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Replace damaged or missing screws securing the headphones to a Deluxe Audio Strap for a HTC Vive headset, a Vive Pro headset, or a Vive Pro Eye headset.

After years of focusing on business-oriented virtual reality, HTC is launching a $499 entertainment-focused headset called the Vive Flow in November, with preorders starting globally today.

The new Vive Flow looks radically different from most HTC Vive devices. It’s a standalone piece of hardware modeled after a pair of sunglasses, and at first glance it could pass for an augmented reality headset, not just a VR one. But behind those slightly bug-eyed mirror shades, you’ll find a lighter version of earlier Vive headsets — minus some major features.

The Vive Flow, which was leaked heavily before HTC’s reveal today, is a compromise between capability and approachability. The device has a 1.6K-per-eye display (HTC didn’t provide the exact resolution) with a 100-degree field of view at a 75Hz refresh rate. That’s a little more limited than the 120 degrees and 90Hz rate that you’ll find on the more costly Vive Focus 3 and roughly the same refresh rate but a lower field of view than the original Quest. It’s also slightly comparable to the Oculus Quest’s refresh rate before a recent upgrade and a little more cramped than its 110-degree field of view.

Unlike earlier Vive headsets, the Vive Flow won’t come with a controller. Instead, you connect the headset wirelessly to an Android smartphone and use the phone as a combination remote / touchpad. Similar to the mobile Google Daydream or Samsung Gear VR remotes, it’s basically a virtual laser pointer with buttons for selecting items and calling up the homescreen.

HTC wants people to use the Vive Flow for visually immersive but mostly stationary experiences. So you can watch a 360-degree video or sit in a virtual environment, but you can’t use apps that require full-fledged virtual hands. (This rules out most well-known VR games.) The camera tracking gives you a more natural experience than a headset that can only detect the angle of your head, but the app catalog and the somewhat loose-fitting glasses-style design mean you probably won’t be walking around.

HTC says the Flow will launch with 100 apps and support 150 by the end of the year. In addition to uses like streaming video, its release announcement promotes the Tripp meditation app and the VR therapeutic service MyndVR, which is tailored for older adults. You can also engage with VR social spaces like Vive Sync and watch streaming video, something that’s proven popular on AR glasses. The Flow will support a limited subset of the apps on HTC’s Viveport store, and users can subscribe to a discounted, Flow-focused $5.99-per-month version of Viveport’s app subscription service.

The Vive Flow seems basically pitched as a VR headset for people who find current VR headsets overcomplicated or intimidating. O’Brien describes the device as something that’s easy to put in a bag while traveling without worrying about extra pieces like controllers. “We wanted to make something that was super easy and flexible,” he says. Instead of directly competing with gaming-oriented headsets, HTC is trying to carve out a new category of its own.

My brief experience with the Vive Flow was a mixed bag. The Flow is, in fact, remarkably light — presumably in part because HTC offloaded its battery. But without a strap system to keep the headset in place, the screen kept slipping down my face and blurring the top half of my VR experience. HTC plans to offer alternate swappable face gaskets for different fits, and one of them worked better than the original. But I still had to be careful while turning my head, and the feeling of carefully balancing the headset wasn’t exactly relaxing.

The smartphone-based controller, the Vive Flow’s biggest departure from standard VR design, is theoretically reasonable but practically awkward. I used an HTC-provided Android device that worked fine as a VR laser pointer. But thanks to the long-running trend of ever-bigger phones, I could barely fit my hand around HTC’s phone to tap virtual buttons on the screen. It’s also a strange choice for any headset aimed at older users, who are dramatically less likely to own smartphones.

HTCVive™ today announced that the HTCVivePro™HeadMountedDisplay (HMD)will be available for $799 with global pre-orders starting now. The company also announced a $100 price reduction for the currentVivefull kit, bringing it down to $499.AllVivePro HMDs purchased by June 3rd, which will begin shipping on April 5th, will come with a free six-month trial toViveportSubscription, where consumers can choose up to 5 titles per month from the more than 400 titles available.

“With the Vive Pro we are delivering the best quality display and visual experience to the most discerning VR enthusiasts. Our goal has always been to offer the most premium VR platform available and to drive adoption for VR,” said Daniel O’Brien, HTC Vive General Manager, US. “By lowering the price of the current Vive, we are making VR more accessible while expanding the potential market for developers. Whether you’re a VR enthusiast or new to the platform, there’s never been a better time to join the most complete VR platform available.”

