Samsung HMD Odyssey

Pentile huh? Well crap... So much for the 1.7x resolution advantage.

I'll be waiting on the software. Before I buy I'll want to be able to play Sairento to compare, and pick it up at Amazon or Best Buy so if it isn't any better than Rift or Vive I won't have to worry about returning it.
 
Believe it or not, the headbands are both set for my head! I found my HDMI to DP dongle, so I was literally able to take one headset off and put the other one on within a few seconds to compare. Did this probably 30 times.

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I tried to get better screen shots of the SDE and resolution, but it is quite difficult.

Rift:

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And that bloody message I keep getting in the Odyssey:

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So after doing this back and forth for a couple of hours, my thoughts are still largely the same.

A few updates:

1. I'd say my subjective "clarity" increase of the Odyssey over the Rift is ~25%. That pentile in the Samsung really spoils a lot of the benefits.

2. I can see the circular grooves of the Fresnel more in the Odyssey versus the Rift.

3. Both have distinct SDE and both are bothersome to me.

4. I'd say the "clarity of focus" of the Rift stays relatively intact all the way to about 5% away from the perimeter. That same amount of clarity of focus starts to degrade all the way from about 20% from the perimeter with the Odyssey.

Bottom line: screens are slightly better in the Odyssey but Fresnel lenses are a bit better in the Rift. I just don't get the "wow, this is noticeably better" feeling with the Samsung.
 
Vega said:
Believe it or not, the headbands are both set for my head! I found my HDMI to DP dongle, so I was literally able to take one headset off and put the other one on within a few seconds to compare. Did this probably 30 times.

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Click to expand...



^^^^^ALL I SEE IS PUSSY!!!!


Stryker7314 said:
Thanks dude, but the xbone isn't the only piece of gear/software they took your money for. ; )
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Naaaas....MS stole my Anal Virginity a long, long time agahh Braahhs :-/

DAY 2: On hold with MS CSR.....for ten minutes so far....looks like MS is trying to take the Title from Hewlette Crappard for worst Customer Service Evaaaar...I am grooving to this hot funky repetitive boopachu beat they got going on with the hold background music....my rock hard dick is in hand!








 
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l88bastard said:
^^^^^ALL I SEE IS PUSSY!!!!




Naaaas....MS stole my Anal Virginity a long, long time agahh Braahhs :-/

DAY 2: On hold with MS CSR.....for ten minutes so far....looks like MS is trying to take the Title from Hewlette Crappard for worst Customer Service Evaaaar...I am grooving to this hot funky repetitive boopachu beat they got going on with the hold background music....my rock hard dick is in hand!
Click to expand...


Dig the humor, unlike someone else getting butthurt over nothing.
 
Stryker7314 said:
Dig the humor, unlike someone else getting butthurt over nothing.
Click to expand...

I was an early adopter with the DK2, Rift and now Vive. We all like VR and we all want the same thing. I had high hopes for the odyssey, but its not the quality jump I anticipated. I am just going to hold out until we get true 4k.

Its like the display market.....I have reached my point and refuse to buy a new gaming display until we get 4k 120hz + gsync. The 27" 144hz FALDS seem to be the best bet, but I prefer the 32" that we won't see for another 12 months........I am hoping LG pulls out a miracle with the C9 4k OLEDs and gives us true 4k120....

But I don't think I am going to get what I am looking for (VR or displaywise) until 2019.

UPDATE: MS claimed that they sent a return label to my email, but I never received it....not in spam, not in junk. They sent another verification email and I did receive that....so they tried to email me the return label again.....and I still have not received it. They say the situation needs to be escalated and may take another 6 hours. REALLY......CRIMMINY.....I know first world problems and all......but WTF!!!!
 
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Excellent, I'm being censored by softforum because a special snowflake who dishes them out but can't take them is too sensitive and can't take the heat! :punch::vomit:

:muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted::muted:

I agree with displays lagging behind. I will not buy another monitor until it hits all the wickets- 1ms or less, OLED, 120hz+, Gsync, 2560x1440+.
 
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Vega said:
Believe it or not, the headbands are both set for my head! I found my HDMI to DP dongle, so I was literally able to take one headset off and put the other one on within a few seconds to compare. Did this probably 30 times.





I tried to get better screen shots of the SDE and resolution, but it is quite difficult.

Rift:





And that bloody message I keep getting in the Odyssey:





So after doing this back and forth for a couple of hours, my thoughts are still largely the same.

A few updates:

1. I'd say my subjective "clarity" increase of the Odyssey over the Rift is ~25%. That pentile in the Samsung really spoils a lot of the benefits.

