hey everybody its norm from Testim and
it's jeremy from Testim welcome back to
projections where this week we're
finally reviewing the oculus rift s what
does the S stand for norm I think it
might stand for simplicity I was gonna
say simple because I I think that's what
they've done here they've taken the
original oculus rift which we've loved
for three years now and they have made a
simplified version of it they've really
focused on simplifying setup right yes
yes so the current oculus or the
previous oculus first journalists no
longer for sale
the multiple camera setup this is a on
one inside out tracking device using
what they're calling their insight
tracking technology which may be
familiar you because we mentioned it
last week when we reviewed the oculus
quest very similar inside-out track
technology although a different actual
set of cameras yeah and range of
tracking different arrangement of the
cameras and also instead of four cameras
they've added a fifth up top so this
does have a wider tracking volume than
this one but most importantly like norm
said doesn't require any external
sensors there's no more plugging in USB
basically IR webcams around your room in
order to track your controllers in your
headset now it's a single DisplayPort
and a single USB 3 port or Jack and
that's it that's all that it takes all
the resources and all the plugs that
need to go in it also uses the exact
same touch controllers as the oculus
quest in fact they are interchangeable
if you need to sync one to the other and
you own both yeah they manufacture this
in partnership with Lenovo and Lenovo
actually run to a lot of the design
contributions so this including the way
it's actually mounted on your head looks
very familiar it does it looks like
almost like a psvr and lenovo had their
own windows fix reality headset which
also uses halo style headband it's a
rigid strap you know there's a knob on
the back tighten it you loosen it up put
it over the back of your head make sure
this is cup to the back of your skull
tighten it up and then there is a button
on the bottom for a little bit of eye
relief so you can move this to get it
right up to your losses or to your face
I found this pretty comfortable I did -
all of the weight is supported by your
head
almost nothing in fact if you have it
set up right absolutely nothing is
resting on your nose or on the the front
of your face which is it is comfortable
although it does weigh a little bit more
than the original riff because of all of
this stuff that they have going on there
and the fundamentally different design
with the head strap and the ergonomics
of it mean that there are some subtle
differences as well if you are used to
the first gen rift for example you can't
tilt the headset when it's on vertically
layer and angle here which we liked with
the original riff because it allowed for
extra comfort and also fighting a really
good sweet spot for the lenses that was
the funny thing for me as I ended up
trying to do that on this one because I
need that in order to get a better sense
of focus but this does like you said it
goes in and out a little bit yeah which
which helps a little bit too to gain a
wider field of view I found and it also
helps to to tighten it up a little bit
when smaller people are wearing it when
I put this on my kids I needed to
compress that all the way and in order
for them to get a good sense of it it
does not have an IP D adjustment so if
you're looking for what they call an
inter people area distance adjustment
like they have on the quest in the
original rift this does not have a
physical one it only has one in software
how does that work
you go into the oculus software and you
basically adjust it I think it bases it
the the starting point that default is
64 and then you can reduce it - 61.5 it
doesn't move anything in the device what
I think it must be doing is just moving
the actual images on the screen by
fractions of a millimeter in order to
give you the proper sense of scale to
put things where they should be
however if your eyes are very narrow or
very far apart you'll want to try this
before you buy it and make sure that
your personal IPD is compatible with
where these physical lenses are placed
and you say you put this on your kids
and they probably have very low IP DS
and make sure it was comfortable for
them nine year old and twelve year old
were able to use it without any problem
no complaints they've used several other
VR headsets and so they have a frame of
reference and they were both fine with
it
and also the final thing I want to
mention with head strap is because it's
rigid in the back for people who like
leaning back and using the VR
experiences it's less comfortable for
that use case for example on the quests
it just soft in the back even with the
original
rip it was more flush on the back so you
could do a little more of a lean back
experience this just slightly less come
because the original riff didn't have
any kind of internal cameras they
couldn't do a pass-through system and
that's one area but this really shines
and it uses all of the cameras to stitch
together a huge encompassing full field
of view video of your environment that's
basically augmented you know it can be
augmented reality if you play it right
it's very interesting so you put this on
and the way that you set it up is you
basically the point your device and you
look around your environment and you
paint the outline of your play space
just like you do with the new oculus
quest as well and that's super easy
super convenient
along with I think the s again is for
simplicity they've simplified that whole
set of process you're no longer walking
around your space
yeah the setup is only slightly
different in that on the rift s setup
which gets recognized with the desktop
application as a rift s you have to also
or yet which side is the the front as
well right the difference but that's
arbitrary because no longer are your
sensors in one spot you can point the
device anywhere in fact it's been
suggested that pointing front away from
your computer actually makes more sense
because your cable is then going away
from your your back instead of out the
front another difference is that the