ViveProHMD pre-orders begin today on Vive.com andotherViveretailerswithunits shipping globally on April 5th. CurrentViveowners can upgrade their headsettoViveProfor the best display, audio, and comfort in the industry. TheVivePro comes with dual-OLED displays, making for a crisper image resolution of 2880 x 1600 combined, a 78% increase in resolution over the currentViveHMD.In addition to visuals,VivePro also features integrated, high-performance headphones with a built-in amplifier that creates a heightened sense of presence and sound through noise cancellation capabilities. These improved graphics and audio allow for users to experience VR with enhanced clarity, making it the most realistic and immersive VR experience on the market today.

In addition, the Vive Pro has been rebuilt to maximize comfort for the most demanding VR users. The Vive Pro features a redesigned head-strap that balances the weight of the headset more evenly and features easy simple adjustment buttons for Vive users with glasses.

The Vive Pro works with both SteamVR Tracking 1.0 and 2.0, meaning existing Vive customers can upgrade the headset only and continue to use current generation controllers and base stations.

With more than 3,000 titles available,Vivecontinues to be the platform of choice for developers and consumers alike. Operating in over 60 countries, HTC’s content platformViveportbrings premium experiences in entertainment, education, arcade, arts & culture, and enterprise to a global audience. In addition,ViveportSubscription allows consumers to choose from over 400 pieces of content from a highly-curated offering, giving consumers the opportunity to discover the best VR content available.

VivePro purchases made before June 3rdcome with a free six-month trial ofViveportSubscription where owners will get the chance to play 30 titles with their new HMD. Pro purchases made after the first 60 days of orders will come with a free two-month trial. The price ofViveportSubscription will increase to $8.99 on March 22nd. Current Subscribers and those whosign up before the increase takes effect will be locked in at the $6.99 price point through at least the end of the year.

BARCELONA, Spain and SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 27, 2017 -- HTC VIVE™, recognized by the industry as the leading Virtual Reality (VR) product, expanded its VR ecosystem by announcing pricing and availability dates for the Vive Tracker and Vive Deluxe Audio Strap. The Vive Tracker, built to empower developers and accessory makers to make VR even more immersive, will be available on March 27 for developer purchase through Vive.com. The Vive Deluxe Audio Strap will go on sale for pre-order on May 2, with expected delivery in June. Both products will be available for a suggested retail price of $99.99 (€119.99, £99.99, ¥799.00).

"We see an incredibly strong future for VR, and have created an entire ecosystem around Vive. The Vive ecosystem is evolving, adaptable and will continue to grow to drive the industry forward," said Daniel O"Brien, GM VR, US, HTC Vive. "The Vive Tracker is a key piece of that strategy and when paired with Vive technology and programs such as Viveport and Vive X, represents a significant opportunity for us and our partners to make the Vive ecosystem synonymous with the growth of VR."

Vive will further expand the industry"s leading VR ecosystem by allowing developers to bring real-world objects into VR and dramatically expand the capabilities to create even more amazing VR experiences. Vive has already received over 2,300 applications for the first 1,000 Vive Trackers. Applications crossed a wide spectrum of non-gaming applications of VR areas such as Education, Enterprise, Training, Health and Wellness and more. In fact, nearly 60% of applications were non-gaming or non-entertainment content.

"Building an object that can be tracked alongside the Vive can be complex," said Joe Ludwig of Valve. "But the Vive tracker makes tracking objects in VR so simple that anyone can do it. We"re thrilled that HTC has developed this product and we"re looking forward to seeing what people build."

The Vive Tracker will be available for purchase in two phases. The Vive Tracker will first be on sale for those looking to create Vive content by March 27. General consumer availability of the Vive Tracker is expected later in the year, as the accessories and content ecosystem for Vive Tracker is built and new accessories are ready to purchase for consumers.

Island 359 developer, CloudGate Studio is just one of the early adopters of the Vive Tracker. CloudGate is using multiple Trackers for full body awareness of players within their action-shooter Island 359. The technology will be on display at GDC in Valve"s booth on Wednesday, March 1, and in a private meeting suite throughout the show. Contact @CloudGateStudio on Twitter for appointments.

The Vive Deluxe Audio Strap combines integrated audio with new comfort features, ensuring a more comfortable feel during long sessions. The Deluxe Audio Strap features a new sizing dial that enables quick adjustments for single or multiple Vive users, making it much quicker to jump into a VR environment.

Going forward, all new Vive BE sales will include the Deluxe Audio Strap with every purchase. Customers will receive their Deluxe Audio Strap with general consumer availability in June.

Today, new financing options for Vive are available in North America through Vive.com and China through JD.com. These new offers reduce the upfront costs when purchasing a Vive. Similar programs run at selected retailers in Europe, with further plans to be announced soon.