2. I can see the circular grooves of the Fresnel more in the Odyssey versus the Rift.

3. Both have distinct SDE and both are bothersome to me.

4. I'd say the "clarity of focus" of the Rift stays relatively intact all the way to about 5% away from the perimeter. That same amount of clarity of focus starts to degrade all the way from about 20% from the perimeter with the Odyssey.

Bottom line: screens are slightly better in the Odyssey but Fresnel lenses are a bit better in the Rift. I just don't get the "wow, this is noticeably better" feeling with the Samsung.
Click to expand...

That hardly looks like it's worth $140 extra over a Rift (or even the Acer WMR headset), let alone the $540 extra if you already have a Rift or Vive. Maybe if you have a gaming laptop and want/need a more portable VR setup, but that's a pretty narrow use case imo. And why get this over a $400 Acer unit? For headphones/mic and maybe a touch higher contrast (but worse sde)? Glad to hear there are no tracking issues.

Honestly at this point either get a Rift at $399 or wait for true gen2 products, not the gen1.1 that WMR is unless you want/need a more portable setup.

Has anybody tried a laptop/backpack with one of these and tried mapping out a huge play area, like say a gym or tennis court? That might be worth looking into....
 
Thanks for the reviews and info guys. Im looking at picking one up down the road for non-gaming projects so im interested in seeing what the windows VR systems are like.
 
I will just try out the Odyssey at a local Microsoft Store first, maybe a few times. Plus like last year, I'll wait for some good deals. Last year I got $200 off of the Vive.

Microsoft as well as Oculus kinda hands the keys to Valve which will work on all platforms. Microsoft should have just worked with Valve to begin with, anyways if you were to buy a game that is available from Microsoft or Steam, which one would you choose? I would think most would say Steam :LOL:. I see the need for a store that supports productivity type applications which VR/MR could definitely increase in time but to leave out the main reason why someone would want to buy a Microsoft MR headset as in a great collection of content is just poor planning. It was probably SamSung, HP, Acer, Lenova that pushed Microsoft to include Steam because it would be pointless to produce the headsets with virtually zero content for those most likely to buy them meaning they would not to begin with.

How buggy will the Steam add on be with Microsoft MR? Microsoft already said not all apps will work, how about apps that sorta work??? That can be even more frustrating. I give this a grade A+ for a poor launch - to be more clear F- launch.
 
Still have not received my return invoice from MS. I called and the rep was once again able to send a test verification email to me....yet they are unable to send a followup email with the return label!

I can't figure out if this is pathetic customer service or predatory anti-consumer practices....its like they are trying to wear me down so I will give up on returning this POS. That ain't gonna happen!
 
Haha I think my cat would beat up your dog!

He even wrestles with my German Shepherd.
 
Indeed^^^^

Anyhoo...DAY 3 trying to get my money back from MS to process the return of this UNOPENED FACTORY SEALED odyssey that I received this week.

Now they are trying to tell me....get this...they are trying to tell me the return period is up, because they are counting the days from when I PRE-ORDERED this POS.... ROFL...OMG......this is so bad.....bad dog Microsoft...BAD DOG!!!!
 
After 45 min of being put on hold on and off....I finally got a supervisor who told me it may take them another THREE business days to figure out why their system is not sending return labels. Yea, they told me the same excuse THREE days ago.

Now I am not the kinda of guy who yells or curses at CSRs....I simpathize with them and I know if your difficult to them they will make your life harder.....so this situation is not the result of me being a dick......they just suck.

So my options are drive ten miles to the closes MS physical store or wait another three days in hopes they send me a return label. I think I will take door #1 on this one.
 
Supercharged_Z06 said:
^^^^^ Door #1 would be my choice as well. Hopefully they get themselves sorted out soon. Good luck!
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Yea...I took door #1....what could go wrong right?

I had some real estate business up that way today, so decided to kill two birds with one stone. The store rep was trying her best, but explained they could not process the return at the physical store because I had already initiated the return process online....OMG.....I expected this, sadly this is customer service these days (send the customer on a merry go round an eventually they will keep the product or settle on another product...and when the customer does you make them think it was all their idea for "solving" the dilemma....I live in Florida, that is South Florida Scumbag business 101).

However, I felt her pain [in Bill Clinton's voice], so I asked for the manager...after wrangling back and forth the only option they were able (or willing) to provide was a 1 on 1 exchange with something of equal value or store credit.....at this point I had enough, I needed a second XboneX to use as a paperweight for holding the gigantic custom tailored man thong in my bedroom anyway, so I opted for that.....BLOODY FUCKING HELL!

I'm gonna wait the VR situation out as the Odyssey seems half baked....I'll see what happens with Oculus and Vive, perhaps they will announce something new at CES to renew my interest.
 
