that better multichannel positional audio for VR Cinemas is somewhat viable.

Zillah

Out of curiosity I played around with Virtual Desktop and it looks much better for some reason. I had tried Bigscreen before and I wasn't impressed. I'm not sure what the difference is but the virtual screen just looks so much clearer.

Really, though, what I want is a HMD that weighs 1/10th as much.

Calibos

Zillah wrote: »

Out of curiosity I played around with Virtual Desktop and it looks much better for some reason. I had tried Bigscreen before and I wasn't impressed. I'm not sure what the difference is but the virtual screen just looks so much clearer.

Really, though, what I want is a HMD that weighs 1/10th as much.

Indeed. I dream of the day about 15 years hence, when we have retina res combo VR/AR HMD's in the wrap around sunglasses form factor where if we want to watch a movie in a Virtual IMAX we tap the VR toggle on the glasses or decided to watch the movie in AR mode with a 120" augmented virtual screen pinned to our livingroom wall. Maybe we decide to watch the 2030 Wimbledon Mens Tennis Final in the pay per view Courtside seat 3D 360 VR Mode. Then again, maybe we watch it in AR coffee table Godview Holographic mode?

Our generation will finally feel like we're living in the scifi future we dreamt about at that point.

Fian

Inviere wrote: »

Oculus took two hours to cancel my order, and Amazon took one day to ship it...hard to argue with that. Posted earlier, I didn't opt for PM or the like because I wouldn't trust something of that value with them. Should have it by Monday

Amazon have shipped mine already too - ordered yesterday.

EoinHef

Man its hard to stay excited for this givin the stock issues.

Woke up this morning and decided to switch my order to amazon only to see they only expect stock back in on the 10th of August. Was out all day yesterday so didnt get a chance to change it then.

Ive sent a support ticket to Oculus asking about a date so ill wait and see if they respond. Hopefully can get it sooner than the 10th from them. If not ill just have to switch to Amazon. Pretty poor really

They must have totally underestimated how many rifts they would sell during the sale.

.G.

Bank holiday Monday!

As for PM, they're no more likely to lose or damage your parcel than An post are. You can increase your insurance though just in case. Mine shipped today and will be with PM by Saturday so I'll probably have it Saturday night.

That said I'd have gone with the free shipping to Ireland myself but I wanted to have a chance of getting it over the weekend while I have a few days off to use it.

Thargor

Calibos wrote: »

I recorded a Video using OBS of me using KODI with the free Virtual Desktop and VR Cinema App BigScreen. I don't care what the naysayers say about the resolution of our first gen HMD's not being enough for VR Cinema. The experience of watching a movie in your own personal IMAX with friends from around the world makes up for most of the resolution deficiencies. Just like the SDE and the Godray's, you stop seeing it when engrossed in the content.

However, when we have future higher resolution HMD's, VR Cinema will definitely become one of the killer apps of VR. Just imagine, your own personal IMAX with better picture quality than any real screen due to OLED panel tech, Dolby/DTS Multichannel audio transcoded to VR positional audio for Virtual surround speakers from our headphones. Combine that with some bass shakers/tactile Transducers in our seats and what you have is the ability in the comfort of your own home to entirely replicate the Sights, the Sounds and the Sensations of watching a movie in a real IMAX theater all the while you are not disturbing the baby sleeping in the next room never mind disturbing your nextdoor neighbour with booming bass.

That looks great thanks for that, surprised Youtube let you show so much of Rouge One. I agree its the VR killer app, its the reason I havent jumped onboard yet, Im just letting the screens improve a bit more for a gen or two and then Ill pull the trigger, Ive watched a lot of stuff in CMOAR with my phone strapped to my head in Google Cardboard just for the novelty factor and even then its very impressive, the immersion in the film is nearly complete:

Inviere

superg wrote: »

Bank holiday Monday!

As for PM, they're no more likely to lose or damage your parcel than An post are. You can increase your insurance though just in case. Mine shipped today and will be with PM by Saturday so I'll probably have it Saturday night.

That said I'd have gone with the free shipping to Ireland myself but I wanted to have a chance of getting it over the weekend while I have a few days off to use it.

I wouldn't go near Parcel Motel personally, Parcel Wizard by DPD s a far superior service in my books. Plus, I read and seen some horror stories with how PM handle parcels, and deal with lost items etc.

TerrorFirmer

Thargor wrote: »

That looks great thanks for that, surprised Youtube let you show so much of Rouge One. I agree its the VR killer app, its the reason I havent jumped onboard yet, Im just letting the screens improve a bit more for a gen or two and then Ill pull the trigger, Ive watched a lot of stuff in CMOAR with my phone strapped to my head in Google Cardboard just for the novelty factor and even then its very impressive, the immersion in the film is nearly complete:

Sony now have a phone out with a 4K screen, apparently it's not great for games etc but I'd say it would be incredible for VR cinema.