VIVE is a first-of-its-kind virtual reality platform developed by HTC and Valve for total immersion in virtual worlds. Designed from the ground up for room-scale VR and true-to-life interactions, VIVE delivers on the promise of VR with game-changing technology and best-in-class content. VIVE has been recognized with over 65 awards and wide critical acclaim since its unveiling in 2015. For more information, visit www.vive.com.

HTC has announced that it will revise the prices of some products in its VIVE series of VR devices due to the continued depreciation of the yen and the increase in product purchase prices.

Today at CES 2018, HTC revealed the Vive Pro. It isn’t the ‘Vive 2’—and the original Vive will continue to be sold alongside it—but, in many ways, it raises the bar for PC VR headsets.

First and foremost is the headset’s improved display, which offers 78% more pixels with a 2,880 × 1,600 resolution (1,440 × 1,600 per display). This makes a big difference in clarity of the VR world. With the original Vive’s 2,160 × 1,200 resolution it’s relatively easy to see sub-pixels (the little red, green, and blue dots that mix together to make white, and every other color you see). Looking through the lenses of the Vive Pro, not only have the sub-pixels disappeared, it’s challenging to even make out whole pixels.

If you hear people saying that the Vive Pro still has quite visible screen door effect (SDE), I would bet that they are actually talking about aliasing and mura.

Aliasing is what happens when you don’t have sufficient pixel density to convince your eyes that a perfectly straight line is perfectly straight, when it’s actually made up of the jagged edges of pixels—this effect is exaggerated at a distance since fewer pixels are available to render more distant objects. Anti-aliasing techniques can go a long way to hide aliasing, so how much you notice the aliasing vary depending upon the application, but it’s still there in the Vive Pro.

The good news is that the mura-correction on the Vive Pro appears at least as good as that of the original Vive (which is pretty good). However, it’s still there, and, perhaps, now an equal or slightly larger contributor to the clarity bottleneck than SDE.

The result of greater pixel density—which brings less aliasing and less noticeable individual pixels—and solid mura-correction makes a big difference in the clarity of the virtual scene when looking through the Vive Pro. With every step forward like this, we’re getting closer to feeling like your head is really in another place (that fleeting feeling of Presence).

When I put my head in the Vive Pro for the first time, standing in the finely rendered Driftwood environment, I couldn’t help but marvel at a new level of closeness to the virtual world; our heads are so close to pushing through the window screen and out into the virtual world.

But the increase in resolution isn’t the only thing that makes the Vive Pro feel like a substantial improvement over the original Vive. The headset is also more comfortable, easier to use, and supports even better tracking.

Let’s start with comfort. The new strap on the Vive Pro feels like an improved version of the Deluxe Audio Strap (an optional accessory for the original Vive). Yes, it’s undeniably bulky, but some subtle changes make it more comfortable, and the Vive Pro comes standard with this new strap.

The new head mount on the Vive Pro functions roughly the same as the old one—with a knob on the back to tighten the headset to taste—but a change to the design of the padding structure on the back of the head feels, at least in my 20 minutes or so of testing it side-by-side with the DAS, to increase comfort by more gently cupping the area just under the crown of the head, rather than gripping tightly against the crown like a vice (as the DAS seems to do). It also feels easier to find the comfort sweet spot compared to the DAS.

The struts that connect the display housing to the back of the strap are also further away from your temples and help make the headset feel more ‘open’ on the sides rather than totally encompassing your head. Along with what feels like better balance, the Vive Pro feels less obtrusive on your head.

The new headphones also feel less likely to accidentally flip from the extended position into the on-ear position while you’re in the middle of putting on the headset (and irksome annoyance). Note: if you were following our HTC CES 2018 Press Event liveblog earlier, we reported that the Vive Pro has removable headphones—we’ve since confirmed that they’re actually permanently attached. [Update: After varying reports from HTC, the final word is that the headphones are detachable.]

What Oculus came with after, so what if it was late, it was superior to vive in every way possible, to this day its amazing and the new Oculus S ones even better, of course as gamer i would ask to have my face button on one side and maybe extra buttons on the otehr, not split like it is now 2 on each side, but thats it

My best VR gaming experience was Fallout 4 VR played with a Vive Pro and wands. Maybe it would have been slightly better with different controllers, but the wands did not limit my enjoyment of the game.

I very well may get used to these issues and come to like them. But I am no more going to say that the Index controllers suck because I don’t like them at first than I am going to say that Vive controllers sucked because they were no better than adequate first gen controllers.

