Perfection: My Oculus Rift Consumer Edition Experience Report

Recently, I was lucky enough to get a chance to experience the Oculus Rift CV1 (consumer version) engineering prototype for a long time. This prototype is codenamed ECV7, which means engineering prototype version 7. This is not just a casual experience. I spent a very long time trying various demos, and wrote this experience report, and compared DK1, DK2, Vive and GearVR.

So, what is the Oculus Rift CV1 that everyone is looking forward to?

1. Screen and Pixels

The pixels on the screen are almost invisible! Especially the dark blue and green colors are very solid, and there is no visible pixel texture or screen door effect. However, if you focus on it, you can see small textures on some colors, such as white. However, you still can't see the pixels like the DK1 or DK2.

The screen image has a very strong sense of unity, dark colors are just as thick as light colors, text is sharp, there is no black tailing, and there are no image dead pixels. The screen feels like a higher resolution than the Vive and GearVR. That said, the Vive must be using a different screen, at least in previous versions, because the pixels on the Vive are more obvious to me.

2. Field of View (FOV)

The field of view of CV1 is much wider than that of DK2! I am very sensitive to the field of view. If it is too narrow, I will feel uncomfortable. Fortunately, CV1 does not have this problem.

There are a few small changes to note here. First, the vertical field of view is lower at the top than DK2, but there is no difference at the bottom. The horizontal field of view is significantly wider. The lower field of view at the top is a small pity. If you take off the DK2 and put on the CV1 immediately, you can feel the difference.

Second, I feel like there is some semi-reflective material around the lens, which makes the edges of vision blurry. Because of this blurring effect, it is difficult to accurately measure the field of view of CV1, which may be why Oculus is reluctant to give specific field of view parameters for CV1. However, after several hours of repeated testing, I can confirm that the field of view of CV1's visible range is definitely much wider than that of DK2. The visible range of CV1 is about a 4:3 horizontal screen, while the visible range of DK2 is a vertical screen. This wider horizontal field of view makes the black edges less obvious, and it will not give people a claustrophobic feeling like DK2.

Here's a comparison chart I made comparing the FOV of all the major headsets I've tried. This chart is fairly accurate, but as I said above, the fuzzy edges of the CV1 make it difficult to measure accurately unless you spend more time looking at the lenses from all kinds of weird angles.

My conclusion is that there is no problem with the field of view, it is very wide, so don't worry.

3. Ergonomics

The whole headset is very finely made, and the outer shell feels like a special waterproof and dustproof material that is not easy to get dirty, and will not accumulate dust or scalp. It is also very light to hold and very comfortable to wear. The front face panel (where the sponge is) can be removed and replaced.

The version I got has a physical IPD adjustment slider. My god, it's so useful. Although users often adjust an IPD that suits them in advance, some demos use less-standard IPD parameters, which makes the IPD you adjusted in advance not work well. With this physical slider, you can quickly adjust according to different demos and find the optimal visual sense for each demo. You really don't know until you try it!

The headset will fit your face tightly, and no external light can enter, so you can't see the keyboard and mouse outside through the gap in your nose like before. All you can see is the virtual world.

4. Lenses and Optics

The lenses are great, there is no fogging, and the entire image you see through the lenses is very clear, unlike before when it was only clear in the middle and slightly blurry around the edges. There is no color deviation or other workmanship issues.

5. Tracking

The tracking camera feels very solidly made, and the base is heavy enough that it won't fall over if bumped. The tracking camera itself has a very wide field of view, much greater than 90 degrees, allowing the user a wide range of movement and being able to track you in any orientation, including when standing.

I can even lie prone on the ground or crawl under a table and still track him. It's amazing!

As for the length of the camera cable, I haven't measured it, but it's much longer than that of the DK2, at least 4.5 meters. In addition, there is no need for a sync cable. The headset uses a USB and HDMI, and the tracking camera uses a USB, so the CV1 actually only needs two USB ports and one HDMI port. Of course, the XBox One controller also needs a USB.

6. Audio

I'm not a Hi-Fi fan, but I was still amazed by the headphones that come with the CV1. They are so loud that you can't hear people talking next to you. The amazing thing is that you can hear the outside sounds clearly when there is no sound, but in the demo, the headphones seem to automatically turn on the noise reduction mode, I really don't know how it is achieved. The sound quality is far beyond my expectations, the resolution is very wide, and the vocals are very natural. My Corsair gaming headset is simply weak in comparison. Generally speaking, you definitely don't need to buy another headset, and you probably can't afford better than this.

7. Disadvantages

The CV1 does have some trade-offs. For example, I noticed in some situations, especially in high-contrast images, that there was quite a bit of glare. Dark backgrounds and white text resulted in a magnified glare around the edges of the text. I'm not particularly sensitive to glare, so I'm sure many people will feel this problem.

That's about it. CV1 has made breakthroughs in almost all aspects and achieved a very high degree of completion. If this is the quality of the first generation of VR headsets, then we really have nothing to worry about. The VR industry will definitely have a good start next year.

Remark:

The headsets I have previously owned and used include OculusRift DK1, Oculus Rift HD Prototype, OculusRift DK2, HTC Vive (Mark1), OculusRift Consumer Beta Engineering Prototype No. 7, and GearVR (Note4)

(This article is based on the experience report published by user Chaoss86 on Reddit. The original text is in English.)

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.