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l88bastard said:
Yea...I took door #1....what could go wrong right?

I had some real estate business up that way today, so decided to kill two birds with one stone. The store rep was trying her best, but explained they could not process the return at the physical store because I had already initiated the return process online....OMG.....I expected this, sadly this is customer service these days (send the customer on a merry go round an eventually they will keep the product or settle on another product...and when the customer does you make them think it was all their idea for "solving" the dilemma....I live in Florida, that is South Florida Scumbag business 101).

However, I felt her pain [in Bill Clinton's voice], so I asked for the manager...after wrangling back and forth the only option they were able (or willing) to provide was a 1 on 1 exchange with something of equal value or store credit.....at this point I had enough, I needed a second XboneX to use as a paperweight for holding the gigantic custom tailored man thong in my bedroom anyway, so I opted for that.....BLOODY FUCKING HELL!

I'm gonna wait the VR situation out as the Odyssey seems half baked....I'll see what happens with Oculus and Vive, perhaps they will announce something new at CES to renew my interest.
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lol, so Microsoft won - they got you to purchase yet another Xbox X, plus you gave then stock on a new Odyssey. Any lessons learned? Anyways did they have a demo of the Odyssey or another MR set available?
 
The talk about lack of pixel fill on the Odyssey is rather distressing, given the stated resolution increase. It's one of the biggest things I noticed going from the Note 4 Gear VR to the Rift CV1, actually, never mind that the former technically has slightly higher per-eye resolution already and that both the Rift and Vive use Samsung-made OLED panels.

I'd love to have higher-res HMDs for DCS's sake as much as the next guy, but it looks like there's not enough of a jump to warrant sidelining my Rift CV1 for now - as I expected for a few years. Besides, we also need time for GPUs to catch up to the resolution demands of improved HMDs, too.
 
A whole lotta "there's next to no difference" being stated by folks with 0 experience with the headset.
Let's use numbers instead of your "feelings."

Odyssey - 4,608,000 pixels

Rift/Vive - 2,592,000 pixels

Get real folks.
 
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Stryker7314 said:
A whole lotta "there's next to no difference" being stated by folks with 0 experience with the headset.
Let's use numbers instead of your "feelings."

Odyssey - 4,608,000 pixels

Rift/Vive - 2,592,000 pixels

Get real folks.
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Pictures/video along with a good review go much farther than a look this number is bigger, it has to be better. There is much more to this than res.
 
Stryker7314 said:
A whole lotta "there's next to no difference" being stated by folks with 0 experience with the headset.
Let's use numbers instead of your "feelings."

Odyssey - 4,608,000 pixels

Rift/Vive - 2,592,000 pixels

Get real folks.
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Lol are you trolling again Stryker? Vega did a pretty comprehensive comparison about the pixel structure and peripheral vision drawbacks of the Odyssey. Drawbacks that greatly reduce the pixel advantage...yet here you are, once again, sayin......"THIS ONE GOES TO ELEVEN"





noko said:
lol, so Microsoft won - they got you to purchase yet another Xbox X, plus you gave then stock on a new Odyssey. Any lessons learned? Anyways did they have a demo of the Odyssey or another MR set available?
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463.jpg
 
Stryker7314 said:
A whole lotta "there's next to no difference" being stated by folks with 0 experience with the headset.
Let's use numbers instead of your "feelings."

Odyssey - 4,608,000 pixels

Rift/Vive - 2,592,000 pixels

Get real folks.
Click to expand...

I'll bite, just to provide some more entertainment for folks following this thread. :D

Yes, it has more pixels, no one is arguing that. But, for the sake of argument, let's "get real" like you say. The Samsung Odyssey is using a pentile display. Pentile displays "cheat" by using fewer sub-pixels elements in forming each pixel. A diamond pentile arrangement for example uses a subpixel arrangement of 1 green subpixel per pixel, but only .5 blue and .5 red subpixels to form that same pixel (they are shared with neighboring pixels). A regular RGB screen uses 3 full subpixel elements to form each pixel. When comparing a regular RGB display to a pentile display of the same resolution, the pentile display has roughly a third fewer subpixels to leverage in forming an image. In the case of VR, where a lens is being used to dramatically magnify the screen, this lack of additional subpixel information correlates to a reduction in perceived resolution and also contributes to an exacerbated SDE.

So, yes, it has more pixels, but because it is using a pentile display, your argument of "lets use numbers" just isn't holding up as well as you would have liked. Like bastard pointed out, "But they go to 11!" The Odyssey does have more resolution than the Rift and the Vive, but Samsung's choice of a pentile display is taking away some of the dramatic gains it could have enjoyed with this resolution increase. Your numbers suggest an improvement in resolution that's almost twice as good... but in reality it's being perceived more like 20-25% better, with a few nits like SDE, more noticeable fresnel rings, and a somewhat less focused periphery as Vega pointed out.