HTC is getting ready to retire the headset that was central to its expansion into the virtual reality market 3 years ago: The company announced on Thursday that its new Vive Comos headset will effectively replace the original HTC Vive, which was first released in April of 2016. “It was time to upgrade our consumer product,” said HTC Vive North America president Dan O’Brien in an interview with Variety this week.

The new Vive Cosmos, which HTC first announced at CES in Las Vegas this past January, will be available for a retail price of $699 starting October 3. Like the original HTC Vive, it is powered by a PC. Unlike its predecessor, it is not dependent on external tracking hardware, and instead relies on 6 integrated cameras to keep track of a user’s movements and controllers.

The Vive Cosmos also offers far superior graphics, thanks to LCD display with a combined resolution of 2880 by 1700 pixels. That’s 88% better than the original Vive, and even surpasses the resolution of the Vive Pro that the company released for enterprise and other professional use cases earlier this year. “You get higher fidelity, higher color, better detail,” said O’Brien.

Another interesting aspect of the Vive Cosmos is HTC’s promise to allow users to customize the headset. To that end, they’ll be able to buy a variety of modular extensions, or mods, that can be swapped out for existing parts of the headset. As a first such mod, HTC has plans to ship a different faceplate that will allow owners of the original Vive to use the new headset with their existing tracking hardware — something that VR purists may prefer to rule out tracking blindspots.

The company now has to convince consumers that it will deliver on the promise of these mods — something that hasn’t worked well for mobile phone manufacturers in the past. What’s more, the Vive Cosmos costs significantly more than other headsets out there. Facebook’s PC-based Rift S headset retails for $399, and the social networking giant is selling the all-in-one Quest VR headset for $399 as well.

HTC wants to sweeten the deal for the Cosmos by offering consumers who pre-order the device a year’s worth of free access to the company’s Viveport Infinity VR subscription service, which usually costs $13 per month. But ultimately, the company bets on the higher screen resolution to make all the difference. The Vive Cosmos was a premium consumer VR headset, argued O’Brien. “There is a price for that.”

HTC plans to release a $1,099 Vive XR Elite headset by the end of February, heralding a year of competitive, price-sensitive virtual reality gear targeting consumers along with the Meta Platforms $400 Quest 2. Crowdfunded firm Goovis and its $800 VR headset made it onto the list of CES 2023’s Crowdfunding Island success stories, as compiled by Kickstarter ad firm Jellop. The Vive XR Elite offers AR capability in addition to VR in a form factor that approaches something like glasses, as opposed to the usual bulky headwear. An allowance for AR apps opens the door to practical applications in everyday life in addition to entertainment applications in the metaverse.

“Years after unofficially exiting the consumer VR space in favor of enterprise products, HTC has returned with its first standalone headset for consumers,” Engadgetreports, detailing the Vive XR Elite, which offers “VR and passthrough mixed reality (MR),” is pricier than the Meta Quest 2 but more affordable than the Meta Quest Pro (typically $1,500, but advertised as low as $1,300 online).

“This Vive headset looks, more than ever, like it’s a stepping stone to future AR glasses,” notes CNET at CES 2023, adding, “we know the virtual reality use cases are great. The AR side is amazing, too.”

Similar to the Meta Quest Pro, Quest 2 and Vive’s own enterprise targeted Focus 3, the Vive XR Elite relies on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 chip, but “adds a higher-resolution 110-degree field of view, LCD displays with 2K resolution per eye that can run at 90Hz” and “a boosted 12GB of RAM along with 128GB of storage,” reports CNET.

HTC’s latest is “mostly standalone” in that it “can connect to PCs to run SteamVR or HTC’s VivePort software, or connect with Android phones,” CNET writes, noting that “its potential as a bridge to AR experiences seems like the most impressive feature.”

At 340 grams, the Vive XR Elite is less than 50 percent as heavy as the Quest Pro. “It gets even smaller by unclipping the back battery strap and adding glasses arms that can turn the headset into a modified pair of VR glasses, which could just plug into an external USB-C charger or battery for power,” explains CNET, adding that “the rear hot-swappable battery gives about two hours of life.”

HTC"s Vive platform has a solid foothold on the PC VR segment with 45% market share, despite fierce competition from the Facebook-backed Oculus Rift and Microsoft"s Windows Mixed Reality initiative. Now, despite the fact that the hardware requirements for VR are still pricey, HTC seems to be aiming for (or aiming to create) a premium VR market. The Vive Pro is the first big step in that direction.

