If it's going to use microLED, expect it to come in closer to the projected $3,000 MSRP. That tech is currently expensive. Very expensive, no matter how small the screens are. Samsung sells two TVs with it, and they're both over $75K.
They explain the high brightness (up to 10k nits) is so that it works well in AR when it competes with daylight and it avoids motion artifacts as the pixels are only illuminated for a fraction of the time on a fast refresh display. That brightness level also allows avoiding tone mapping for HDR:
It's not likely they will run the whole display at that brightness, mainly very small parts like the brightest parts to give a realistic image.
The screens don’t compete with daylight in a closed environment if the daylight is managed via cameras piping in an AR feed from the outer portion of the headset.
But this makes great sense if it’s using a glasses/sunglasses form factor.
A lot of speculations at this point. We still don't know the actual physical design yet and I am not going to comment on the renders no matter how good they look. Although interpolating all the data leaks, it makes sense that Apple would go for hybrid form factor and the high nits is then necessary for AR overlay through lenses. It also makes sense for the design to look more like sunglasses than Oculus with the ability to switch to VR environment by turning the lenses into opaque. While in VR mode, it is now necessary to lower much of that nits and increase the pixel density for realism.
Agreed. That’s why I keep mentioning a form factor similar to glasses. Definitely not a fan of any headset render so far or headsets in general as a concept.
The screens don’t compete with daylight in a closed environment if the daylight is managed via cameras piping in an AR feed from the outer portion of the headset.
But this makes great sense if it’s using a glasses/sunglasses form factor.
What he was saying that the high nits are needed to prevent artefacts and blurring in normal VR and that is because the display is only on for 10% of the time. To if you have 100 frames per second, each frame is 10ms. Of the 10ms, the first 1ms the image is on at 5000 nits. The remaining 9ms the image is off. It will not go black immediately, but by the time the next frame comes, it will be fully off (it had 9ms to decay to black) and therefore there are no artefacts and blurring in the next image. The eye will see that as an image of 500 nits. If you have a brighter image (e.g. 10,000 nits), you can have only 5% duty cycle and still see this as a 500 nits image. This will have a positive impact on battery life: a 5000 nits display continuously on will take less than 10 times the energy of a 500 nits display continuously on. So if this factor is 2x, then a 5000 nits image displayed at 10% on duration will take on 20% of the energy of a 500 nits image displayed at 100% of the duration.
With VR headsets you have lenses in front of the screens which cut some of the brightness.
Currently there are two types of lens designs:
Fresnel lenses have been used on the Meta Quest 2 and PSVR2; they are the old generation of lenses, which have focal rings and create lots of distortion towards the edges and blurred highlights.
Pancake lenses are a much thinner lens design that will be used on the Quest 3, which address many of the shortcomings of fresnel lenses. However, they cut out a huge amount of light; as a result the Quest 3 doesn't use OLED screens, because they simply aren't bright enough with pancake lenses.
If Apple can have ultra-bright OLED screens in conjunction with pancake lenses, it will be clearly best in class. Add on the fact that there will be separate screens for each eye, rather than one screen across both eyes on the Meta Quests – the quality will be excellent I'm sure.
Greater than 5000 nits? That’s awfully bright. What we’re interested in is resolution, frames per second and latency. Unless AI isn’t giving, or first have all of his info, those are the specs that we all want to know.
That is awfully high, BUT, if the transparency mode needs the brightness I could see something like this, to make the objects float about while seeing thru...
If it's going to use microLED, expect it to come in closer to the projected $3,000 MSRP. That tech is currently expensive. Very expensive, no matter how small the screens are. Samsung sells two TVs with it, and they're both over $75K.
They explain the high brightness (up to 10k nits) is so that it works well in AR when it competes with daylight and it avoids motion artifacts as the pixels are only illuminated for a fraction of the time on a fast refresh display. That brightness level also allows avoiding tone mapping for HDR:
It's not likely they will run the whole display at that brightness, mainly very small parts like the brightest parts to give a realistic image.
The screens don’t compete with daylight in a closed environment if the daylight is managed via cameras piping in an AR feed from the outer portion of the headset.
But this makes great sense if it’s using a glasses/sunglasses form factor.
A lot of speculations at this point. We still don't know the actual physical design yet and I am not going to comment on the renders no matter how good they look. Although interpolating all the data leaks, it makes sense that Apple would go for hybrid form factor and the high nits is then necessary for AR overlay through lenses. It also makes sense for the design to look more like sunglasses than Oculus with the ability to switch to VR environment by turning the lenses into opaque. While in VR mode, it is now necessary to lower much of that nits and increase the pixel density for realism.
Highly unlikely given you'd need large transparent displays to do this, which contradicts all the rumors thus far as covered in the article.
Greater than 5000 nits? That’s awfully bright. What we’re interested in is resolution, frames per second and latency. Unless AI isn’t giving, or first have all of his info, those are the specs that we all want to know.
That is awfully high, BUT, if the transparency mode needs the brightness I could see something like this, to make the objects float about while seeing thru...
How is this transparency mode supposed to work?
I thought they were going to have video cameras, and they would feed that video to the OLED displays inside. People can walk around freely with them on this way. Probably some wide angle eye tracking magic with it. With the displays off, it will be completely dark inside.
The AR part of the goggles would overlay virtual virtual objects over the video feed. If they need to have 5000 nits to make this realistic, great. I really don’t know.
Or are people thinking that people will be able to see through the OLEDs? Seems really early for that.
I do hope the form factor is pocketable and portable. Like the size of a iPPM. Being mobile will be hugely important to market size. If you can’t go around with it, it’s going to limit the number of buyers and the number of uses it could have.
Comments
This will have a positive impact on battery life: a 5000 nits display continuously on will take less than 10 times the energy of a 500 nits display continuously on. So if this factor is 2x, then a 5000 nits image displayed at 10% on duration will take on 20% of the energy of a 500 nits image displayed at 100% of the duration.
The theme song of this year’s WWDC will be Smash Mouth’s Walkin’ On The Sun.
Currently there are two types of lens designs:
Fresnel lenses have been used on the Meta Quest 2 and PSVR2; they are the old generation of lenses, which have focal rings and create lots of distortion towards the edges and blurred highlights.
Pancake lenses are a much thinner lens design that will be used on the Quest 3, which address many of the shortcomings of fresnel lenses. However, they cut out a huge amount of light; as a result the Quest 3 doesn't use OLED screens, because they simply aren't bright enough with pancake lenses.
If Apple can have ultra-bright OLED screens in conjunction with pancake lenses, it will be clearly best in class. Add on the fact that there will be separate screens for each eye, rather than one screen across both eyes on the Meta Quests – the quality will be excellent I'm sure.
I thought they were going to have video cameras, and they would feed that video to the OLED displays inside. People can walk around freely with them on this way. Probably some wide angle eye tracking magic with it. With the displays off, it will be completely dark inside.