Not that expensive either, about €450-500 sim free I think.

EoinHef

Oculus basically said mid august earliest to ship. They then said i should cancel my order and go with a retailer. Only had to wait just over a week for them to tell me that,very poor. Ordered off amazon now.

Also asked them about refunding the difference in price on amazon and they said they couldnt. There advertised price is €450,closer to €470 on amazon.

Im still looking forward to the headset but oculus as a company havent got off to a great start with me:(

EDIT: Just got the charge to my bank account for the rift,using my own banks exchange rate it was €460.42

.G.

Inviere wrote: »

I wouldn't go near Parcel Motel personally, Parcel Wizard by DPD s a far superior service in my books. Plus, I read and seen some horror stories with how PM handle parcels, and deal with lost items etc.

I've read them too but you can only go on your own experience and mine with PM is flawless, I always use them, not once have I had an issue. The first and only time I used PW they lost my package. Such is life.

Bit worried about the size of the box not fitting in the locker though. That may scupper my chances of playing this weekend.

.G.

EoinHef wrote: »

Oculus basically said mid august earliest to ship. They then said i should cancel my order and go with a retailer. Only had to wait just over a week for them to tell me that,very poor. Ordered off amazon now.

Also asked them about refunding the difference in price on amazon and they said they couldnt. There advertised price is €450,closer to €470 on amazon.

Im still looking forward to the headset but oculus as a company havent got off to a great start with me:(

EDIT: Just got the charge to my bank account for the rift,using my own banks exchange rate it was €460.42

I used revolut and it was 449 including the faster delivery option. Not paying irish vat too so that kept it lower.

EoinHef

superg wrote: »

I used revolut and it was 449 including the faster delivery option. Not paying irish vat too so that kept it lower.

Really must look into getting a revolut card. Just laziness at this point not having one,few quid here and there adds up quickly.

Zatoichi

superg wrote: »

I've read them too but you can only go on your own experience and mine with PM is flawless, I always use them, not once have I had an issue. The first and only time I used PW they lost my package. Such is life.

Bit worried about the size of the box not fitting in the locker though. That may scupper my chances of playing this weekend.

I used PM (never had a problem with them either) and the box fit fine.

EoinHef

So looking at VorpX i reckon ill pick it up. I know the experience is not always going to be great as its shoe horned VR into games but theres enough on the list of supported games that makes me think that its worth the price even for the novelty value.

Anybody have any major reasons to not pick it up?

Icyseanfitz

any ideas on how long the rift will stay at this price? would love to buy one in a few weeks

Calibos

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

any ideas on how long the rift will stay at this price? would love to buy one in a few weeks

Theres some confusion about that but its looking like it could end as early as next week around the 10th or 11th as some US retailers like Newegg and Bestbuy say the sale ends with them on those dates in their promotional material.

The new price after the Sale ends will be about €500

Inviere

Strangely just got a text off An Post there, my item is out for delivery...must be post today on account of Monday being a bank holiday?

Kiith

Mine arrived in my local parcel motel depot this morning, but i'm away till Wednesday. Will get a friend to pick it up, and spend all day Wednesday playing it. Can't bloody wait

Icyseanfitz

Calibos wrote: »

Theres some confusion about that but its looking like it could end as early as next week around the 10th or 11th as some US retailers like Newegg and Bestbuy say the sale ends with them on those dates in their promotional material.

The new price after the Sale ends will be about €500

Still 500 with the controller's isn't bad. Wonder why the vive isn't cutting its price? Can't imagine its selling anything being double the price

Samuel T. Cogley

EoinHef wrote: »

So looking at VorpX i reckon ill pick it up. I know the experience is not always going to be great as its shoe horned VR into games but theres enough on the list of supported games that makes me think that its worth the price even for the novelty value.

Anybody have any major reasons to not pick it up?

It's worth it even for the novelty factor and the support is excellent.

.G.

Just got notification from PM that mine is in their Dublin depot. Should have it tonight so.

Calibos

superg wrote: »

Just got notification from PM that mine is in their Dublin depot. Should have it tonight so.

My parcel motel is in a slightly dodgy part of town and I always get the notification about 11pm at night. Can never resist collecting there and then even when its just tat Ive ordered. If it was a Rift Id ordered id be sitting by the halldoor with phone in one hand and car keys in t'other

.G.

Calibos wrote: »

My parcel motel is in a slightly dodgy part of town and I always get the notification about 11pm at night. Can never resist collecting there and then even when its just tat Ive ordered. If it was a Rift Id ordered id be sitting by the halldoor with phone in one hand and car keys in t'other

Haha I'm the same. The locker is safe enough location wise but I hate the thought of my stuff being out in the cold so I always go around when I get the text, usually 10pm

I've had a few beers today so I'll have to leggit around tonight:)