The Vive Pro represents the best VR headset that HTC believes it can build right now, and it comes with a price tag to match. The company is asking $800 for the Vive Pro headset, which is designed as an upgrade for Vive owners, not a full VR setup package. In other words, if you don’t already own an original Vive, you’ll need to shell out another $300 for a Vive Starter Kit, which includes base stations and controllers. For those just getting into VR, that"s an $1,100 investment, not counting the gaming PC required to run VR games and software well.

HTC’s Vive platform has never been a bargain item, and the company doesn’t seem interested in targeting the budget VR segment. When HTC launched the Vive, it came to market with a significantly higher price than the Oculus Rift (which also had a significantly higher price than expected). And yet, HTC’s Vive managed to keep up and even outsell Oculus’s Rift for the better part of the last two years.

When HTC released the Vive Trackers last fall for $99 each, the company sent a clear message that it is more interested in delivering an advanced, premium home VR experience, than making VR affordable. And frankly, that’s not really a problem. If there’s room in this world for such luxury items as Lamborghini super cars, Rolex watches, and Titan V graphics cards, then why shouldn’t there be a premium VR system?

We shouldn’t be surprised that HTC is asking a high price for the Vive Pro headset. HTC’s position as an early pioneer in consumer VR affords it the opportunity to move to an upper-class position in the market where it can justify somewhat higher margins while newcomers such as Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality hardware partners scramble to gain traction in the more-affordable VR segment where competition is getting tough.

HTC’s customers have demonstrated that they are willing to pay more for a better experience, so the company is taking advantage of the opportunity to offer up a new product. And going after the premium market is probably the right move for HTC. After all, the company has struggled financially for some time--particularly its smartphone business--and the company bet big on its pivot to virtual reality. If it can’t stay afloat with revenue from the Vive platform, the company could be in very serious trouble.

HTC announced the Vive Pro headset in January at CES 2018. The excitement about the headset’s high-resolution displays, updated head strap, and the fact that it would support Valve’s next-generation SteamVR Tracking 2.0 system stirred up a lot of hype. HTC tried to warn the public that the new headset wouldn’t be cheap, but the message somehow fell on deaf ears. Despite the company’s repeated insistence that the Vive Pro is a premium piece of equipment, the press and public alike seemed shocked over the price of the new headset when HTC revealed it on March 19.

After HTC announced that the Vive Pro would cost $800 for just the headset, we witnessed a lot of chatter about HTC being out of touch with reality. Most people with that view also believe that the most significant improvement that the Vive Pro has over the standard Vive is the display resolution.

We disagree. Now don’t get us wrong, the resolution bump is not an insignificant change. HTC will proudly tell you that the new screens feature 78% more pixels than the standard Vive. However, the company introduced several serious improvements to VR head-mounted display (HMD) design with the Vive Pro, and to glance over those changes would be to miss the bigger picture.

HTC considers the Vive Pro a mid-cycle refresh of sorts, but that attitude sells short the major overhaul that is the Vive Pro HMD. To be sure, $800 is expensive, likely be out of the budget of many people who would appreciate the upgrade. But just because something isn’t affordable, doesn’t mean it’s not worth the price.

I can’t afford a Mercedes, but I don’t begrudge the company for making a luxury item that exceeds my means to pay for it. The Vive Pro should be viewed in a similar light. It’s a luxury device that not everyone can justify buying. But the people who have deep enough pockets to shell out for it will undoubtedly appreciate the new headset’s improvements. And advancements and investments on the high end often lead to improvements in more mainstream products down the line. After spending a fair amount of time with the Vive Pro, we’ve concluded that HTC’s pricing isn’t as out of line as it might seem on the surface.

HTC has announced that it will revise the prices of some products in its VIVE series of VR devices due to the continued depreciation of the yen and the increase in product purchase prices.

The HTC Vive Pro 2 is no different. Building upon the successes of its predecessor, HTC’s next-gen headset is once again the most expensive way to access virtual reality right now – and that’s before you take into consideration the beefy gaming PC needed to enjoy it to the fullest.

Still, if you can afford the high price and you’ve somehow managed to pick up a new graphics card without having to pay inflated scalping prices, then the Vive Pro 2 currently offers a premium VR experience like no other.

It’s worth tempering your expectations to begin with, though, since the Vive Pro 2 is still more of a refinement to the original 2018 headset than a radical change.

The Vive Pro 2’s key improvements come from the display side of things. The headset’s LCD panel now has an increased resolution per eye of 2,448 x 2,448, with a wider 120-degree field-of-view and a boosted maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, up from 90Hz. Clearly, the Vive Pro 2 is geared more towards gamers with high-end rigs, using modern graphics cards capable of pushing VR to its limits.