Bottom line, it is subjectively better in some areas, but folks are noticing that the degree of "better" just isn't as dramatic as expected within VR.

Don't be so butthurt by all this Stryker. Go play some VR games! :D
 
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If I didn't already own a VR setup and I were in the market for one right now, the Odyssey definitely looks tempting. But, I'd probably still wait until the SteamVR software updates hit next week to see how good that support actually is. And more importantly, wait just another week after that for Black Friday. It's already been leaked that the Rift + Touch will go for $350 from NewEgg then and odds are Amazon may also match. There's a good chance that the Odyssey may also be discounted that week. If not, it's $350 vs $500. Would be a tough call to make, all things considered.
 
Spent a few hours with the Odyssey last night in SteamVR. The tracking was glitchy at first but it turns out it did not like 4x super sampling which was causing it. Lowered resolution down to 1.0x native and it seemed to track much better without any skips. What was odd is that even with 4x super sampling, my
Titan-Xp wasn't anywhere near being maxed out.

So in the end state the Odyssey really doesn't do much for me over the Rift. I never realized how much I dislike Pentile pixel matrices. I guess it is only as apparent when the pixels are so large and close to your eyes. Almost completely negates the resolution increase. But Pentile matrices are fake/cheating resolutions anyways, so it makes sense. The device would have been far superior if they used RGB.

The large vinyl pad once again got hot and annoying. That is pretty much the reason no one else uses it.

I'll try and return the Samsung through MS (this outta be fun) and await the Pimax 8K renaissance.
 
Vega said:
Spent a few hours with the Odyssey last night in SteamVR. The tracking was glitchy at first but it turns out it did not like 4x super sampling which was causing it. Lowered resolution down to 1.0x native and it seemed to track much better without any skips. What was odd is that even with 4x super sampling, my
Titan-Xp wasn't anywhere near being maxed out.

So in the end state the Odyssey really doesn't do much for me over the Rift. I never realized how much I dislike Pentile pixel matrices. I guess it is only as apparent when the pixels are so large and close to your eyes. Almost completely negates the resolution increase. But Pentile matrices are fake/cheating resolutions anyways, so it makes sense. The device would have been far superior if they used RGB.

The large vinyl pad once again got hot and annoying. That is pretty much the reason no one else uses it.

I'll try and return the Samsung through MS (this outta be fun) and await the Pimax 8K renaissance.
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Thanks for the review and feedback Vega. Good luck with the return! Saved me the time/effort I would have spent possibly side-grading.
So overall, if you were getting into VR right now and didnt have an existing setup, would you still go with the Rift or is it pretty much a wash?
 
Thanks Vega, if you can, return that sucker directly to an MS store and don't waste your time with their horrid online / tele CSR process.

Uggghhh......that P-E-N-I-L-E pixel structure was a no go....don't want that in my face
 
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l88bastard said:
Thanks Vega, if you can, return that sucker directly to an MS store and don't waste your time with their horrid online / tele CSR process.

Uggghhh......that P-E-N-I-L-E pixel structure was a no go....don't want that in my face
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It just goes to show that specs on paper don't always equate to better user experience.
 
I wonder if the cheaper MR sets are actually better? We need some good reviews on these sets, looks like the Samsung one is a let down.
 
Norm and Jeremy from Tested have done a pretty good review/summary of Microsoft's Mixed Reality HMD's, comparing them to the Rift/Vive. While they didn't have the Odyssey on hand, they did cover the Acer and Lenovo HMDs.



Bottom line: They work pretty well, but it's definitely a mixed bag of pro's and con's. The biggest pro seems to be the ease of setup and portability. The biggest con seems to be inconsistent hand controller tracking in that they often fail to track at all if a controller is close to your body or not directly in front of you.
 
Supercharged_Z06 said:
Norm and Jeremy from Tested have done a pretty good review/summary of Microsoft's Mixed Reality HMD's, comparing them to the Rift/Vive. While they didn't have the Odyssey on hand, they did cover the Acer and Lenovo HMDs.



Bottom line: They work pretty well, but it's definitely a mixed bag of pro's and con's. The biggest pro seems to be the ease of setup and portability. The biggest con seems to be inconsistent hand controller tracking in that they often fail to track at all if a controller is close to your body or not directly in front of you.
Click to expand...

Basically the Rift and Vive are still better for the most part right now. I can't see changing or if buying new, I would still go for a Rift or Vive.
 
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