[Wear-Hard] Perhaps a cheaper HMD

[Imagesys33 at aol.com]

<<In my opinion, the minimum display rez that will actually capture attention 
is probably native 720p HDTV (1280x720x24bpp).>>

Certainly QVGA, on which a simple clock face looks ragged, can only be useful 
as a speedometer or heart rate monitor. As a video display it is rated 
"suck".

SVGA gives a good enough image and will likely be the one that Makes It 
Big... if ever people integrate enough useful functions to make a HMD worth wearing 
in the mass market.

Say 40° diagonal FOV:   any less feels like tunnel vision;   any more just 
can't be eye-scanned without muscle strain... and the optics becomes 
cost-impractical. That's why a million night vision goggles have 40° FOV.

Say the eye's resolution   limit at these modest light levels is about half 
of the ultimate eye resolution... oh, about   2.4 arcsec.   = 1/1000 of 40°.

So there is no (zero, nada) value in ever putting better than a 600x800 
display in a 40° FOV HMD.

For anything less than SVGA -- either scale down the FOV to tunnel vision, or 
learn to love jaggies.

Oliver 
oliver at zyberwear.com
Zyberwear, Inc.



In a message dated 9/6/07 8:57:53 PM, friarzen at yahoo.com writes:
> 
> The problem isn't that reasonably priced QVGA
> HMD's aren't available.  The problem is that
> the market has now left this kind of niche
> display in the dust.
> 
> QVGA does NOT appeal to the masses anymore.
> (It most certainly does not appeal to me!)
> Just look at the entire market that it now
> competes with:  1080p HDTVs, desktop 2560x1600
> hugemungus displays, 4-inch portable 800x480
> video players, etc.  Consumers have been
> trained into "mo'megapixels, mo'better".
> 
> The only way to prove that QVGA is a workable
> display size is to show that you can ONLY
> solve a cool problem by wearing a computer as
> apparel.  This is the old "killer app" concept.
> And at this point, it has to be truely genre-
> busting to make an impact and still manage to
> make a fashion statement instead of a fashion
> faux pas.  Otherwise people will just continue
> to fill their pockets with the ipodphone-
> gameboy combo and lug around a laptop when
> they actually need computer work done.
> 
> "CPU-brick" size is no longer an issue, there
> are tons of sub-15 cubic-inch computers that
> sip milliwatts of power on-sale now, most
> with gobs of I/O.  And people do have some
> familiarity with alternate input methods
> like d-pads, txting, wiimotes, graffiti, etc.
> The problem is nobody knows what to DO with
> all that cpu power when the only output
> channel everyone EXPECTS is an uber-highres
> display. 
> 
> Heck, I'm subconsiously irritated by my
> 1600x1024 work display because it isn't "big"
> enough to display a full 8.5x11 inch page
> without downsampling.
> 
> In my opinion, the minimum display rez that
> will actually capture attention is probably
> native 720p HDTV (1280x720x24bpp).  And to
> be really useful it will have to support all
> the crap that goes with that: VGA/DVI/HDMI
> and Winblows install disks.  All without
> looking like a freak.  This is because
> the only currently identified Killer App

> seems to be the ability to compute/watch
> por...er...movies without worrying who
> is looking over your shoulder.  Not very
> impressive as Killer Apps go, really.
> (and anybody who says "but, what about
> truely mobile computing?" has never tried
> strapping a computer to a newbie and
> watched them proceed to walk into every
> coffee table/sharp object within 10 feet.
> Hilarious? Yes.  Mainstream? No).
> 
> 







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