passive system is accessible anytime on
the quest you can see the past anytime
if you poke through the Guardian
boundaries as you move your head through
it the world fades in and that happens
here as well but if you want to just see
where the world is you can just hit the
shortcut button and it fades it there's
a toggle in the menus for double tapping
the home button and that will or the
oculus button and that enables it you
can also have it set up to turn on while
streaming if you're a twitch streamer or
not that they have that nice settings in
case you want to keep that privacy
factor now I found the pass-through
system on the quest usable it wasn't
super comfortable there's some stereo
problems we can get objects really close
to your face definitely usable enough
that I could in that black and white
grayscale environment walk around if I
needed to pick up a coffee cup I've
needed to move some furniture aside or
get your bearing get my bearings all a
setup is simply right do with the
rift s the pasture systems slightly
different yeah it does some actual
mapping they call it stereo correct in
its perspective correct and it is much
more than the quest it maps to your
world one-to-one so if you look through
pass through and then you lift your
visor up things are exactly where they
were mapped they did a great job with
that and the latency is very low I'm
super impressed by that feature I wished
that it was that good on the quest but
again mobile processor you can't ask for
so much yes the other big difference
between this and the original rift is
the display system and in fact it shares
a lot with their oculus go system in
that it's a single panel and it's
running an LCD right so it's a LCD you
get you know three sub pixels for every
pixel which means nice RGB for every
single pixel and it's a stripe display
so it doesn't have a funky you know
triangular look to it if you see the
pixels themselves it also means that
there's a really good fill factor you
don't see very much screen door and the
lens flares or the god rays that that
people know very well from their first
iterations of VR headsets are greatly
reduced I on par with the go if not a
little bit improved yeah and that that's
a minor point of contention to people
have had a report of confusion I should
say because with the go and the rift
estar 2560 by fucking for any RGB stripe
LCDs you of course get a higher
resolution with the oculus quest but the
number of sub pixels are different
because it's an OLED display here yeah
suffice to say if you're used to using
an oculus rift you will notice an
improvement with the rift s it's not the
sharpest panel we've seen if I don't
have the best contrast in panel we've
seen it also runs at 80 Hertz but that's
comfortable enough and it is improvement
noticeable improvement over the original
ref I think that the resolution is even
bigger than the pass-through plus in the
inside out tracking in terms of being a
constant improvement over the rift
you're always going to notice that that
is that is the the big selling point for
this in my opinion for existing users
because a little we're in there such
early days of VR that just small
improvements in resolution actually have
a massive impact and that's one thing
that I love about this second generation
is we get to really feel the differences
in a real tangible way it really is an
interesting design choice because they
chose the manufacturer for the LCD you
know for the reasons that you skip
benefits of L so you can you can do some
little persistence you do get full RGB
stripe but they're not running it or
allowing this to run at a full 90 Hertz
or even right above that like like valve
is doing with the index I don't know if
that was because it was a cost measure
or because that was just the best panel
available for this range right sure I
think that they're trying to keep the
same in spec with the original rift and
so given the increased resolution the
trade-off is lower frame rate and so
that's how they justified it 80 Hertz is
plenty to keep you from getting nauseous
we found that that 72 seems to be the
minimum very bare minimum for that which
is what they're running on the go and
the oculus quest so 80 Hertz is fine you
know it's it's gonna be 10 frames a
second less than the original rift
though so if you play a lot of high
frame rate games and you're thinking
about upgrading consider that and again
maybe try before you buy
absolutely the other big difference from
the original rift is the sound yes it's
built in the sound so there are no
headphones that flip in and there's also
was kind of a point of contention and
confusion and for us because it's not
the exact same piping a directional
piping sound as on the go or the quest
either you can see on the actual
headband what appears to be like little
ports here for what the sound pipes out
right what do you feel about the quality
of sound that is my biggest complaint
about this device is the sound and it's
almost like I'm shocked by it because I
thought oculus and I were on the same
page I thought that we both agreed that
sound was super super important to
immersion just as important as the
visuals and I know I get that you don't
want to be completely isolated I get
that putting on a VR headset takes you
you know out of the real world and you
want to stay connected in some sense too
when people walk in the room
the original headphones did a good job
of that you could still hear but they
gave you the full fidelity of the music
you were listening to of the soundtrack
of the sound effects everything now this
does a good job at giving you stereo
separation and they do a really good
positional audio in fact in some cases
it feels like you there's actual sounds
in the room and they do a great job with
that but
the mere fact of having those speakers
so far away from your ears means that
you don't get the full rich you know
fidelity of the sound check if you're
playing beat Sabre the bass is gonna
sound like that your headphones are off
of your head you know it's almost
non-existent so there's an option to use
your own headphones as well of course
there's AK and it's funny on the quest
you have the exact same experience and I