Price is where things really start to get interesting. With standalone VR headsets bringing the entry cost to less than £300, the Vive Pro 2 finds itself in a bit of a sticky situation. And that’s because the headset itself (sans controllers and base stations) costs a hefty £719.

Unlike the Oculus Quest 2, the Vive Pro 2 won’t work on its own. If you aren’t planning on upgrading from the original headset you’ll also need to buy a pair of base stations and two controllers – either Vive’s own or any others from Oculus or Valve. A full bundle is now available to buy for first-time Vive buyers for £1,299 and this includes the headset, two base stations and a pair of Vive controllers.

How does the Vive Pro 2’s sky-high cost stack up against the competition? If you’ve got a gaming PC and you’re hoping to push VR to the max, then you do have a few other alternatives.

As I"ve mentioned, perhaps the most well-known is the Oculus Quest 2, which costs £300 and can either be used on its own or connected to your PC via a single USB-C to USB 3.1 cable for some extra processing grunt. HTC’s other VR headset, the Vive Cosmos, also uses a no-fuss, inside-out system for head tracking, although it costs £400 more than the Oculus (£700).

Finally, the Valve Index – like the Vive Pro 2 – needs a pair of base stations, costs £919 for the full bundle (with a free copy of Half-Life: Alyx) and has a higher maximum refresh rate of 144Hz, as well as a wider 130-degree FOV. However, as is the case with all the other VR headsets listed above, it doesn’t come close to the Vive Pro 2’s generous per-eye resolution.

The Vive Pro 2’s design is immediately familiar. It’s mostly identical in appearance to the original 2018 headset and shares the same ergonomics, cable setup and overall weight (850g). However, HTC has added a matte black faceplate on the front, which to my eyes looks a bit out of place next to the rest of the headset’s blue/navy colour.

What this all means is that, for better or worse, you’re getting exactly the same comfort experience with the Vive Pro 2 as you did with the original. You’re still going to look a bit silly with one of these strapped to your face (as my pictures show), but the Vive Pro 2 does a good job of evenly distributing weight across your head, and the adjustable headband can accommodate a wide range of noggin sizes as well.

On that note, the Vive Pro 2 is just as well suited to glasses wearers and, like the previous model, you’re also able to adjust the interpupillary distance (the space between both lenses) by between 57mm and 72mm in order to get the image correctly in focus. It’s easy enough to do this, too: you simply hold down a small button on the left side of the headset and pull the front either towards or away from your face until everything looks clear.

One thing I’m not pleased about is the return of the Vive Pro’s removable face cushion. Using the same fabric as the original, it felt itchy during long VR sessions and is generally a bit of a sweat sponge. It’s no good at blocking out light, either, since it doesn’t sit around your nose. The good news is that you can pretty much eliminate these problems if you attach a (far better) third-party face pad.

What do you get in the box, then? Inside, you’ll find the headset itself, a link box (which is used to connect the Vive Pro 2 to your PC), a DisplayPort cable, a USB-A cable and a power adapter. If you buy the bundle, you also get a pair of Vive controllers, two SteamVR 2 base-station sensors and all the relevant chargers and cables that come with them.

Unfortunately, the Vive Pro 2’s setup process is still an absolute nightmare. After you’ve plugged in all the cables, switched on the three extra plugs, appropriately positioned your sensors, charged the controllers and pressed the button on the link box, you then need to launch SteamVR and pray that the software actually detects the headset and all the other gubbins.

It gets even more complicated with the Vive Pro 2, too, since you also need to run HTC"s new Vive Console software alongside SteamVR while playing games and running VR applications. This grants access to all sorts of extra settings, however, allowing you to manually adjust per-eye resolution, maximum refresh rate and apply motion compensation. This last setting is best used for PCs with weaker specs and adapts video resolution during gameplay in order to reach a 90fps target.

As for the display, the Vive Pro 2’s low-persistence LCD panel provides a boosted total resolution of 4,896 x 2,448, with a huge per-eye resolution of 2,448 x 2,448. For reference, that’s almost double the resolution of the original, and it’s the highest of any VR headset released to date.

That’s not the only upgrade, though. The Vive Pro 2 now refreshes at 120Hz (up from 90Hz) and has a marginally wider 120-degree field of view. The latter doesn’t make a huge difference during gameplay, but the former is a serious game-changer if you’re lucky enough to own a gaming PC that can reliably push out frames. One thing to note, however, is that the wireless adapter (sold separately) restricts the Vive Pro 2’s refresh rate to 90Hz.

