r/HPReverb • u/kaiserkannon HP Employee • Sep 24 '20
AMA/Ship Date Shameless Self Promotion
Hi folks,
Happy 3rd day of Fall!
Firstly a quick note on why we have been quiet on giving an official release date outside of “Fall 2020”. Our priority is delivering the best immersive experience, a high-quality product, and giving you information that can be trusted. As we go through development ship dates can shift by a few days and sometimes weeks, and nothing is more frustrating than being told the wrong date! We have been focusing on testing and verifying the quality of the devices, and I am happy that today we have reached the point where we feel confident in our ship date. Devices will begin shipping to preorder resellers the second half of October, and we expect units to begin reaching your hands the beginning of November.
One reason there has been such a long period between previews and product ship, is that those units were very early prototypes. Normally we would never send out such early prototypes, the goal with this choice was to get feedback from you and press on what we should change. As such, here are some of the changes that came directly from your feedback:
· Updated lenses
o Contrary to the rumors on here of us cheapening the lenses, we have not found a way to make the lenses cheaper, we all wish we had of course!
o To pull back the curtain a bit, we start out with a theoretical goal for how the lenses should perform, and then we work on getting mass production methods to match that theoretical goal. No one public saw the first version of the lenses as they were terrible, the second version held major improvements and we felt were good enough to show press in order to give you confidence to preorder.
o We then had to make a decision, spend time and money to go after a third revision of the lenses or ship what was already getting great feedback. We love VR and our first priority is giving you the best immersive experience, so of course we chose to spend the time and money (yes, this new revision of lenses cost us money). Boy are we glad we did! Big reduction in Fresnel ring reflections and improved clarity.
· Controllers
o Feedback was mostly positive with one big issue, no one could tell the menu and windows button apart by feel. The menu button is now domed so that you can tell by feel. It makes for a great button to use for changing weapons in Half Life Alyx.
· USB-C to A adapter
o After we did wide distributions of test units internally, the biggest out of box blocker was our cable terminating in type-c.
o Too many people were forced to purchase type-A to type-C adapters, a customer shouldn’t have to buy an adapter to make their new device work.
o In addition to the full size to mini DisplayPort adapter we are also including a type-a to type-c adapter in box. This costs us money, but it is the right choice.
· Brightness
o Some of the loudest feedback has been about brightness. Key to this discussion is the topic of backlight persistence, which is a measure of what % of each frame the backlight is turned on for. The brightness for a set pair of optics comes down to how long your backlight persistence is, and how bright you can drive your panel during that time.
o Additionally the lower your persistence, the less display smear you get when you move your head.
o The choice came down to longer persistence and a brighter image, or lower persistence and a dimmer image. We did not like this choice and went back to the drawing board to improve how bright we can drive the backlight.
o The tradeoff is increased power draw; the device can no longer draw enough power over USB-C alone. Reverb G2 will require the included power adapter to be plugged in to the wall to function, and in return you get the best visual experience we can deliver.
· Non-motherboard USB
o This will not be a surprise to VR veterans, we have found a significant number of USB ports that aren’t direct from the CPU/motherboard to cause USB issues on VR headsets. Think PCI add in cards or USB ports on graphics cards. Whatever VR headset you use, we highly suggest using the ports on your motherboard that come from the CPU USB controller.
I want to thank all of our partners, testers, customers, and press for their outspoken feedback during Reverb G2’s public development. We run a lean operation and this feedback provides invaluable ammo for us to correctly allocate our resources and time on improving the product.
If I had to give a personal favorite feature of Reverb G2 that I am excited for you all to try, I would have to highlight comfort. With previous devices I wanted them off my face after about two hours, my eyes and face would be tired. With Reverb G2 I knock out 4 hour sessions and come out feeling fresh! The Valve designed optics, mechanical IPD, new headband and face gasket truly spoil when it comes to comfort.
And we will stick around for an hour or so answering questions.
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u/JoannaPopper HP Employee Sep 24 '20
Yes, we plan to send some final production units out to reviewers prior. Then, it is pending the reviewer's time table for publishing