forgive it there because it's a mobile
headset and if you're you know sound is
better than nothing as we saw on the go
like they could have easily required a
headphone and they didn't I like that
they've included speakers there but on
the desktop headset when I'm paying $400
the same prices as the question I expect
there to be an uncompromised audio
solution and it's not here so you're
right you have to wear headphones the
problem with wearing headphones as we
know from the original vibe is that it's
a two-step process now you're doing
headset and then headphones or vice
versa and it's every time you put that
on you want it to be one-step especially
when they give you the option of not
using headphones I feel like a lot of
people are just gonna default to the
built-in sound go with the simplicity
but it is a regression from the quality
of experience right and just to
illustrate a couple points headphones
like this my standard PC headphones they
they won't work either way the headset
doesn't fit over top and this won't fit
over top of the Bands so you're probably
going to be stuck with earbuds these are
the ones that actually came with the
vive I'm surprised that the Rif doesn't
come with something like this but it's
basically earbuds will work fine they go
in your ears and you plug him in and
then you've figured out how to get
everything off at once I actually went a
step further and I took the headphones
that were reported to be used on the
actual rift the same manufacturer cost
rumored yeah rumoured cost Porter prone
to sell for 30 bucks in Amazon and I 3d
printed some mounts that slide on the
side and they basically give me that
rift like experience that's a step I
shouldn't have to go through though and
it still is a two step process where you
are putting on the headset first and
then just thing the headphones they're
permanently on there yeah it is your
your voices we're gonna get alright we
share those files for people oh
absolutely that's what we do here test
it very cool
let's talk about the tracking because
there's not only comparison between the
rift s volume of tracking and the
original rift yeah with two camera three
cameras set up
also the comparison between this and the
insight tracking on the oculus quest you
want to start well the tracking is is
really really good and it's it's neat
that you can simplify the setup process
and get a better experience actually
using the advice I mean that's that's
one of the benefits of this inside-out
tracking that now there's no way for the
cameras for the headset to be obscured I
mean previously with your you know your
IR webcams around your room if you had a
chair or a piece of furniture that came
between you and the sensor no more
tracking but is this is always on and
always you can look around your room
it's built in room scale finally and I
hope that that's a good thing for games
because up until now the default
shipping rift kit has been standing only
for defense basically forward facing and
while the vive supported room scale I
think a lot of developers they wanted to
develop forward a ton of them in spec
and that would have been forward-facing
so now we have both you know companies
who are the major PC players and in fact
all of them now if you include windows
mixed reality and the other people like
PI max doing steam VR headsets they're
all room scale and so that's a great
thing for games everything potentially
yeah and when we tested previous inside
out tracking solutions one thing we
notice consistently was that the range
of tracking was always wider than your
field of view right so the field of view
here even you're pressing the lenses
right up to your your eyes it's about
the same you're talking about the
controller train yes controller tracking
right you when you move your controller
outside to point where you can't see it
anymore it's still tracking to some
point get me on that so we wanted to
find a way to see how far beyond that
was possible and that required both was
getting into a same game a multiplayer
game and just watching what happens when
you move a headset or move a controller
further beyond that behind the headset
and so stress Sega say it in the game
like echo echo arena yeah right
that's a game where you wanna constantly
you're holding things behind you you're
holding disks or doing all sorts of
throwing it was pretty good yeah I would
say there's probably people out there
that would like to see a whole video
answering that question because that's
the big one for me and like a lot of
games use you know 360 movement but that
is one where your movement is physically
tied to your hand
so your head movement which you can't
mess up you will throw up if you do it
is tied directly one two one two the way
that your hands move a lot like in the
climb or you know climbing or games like
that and in Echo Arena rather than the
climb where your hands are always in
front of you you often put your hand
back here in order to push off of a wall
and float that way in zero-g it doesn't
always work but it's not game breaking
my fear was that this tracking volume
which we can illustrate with videos you
know it extends around the player well
outside of the range of physical
movement in this direction for your arms
it does not extend all the way behind
your head and what happens it when you
lose tracking back there is that your
position just stops and it waits until
it regains and then it snaps into the
correct position the thing is that
happen so seldom in a real game that
it's not game breaking and I think that
the rift s users will just learn to
avoid that they'll learn where those
windows are they'll learn where to keep
their head oriented in order to avoid
that happening yeah well the way we
tested it was having you just do a full
range of movement and like you said when
you're wooden side-to-side it actually
tracks beyond where most people can
comfortably move a controller behind
their back which is impressive
impressive and save with above your head
it only is our case where you're trying
to contort your hand and hold the
controller behind your head or kind of
behind where your butt is that's when
this headset can't track it but in some
cases like for example when we did a