Quality-wise, the Vive Pro 2’s display looks astonishing, and it"s a significant improvement on all the over VR headsets I’ve tested previously. Colours looked rich and vibrant, although since the Vive Pro 2’s lenses are a bit more rectangular than the original lenses, the vertical field of view is reduced slightly.

The Vive Pro 2’s system requirements are understandably stringent. HTC recommends at least an Intel Core i5-4590 or AMD Ryzen 5 1500 CPU, 8GB of RAM and either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics card. You’ll also need a DisplayPort 1.2 output and a spare USB 3 port for the link box.

This finally brings me to the good stuff. I tested the Vive Pro 2 with a variety of games, and (assuming you have the PC for the job) I can confidently say that VR gaming really doesn’t get any better. The stunning post-apocalyptic environments of Half-Life: Alyx were rendered beautifully, with top-notch performance from beginning to end. If there was any slowdown during gameplay, I certainly didn’t notice it.

Wacky wobbly-weapon-waving colosseum battler Gorn also ran without any noticeable performance hiccups, as did time-stopping shooter Superhot VR. The Vive Pro 2’s headsets and controllers support both first- and second-gen SteamVR base stations, and I tested both – neither failed to register my head/body movements and arm waggles.

On a similar note, the Vive Pro 2 uses the same tried-and-tested Vive controllers we’ve seen previously. For some reason, HTC doesn’t want to update the design and functionality of its now five-year-old input devices, and they’re rapidly showing signs of age. The halo design at the top throws off the balance in the hand, and they generally feel a bit cumbersome to use.

That being said, following a short absence, the Vive Pro’s sequel is yet again the very best that VR has to offer. Provided you’ve got the hardware to support it, the Vive Pro 2 offers a truly exceptional VR experience, with an as-yet-unmatched maximum rendering resolution, as well as a handful of added gaming-friendly benefits.

Of course, it’s not entirely faultless. The Vive Pro 2’s starting price is hard to stomach, especially when you can pick up a standalone VR headset such as the Oculus Quest 2 for a fraction of the cost. Pair the high cost with the lack of any meaningful design changes and the absence of new controllers, and it’s ultimately a bit of a head-scratching update.

Different displays use different types of TCONs. In this article we will be talking about TCONs for the IT market: LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) notebook PCs and monitors.

An LCD panel has millions of Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) liquid crystals that are used to block a white backlight when electrical voltage is applied to them. High voltage signals to each individual pixel control how much of the backlight to block. A white display means nothing is being blocked. A black display means all three colors are blocked at maximum effort.

TCONS direct the high voltage driver chips that move the color filters and are usually found on a circuit board that sits below the glass panel (Fig. 1).

eDP connections are fast, use few wires, and are flexible for size, bandwidth and adding features eDP provides all panel connections in one plug, including power, data, and control signals. This is Analogix’s specialty.

While the GPU is responsible for transforming mathematical equations into individual pixels and frames, a TCON takes the individual frames generated by the GPU, corrects for color and brightness, then sends out parts of the image to each individual driver at the panel’s specific timing.

The human eye has an incredible dynamic range.  That means we can see both very dark images and very bright images, at the same time. However, neither camera sensors nor display panels can display that range. Your camera generates HDR images by using images from multiple exposures to combine the brightest and darkest parts of the picture. This increases the contrast (dynamic range) between light and dark, pulling out details from darkened or washed out areas.

HDR accurately maps real world color and luminance to a display panel. VESA DisplayHDR™ standard specifies HDR quality, including luminance, color gamut, bit depth, and rise time.

Display panels have difficulty displaying a wide range of brightness. Normal sunlight can reach 10,000 nits, but the backlight on most notebooks today is around 250 nits

VESA DisplayHDR requires the panel to meet minimum brightness, contrast, and color. No panel can reach 10,000nits of natural light. The brightest a 250nit notebook panel can produce is 250nits and any image above 250nits is washed out.  Also, no details from 250 nits to 10,000nits can be seen.

The HDR400 specifications require a dimmable backlight which helps with both producing darker blacks and lowering the power consumption. Tone mapping is used to map the whole range of 10,000 nits down to what the panel can handle, so the details can be seen. Tone mapping does not increase the brightness of the panel; it only makes the details visible.

VESA DisplayHDR600 Requires local dimming. No LCD panel can reach the VESA DisplayHDR600 requirement of 6000:1 contrast ratio. However, this can be overcome with local dimming.

For example, a 750:1 contrast panel requires 8 different backlight power settings to reach 6000:1 contrast ratio. However, unless there are thousands of separate regions, local dimming always produces halos around the bright areas. In order to reduce the halos, the following are recommended:

Monitors can use a direct backlight with many regions. An extra layer of liquid crystal can be used to dim the backlight at a specific location but this often results in a panel that is too thick for a notebook.

