hey everybody its Norm from Tested and welcome back to projections where this
week we're gonna talk about hardware specifically HCC's new Vive Cosmos I
just got back from demo time with the cosmos I got to use it for about an hour
and wanted to share some of my impressions with you about our time with
it because it is HTC's new flagship consumer desktop VR
headset replacing the original HTC vive the vive pro the vive pro i are still be
available for enterprise customers but for consumers and gamers out there this
is what they're going to be pushing as they phase the original vive out of the
marketplace now some details first the vive cosmos is shipping October 3rd and
is available for pure were now at $700 and it's a desktop class vr headset this
is not a competitor to the oculus quest it's not stand-alone VR there's no
computer or battery built into the headset it's a tethered headset much
like the vibe like the vive pro and more akin now the valve index and also on
the oculus side the rift s in fact much like the oculus rift s it has now inside
out positional tracking this is HTC's headset we don't need to use the steam
VR lighthouse based tracking system in fact there are no steamvr lighthouses
you place anywhere for the headset or for their new controllers the headset
has six cameras on the front of it so there are two cameras in the front
there's one pointing it's up and one pointing down and two on the side and
that's what allows it to then map out the room and give you a sense of where
you are in virtual space as well as where the new controllers are relative
to you the room I use it in and was pretty well lit and Tad a little bit of
daylight coming in and I'm really curious what this tracking systems will
look like in low light or even in direct IR light because we know in the in
preview experiences on something like the oculus quest that doesn't work very
well in situations where there's a bright sunlight that actually affects
the tracking ability of those headsets now let's talk about the inside of the
headset itself because the display is also massively changed the panels
they're using now give a combined resolution of 28 80 by 1700 that's
unlikely 28 80 by 1600 pixel resolution that you might see in the valve index in
the vive Pro and even the oculus quest and also like the valve index this now
is an LCD with an RGB sub pixel arrangement no ask HTC exactly how they
ended up on this panel this resolution and it were these panels the same
physical size as the panels on the previous generation headsets and they
were talking really coy about it all they would say is they wanted to pick a
panel that one was LCD with the RGB sub pixels you know that was really
important and they also wanted to maximize the pixel density the pixels
per degree in the headset and that's important because the field of view on
this headset is exactly the same field of view as you would find on the
previous generation HTC 5's they quoted as about a hundred and ten degrees and
for my demo killing from HTC vive first gen all the way to the cosmos yeah it's
that same field of view the image is definitely more clear but I will using
it really want to push that headset closer and closer to my eye I suspect
also the panel sizes are exactly the same and you're gonna get maybe more
pixel density on the horizontal plane then on the vertical plane and if you
stand still and you really want to pixel peep yes you can notice some of that
screen door effect and for me I notice maybe more vertical lines than
horizontal lines but when you're in the content you're in experiences in your
game if you're doing any type of movement you're not gonna notice at all
it was very comfortable to valve's index in that regard I think the screen
quality is really good it's running at 90 Hertz and it does have Fornell lenses
HTC did say that therefore no lenses are now 40% improved compared to previous
generations in terms of some of the visual artifacts and I didn't really get
into scenarios where it's the high contrast black areas with bright lights
I couldn't tell if the god rays were there but in things like the blue and
sort of garganta and Museum of the realities I didn't
notice any glow effects or glare or gadre so I'll have to take HTC afterward
until we get the review units in to do a formal test and a direct comparison now
I said I really wanted to push the headset close to my glasses to my eyes
and I couldn't because there is no eye relief now I relief is one of those
things that was in the original HTC vive can pop off the sides and push the the
the lenses and they display closer to your eyes to get slightly bigger field
of view and in fact the valve index lets you do that push really close to her
eyeballs to get a really much wider field of view which I really like but
here instead they opted for I think an ergonomic solution where you can flip up
the visor flip up the headset to see the real world but at the cost of not being
able to then adjust the headset adjust the display
I found the sweet spot for the lenses I thought they were pretty close to their
original vibe and that they're it's not a massive sweet spot you have to do a
little bit of fiddling with the headbands a halo style headband to get
that sweet spot but once I was in that speech sweet spot in something like the
blue I could shift my eyes around and almost see edge to edge and see a pretty
clear image and you see a lot of blurred pixels and so I reached a very edge of
that field of view ergonomically it is a halo style strap which you know some
people like that it's easy to tighten there is a top strap as well to take
some up pressure off your head and pretty generous forehead pad and push it
against your forehead to counteract the the pressure against the back of your
head in about my hour of game time with the cosmos I didn't get fatigue at all
it was pretty comfortable but I was sweating a little bit by the end of it
there also built-in headphones on the vive cosmos they look a lot like the
deluxe audio head strap headphones although HTC said it's their best
headphones they put in a VR headset today and the limited time I had with
the demos it sounded good and pretty loud and isolating once I was in there I
couldn't hear what other people were saying now like previous generations of
vive there is a pass-through of sorts with stereo cameras right in front of
the headset so you can DoubleTap the vive buttons
the controllers or could move out to the edge of the chaperone system and the
world will fade in this time in stereo and also in full RGB color if you have
something like the rift s or the oculus quest and you've used their version of
pass-through and it's kind of statically and grayscale well here it's not
particularly sharp I would say it's kind of muddled in terms of the resolution of
the cameras but it is color and it is stereo I don't think they're doing any
type of reprojection system where they're remapping that's their image on
