[bemusedthrow75]

You'll have to file me under

a) doesn't watch films or use internet gadgets in bed, especially to the exclusion of someone else

b) would at any rate choose a film my partner wanted to watch too

c) ignoring the above, would probably buy the cheapest VR headset that offered a virtual theatre good enough

[astrange]

Often the other people in your house would like to be excluded from the movies you're watching, for instance because they want to sleep and don't want the light leakage.

[barbazoo]

How many people watch tv in bed, is that a thing?

[HDThoreaun]

Yes it certainly is a thing

[jasonjmcghee]

(My experience with watching movies on VR headsets- haven’t tried newest generation)

Have you ever watched a CAM version of a movie? I feel like this kind of activity peaked in late 2000s…

That’s what it felt like watching a movie in VR to me. (In my experience with non-luxury headsets)

It’s worse picture quality than my phone.

For me, watching a movie in 4K on a TV is very very different than the equivalent of ~< 720p, blurry mess with giant god rays.

If AVP can deliver on what people describe, it’s compelling. Still probably won’t buy one though

[crazygringo]

This is not true at all. You get full 1080p detail on a Quest, with excellent color and contrast.

The AVP gets you to around 4K detail.

It is nothing at all like CAM. Not in color and not in resolution. It doesn't even make sense to say that because the display specs for these devices are well known.

God rays aren't really a problem watching TV content because they're most prevalent at the edges of the display, but you place your virtual screen in the middle. So they're basically a non-issue. (And TV's can have glare problems of their own if you're not watching them in the dark.)

[SirMaster]

How can you possibly get full detail on a Quest 3?

The resolution of the horizontal on a Quest is 2064 pixels. However this fills the headsets entire ~110 degree horizontal FOV. Also, you are not seeing the edges of the panels, so we need to eliminate some of those pixels you can't technically even see to around say 2000 (cut off 32 on each side which I think is fair).

Now a 1080p video has a horizontal resolution of 1920 pixels. You only have a 2000 pixel canvas that fills up your 110 degree FOV.

Now sure, if you zoom your virtual movie theater screen to fill your entire FOV, then you can say you are seeing the whole 1080p video resolution. But nobody I have ever heard of watches movies at a horizontal FOV of 110 degrees.

Industry standards are around 35-45 degrees. Yes I personally think that is a bit low. I have a 150" projection screen at home, and I sit at about a 53 degree horizontal FOV. I wouldn't want any closer. This represents sitting like 1/3 to the front of a typical movie theater.

However, even at a 55 degree virtual screen, that means the virtual screen is only 1000 pixels across on a Quest 3. this isn't even full 720p resolution which would need 1280 pixels across. Let alone 1080p needing 1920 pixels across.

Now the AVP does better obviously. It's 3680 pixels across 100 degree FOV. If we subtract a few due to not seeing the edge and say about 3600 pixels, and if we say the virtual screen is again 55 degree horizontal FOV, then that gives us a virtual theater screen of about 1850. A little shy of the 1920 for 1080p.

So at best, if you make your virtual screen huge, like 60 degree horizontal FOV, then I could concede you get about a 720p virtual screen in a Quest 3 and about a virtual 1080p screen in a AVP.

Last point I will make is that even at this it's not quite equivalent because you lose a bit of resolution too due to your head being slightly askew and the video pixels not being able to line up straight with the physical virtual theater screen pixels in the headset. So the resulting image becomes a bit softer since the pixel mapping isn't 1:1.

I haven't used an AVP, but I have used many other VR headsets including a Quest 3, and the quality of the virtual movie screen looks quite low to me. Nowhere near even my old 1080p projector on my 150" projector screen. Let alone my current 4K projector on the 150" screen.

[crazygringo]

You're forgetting that the effective pixel width is wider because the two eye displays only overlap about three quarters of the way.

So the 2064 pixels becomes about 2500 in practice. So a screen width of 1920 is perfectly doable.

The image doesn't get "softer", surprisingly, because of the constant resampling at 90 or 120 hZ with tiny constant head movement. Any individual frame might be a little softer, but the actual viewing experience doesn't lose any detail at all.

Yes, the virtual screen is huge. It's like IMAX. But it's not a problem -- it's actually great. It's not a bug, it's a feature. Now when I go to a movie theater, I find the screen annoyingly small.

If you find the quality of the virtual screen on the Quest 3 to be low, first make sure you use an app like Skybox that lets you make the screen as large as desired. And then second, do a live comparison with the same content on your laptop (play a file, not a streaming service that might deliver a different bitrate). You'll find that you really are seeing all the same 1080p detail.

[SirMaster]

It's nowhere close for me since I can clearly see the individual pixels and aliasing of the Quest 3 screen.

But I cannot see the individual pixels and aliasing on my TVs, computer monitors, and projector screens.

The PPD (pixels per degree) of the Quest 3 is about 25. The average human eye has the vision capability of about 60 PPD+.

Plus after using OLED TVs and monitors I can't go back to using an LCD for video, so the contrast in dark scenes looks poor and washed out to me in the quest.

In this regard the AVP is much better as it's using OLED panels with near-infinite contrast.

Otherwise, at home I am normally used to movies on my 150" 4K native JVC projector setup where I sit about 11ft away from it giving me about a 53 degree horizontal FOV. I don't want it to be any larger of my FOV, and I wouldn't want to in VR either.

[crazygringo]

> It's nowhere close for me since I can clearly see the individual pixels and aliasing of the Quest 3 screen.

That doesn't make it not 1080p -- which is what you were originally claiming it was less than.

I can absolutely see the individual pixels on my 1080p projector too. It's not a problem. It's inherent to 1080p content. It's just what the content is. You're not losing any detail.

And I'm happy you've got $5,000+ to drop on a 4K projector, with the space for a 150" screen. But 99+% of people aren't comparing their VR headset to that. If mean sure, I were you, I wouldn't be watching something on a VR headset either.

[jasonjmcghee]

This has been my experience- i haven’t tried any of the newest generation, but have tried many.

“any vr headset that has a virtual theatre” won’t offer a good movie watching experience

[crazygringo]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "virtual theater", but if you have an app that allows you to freely move and resize a virtual screen in a black "void", the movie-watching experience is exceptional, including on a Quest 2 or 3.

I recommend using the popular SkyBox player.

[jasonjmcghee]

I’m glad it’s gotten better. A few years ago, it was genuinely terrible. Any dark scenes looked awful, screendoor effect was huge. Haven’t tried Quest 2/3

[SirMaster]

I've tried the Quest 3 and it's still not very good IMO. Quest 3 is still a low contrast LCD and at absolute best gives you close to a 720p virtual theater screen.

I think the AVP is the first headset that can actually provide a good movie viewing expedience in a headset coming close to a full 1080p virtual screen and with high OLED contrast.

[MikusR]

AVP gets you around 1440p

[SirMaster]

Maybe with an ungodly large and wide FOV virtual screen.

AVP has a 3680 pixel wide screen across a 100 degree horizontal FOV.

If you make your virtual screen take up a 50 degree FOV (which is still somewhat bigger than most people normally sit/view at home or in a typical theater), then you are still only getting at most 1840 pixels across the virtual screen, which is a bit less than 1080p. Nowhere near 1440p.

That doesn't mean I don't think it can be a great experience. I think it can be, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.

[MikusR]

Thanks. I was looking for better numbers.