multiplayer game of racket fury if you
move fast enough the three degree of
freedom IMU compensates yes so these
apparently have improved I am use over
the original rift and they're putting
those to effect really smartly so if you
lose visual tracking with your
controller for a second or two
this will compensate and it will use the
IMU data in order to guess where your
hand went and it's surprisingly accurate
so you can actually do full 360s with no
snapping and no problem at all it
connected to your head movement and that
doesn't cause any discomfort you can
also in Ocarina passed discs behind you
and
it's not a problem so I think as they
continue to implement that the IMU
in their tracking it will get even
better and and I'm not I'm no longer
concerned thankfully about the echo
experience with the rift us yeah and we
did a comparison between the rift s and
the oculus quest which is a different
camera arrangement and the range of
tracking on the roof test was better to
a point where I was curious why isn't
this five camera setup on the quest
could you spend different tracts of
development but it definitely is a
higher a bigger tracking volume even the
same game we're playing the game like
record theory right
black levels they're not gonna be the
same as norm said it's an LCD panel
compared to the original rift and the
quest which are both o LEDs so if you're
a big space gamer I I know a lot of
people were asking us online about the
differences and personally that's not a
factor that bothers me too much it's
certainly the black levels on an LCD
panel aren't black but they're not
bright gray either and there's a sense
of contrast you sort of you know
especially if there's bright objects on
the screen black is what you expect to
be black but it's not true black and so
if you really care about that try before
you buy yeah
in this headset is $400 they're
launching it at the same price as the
class they both shipped on the same day
May 21st are they for the same people
and I don't know this is in some ways
like I I'm a little confused by this it
is there's some compromises here
obviously like then the black levels I'd
like I just mentioned but the fact that
it's so easy to set up is is another
thing entirely you don't get a processor
that's built into it what a lot of
people expected from the quest or from
the rift s was the quest with a port on
the side right with no computer inside
yeah so but it is a completely different
different headset yeah
it's definitely not a oculus rift 2.0 no
no hopefully that's further down the
line with some of experimental
technologies that arcus has showed at
places like f8 but I don't even think
it's really an oculus 1.5 either it kind
of is it just a stopgap replacement for
people who are new to VR I would not say
it's a easy I upgrade recommendation I
think you're right no I agree with you
I'm keeping my original rift I like the
resolution on this the sacrifices black
levels sounds they just make me want to
stay back and the resolution bump while
great isn't great enough to justify it
yeah I do think that they have made a
headset that is a lot easier to set up
and a lot friendlier to use everything
about pass through plus is user friendly
and that's a good thing for the VR
industry and a good thing for new users
but like you said probably not upgrade
worthy I'm surprised it's the same price
as the quest I frankly expected this to
be you know three hundred and fifty or
three hundred dollars I wouldn't be
shocked if down the line maybe in the
holidays this get did get a price
adjustment if the idea is to get new
people in the VR definitely have done
that in terms of the low friction ease
of setup they're keeping the system
requirements essentially the same
obviously a lot of great existing
content in steamvr and on the oculus
platform but $400 I would say you know
go for something that's completely
liberating now you don't even need a
gaming PC for gaming laptops well it's
almost like I mean oculus thinks of it
as a different tier entirely these are
their three products and they think that
they all should have different stores
and different they have different
markets and so you're right but that is
a mobile processor you're not going to
be getting the hottest graphics and the
Newton like the most complicated games
on the quest you're gonna be getting
those on the rift there's always gonna
be that PC development stuff that is
really Wild West and not just Indies I'm
talking about this where developers can
push things and and try new ideas with
the full power of a graphics card behind
it and that's all with that PC gaming is
always gonna exist in VR and of course
in the VR landscape there are a lot more
options in 2019 right you already have a
$2,000 gaming PC a $1500 gaming PC and
you have the money to spend and you want
to push the boundaries of what VR can
offer you know there's also the valve
index you know there's what's being
launched in the windows because we
already space oculus doesn't have the
soul tethered
gaming market and don't know there's a
lot of competition now in the PC space
and I you're right it's almost like
oculus is still a player but they're not
as interested in
owning that space as they are knowning
mobile and what they've done with the
quest is groundbreaking so yeah I think
clearly this being there's no
partnership with Lenovo in the quest
right bad there's and they've gone
all-in on it
their attention is on mobile and I'll be
curious to see what the sales are like
how do they compare because if what if
quest demolishes rift essence sales are
they are we going to see them even
continue to you know focus at all in the
on the PC side I have no idea well
certainly the save spent money on the
content with ocular studios they've well
they've got that investment so far but
will we see that continue yeah yeah so
very interesting year for view are these
are available for pre-order nail the
rift desk is shipping on May 21st games
just see it as a rift with three cameras
so compatibility is all there with your
existing rift games if you have other
questions about the headset please feel
free to post them in the comments below
until then we'll see you next time bye