this time type of map of the world so there's no geometry but it is a quick
and comfortable way to see in the outside world or of course you can flip
up the headset as well one of the interesting things about the vive cosmos
is potential for upgrade ability and modularity so for example when we looked
inside the headset we could see on the top right hand corner there was a USB
see plug as well as a 3.5 millimeter jack which too then you could use to
plug in your own headphones the headphones themselves do detach if you
want to not use those and use your own and also the front faceplate of the
headset is removable as well which then takes off two of the cameras the one
pointing up and down and in the future HTC is gonna release an add-on that lets
you then put on a new face plate that has the steam VR lighthouse base
trackers and then that would allow you to use something like the index
controllers knuckles controllers that valve is released or even older
lighthouse based track controllers like the HTC vive ones or HTC zone tracking
bugs now I was thinking like why couldn't you mix
and match and use the headsets inside out tracking with the knuckles
controllers out of the box if you have lighthouses already I think the way
Steam ingests tracking information positional tracking information you
essentially have to use one kind of tracking system for the headset and the
controllers it's for that reason you couldn't plug in a Windows mix rowdy
headset and use knuckles controllers with that or the rift s inside out
tracking for the headset and use of I've wands or knuckles
trollers it's using steamvr lighthouse based tracking for everything headset
and controllers or that third-party tracking system in this case that inside
out tracking for the cosmos and the cosmos controller another upgrade that's
going to come in the future is ability to use the vive wireless system that's
already out from the vive pro and the HTC vive which will then let the cosmos
be tether free getting a wireless signal from the PC people have that vive
wireless system today we'll need to buy a separate attachment that allowed to
attach to the cosmos now let's talk about the controllers now if you look at
the controllers they do look a lot like the new rift s in oculus quest style
touch controllers you know there's that ring on the top and then there's a thumb
stick and trigger and a grip button but there are a lot of subtle differences
first of all it's nice and heft you actually really like the weight and feel
of the cosmos controllers and it's heavier because they run off of two
double-a batteries for each hand as opposed to just one double a battery or
rechargeable battery I know it's debatable whether you like having the
recharge well battery or a place of battery I err on liking replaceable
batteries because you're gonna just buy rechargeable double-a batteries to put
it in them but it's interesting that they require two doublea's per
controller and from some reports that only lasts about two hours of use for
each before you have to swap them out now I think it uses more power not just
because it's gonna add weight but because the tracking is based on this
light system that's emitted from the top of these rings so if you look at the
Rings inlaid on them is this pattern and that is the kind of QR code style visual
tracking system that the cameras look at to see where the controllers are now in
my experience using these controllers I didn't notice any jitter or drift and in
fact I was able to move my hands behind my back
pretty far back and then quickly turn my head and the controller would
immediately snap into place I didn't have to see it drift back into position
so that was pretty good although you do lose tracking if you go right behind
your head and of course if you get really close to the
head set I felt like if you got about three inches or so so the front of the
head set that's when you would lose positional tracking and you then get
rotational tracking HTC did tell me that they're gonna work on software
improvements to make sure that they're getting as much information and using as
much information as possible to compensate for some of that but the
biggest issue I had was actually with occlusion when moving one controller in
front of the other controller like this and that I would definitely lose
positional tracking on the hand I was behind on the second controller the
front controller will be blocking that now on the controller itself it does
have a thumb stick and you'll be happy to note that I did test the click enos
of the thumb six oh you can click it when the thumb stick is pressed in all
directions all extremes of its range of motion there are two buttons on the top
and also a vive button underneath it that's the button that you double click
to get the stereo image pass through but also now to activate the revived origin
menu to access games in vive port and then the trigger is now a two part
trigger there's a shoulder button as well as a trigger button and the trigger
button it does depress and then click now the shoulder button right now is
just mapped to the trigger button there are no games or experiences that I try
that made use of the shoulder button if I presume if you wanted to map it to a
gamepad for example and get gamepad controls you then also get shoulder
button controls there's also a grip button now and I'm slightly disappointed
that that button wasn't an analog button it was really just a clicky button so it
really has parity with the vive grip buttons on the side here but not the
full analog grip that you would get on the oculus touch oh no I don't think
there are any big surprises with the cosmos after reading the specs and then
using it you know the tracking was about as good as I expected the image quality
with that resolution with that RGB LCD panel was good as well there weren't big
ghosting or Gadre effects on the lenses and the field of view was exactly as I
expected since they told me it wasn't changed from the previous generations I
am slightly disappointed that doesn't have that eye relief but it did fit over
my glasses pretty comfortably I do like the fact that it can pop back pop up
with hinge and the halo style headband I felt
was comfortable at least during my time with it it's available for pre-order now
the price is seven hundred dollars so it is quite a bit more expensive than the
rift s for example but you are getting a much higher image quality display and
for those people who pre-order they will get a year subscription to vive port
infinity which is HTC's kind of all you can play buffet subscription for about
700 VR experiences it's gonna ship on October 3rd and we're looking forward to
getting one in to do a full review in comparison with other VR headsets but
that's our quick impressions of the HTC vive cosmos and if you have questions
about the headset then you'd like to see us test in the review please post them
in the comments below and we'll address them in the review thanks for watching
and we'll see you next time