Notebook backlights use LEDs on the edge of the panel to reduce panel thickness. These can be on 1 side, 2 sides, or all 4 sides. Each edge adds to cost and bezel size.

Global Dimming Power Savings - Figure 6 shows a 15.6” UHD panel with 400nit maximum brightness. Figure 7 shows a comparison of backlight power consumption values between 400nit, 50nit and, respectively 5nit.

The primary goal of color management is to obtain a good match across color devices; for example, the colors of one frame of a video should appear the same on a computer LCD monitor, on a TV screen, and as a printed poster. Color management helps to achieve the same appearance on all of these devices, provided the devices are capable of delivering the needed color intensities. Color management cannot guarantee identical color reproduction, as this is rarely possible, but it can at least give more control over any changes which may occur.

A PC in HDR and SDR modes use different color gamut but the same screen. Dual-panel phones and notebooks need the color of the two sides to match perfectly. Graphic artists for web sites, movies, video games, etc., need to know what they are creating looks the same on their screen as on their customers’ screens.

As panels improve, the color space of new panels may exceed the color space from Windows.  This results in displays which look oversaturated. There is a trend towards low blue light or “night shift” panels, while still retaining color accuracy for the other colors. Today, low blue light panels are created by measuring each individual panel, then hoping that the yield is high enough.

Analogix’s Advanced Color Blocking (ACB) technology is used to create consistent image quality across different panels and change color space for different usage modes (Fig. 8). It allows for 3D color gamut rotation in the optical color domain rather than the RGB domain and color space change on the fly, such as color mapping of BT.2020 source to sRGB or DCI-P3 panels. It includes LUT shadow registers and hardware transition calculations (to smooth changes).

Color conversion in the TCON can dynamically and continuously adjust the incoming signal from the GPU for a low blue light color space. This way, no individual panel measurement is needed and yields should increase. While this can also be done by the GPU itself, that takes GPU bandwidth and 500x more power.

Panel Self-Refresh (PSR) – frame buffer in a TCON can maintain a display image without receiving video data from the CPU. For a still image, this allows the GPU to enter a low-power state and the eDP main link to turn off. Allowing the GPU to power down between display updates will save significant power and extend battery life.

Panel Self-Refresh with Selective Update (PSR2) is a superset of the panel self-refresh feature and it allows the transmission of modified areas within a video frame with obvious benefits when watching a movie or playing a game. PSR2 identifies when only a portion of the screen is static, which is a selective update. In PSR2, when the full screen is static, the refresh rate can be lowered for further power savings as done by Intel Low Refresh Rate (LRR). Intel LRR lowers the refresh rate by changing pixel clock or by changing vertical blank depending on the scenario such as idle, playing video, browsing, etc. All Analogix TCONs support Intel LRR.

In-Cell Touch embeds the touch function in the display itself, the panel including all the touch sensors, controllers, and needed processing. This simplifies the production process and reduces weight and reflection by removing the cover glass. It also allows for thinner bezels as there is no need for daughter cards and no separate wires for touch, as well as lighter devices as the cover glass is removed.

Analogix has pioneered the in-cell touch notebook panel TCONs. About 15% of notebooks support touch and we expect the touch attach rate to increase as more active pen support is introduced.

Ryan from Gravity Jack recently sat down and unboxed the new Vive Pro Wireless virtual reality head-mounted display and all of the accessories that come with it. If you’re even a little curious about what’s in the box (in our best Brad Pitt voice), then you’re definitely going to watch the video above!

2016 feels like last week as VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) advance ever closer to entering mainstream entertainment. To this day, no company can definitively claim market supremacy, demonstrating virtual reality’s persistence beyond its initial hype. With HTC’s VIVE Cosmos fresh off the line, let’s take a look back and dive deeper into the VIVE Pro and its practical creative uses.

At a glance, the VIVE Pro offers several upgrades over its predecessor in resolution, sound quality, and comfort. Most notably, the VIVE Tracker allows us to pull any real-world object into a VR space, unlocking even more functional applications. Using these features, the Gravity Jack team plans to craft a new set of VR experiences to meet the growing demands of product showcasing.

Our HMD choice reflects our standpoint as developers; features like price and comfort weigh far less than practical capabilities. The deciding factor came down to the versatility provided by the VIVE Tracker, a feature Valve has yet to offer. By bringing this tech into our toolbox, Gravity Jack plans to continue pushing industry boundaries and create truly unique experiences. Stay tuned for announcements about what the VIVE Pro is accomplishing for our clients!