VR headset for FPV

[kemmerich]

My day-job is adding VR support to a large game platform, so this is fairly relevant to me. I've thought about it a few times, but I don't think I've seen anyone else talk about it. Maybe because it's so ridiculous that they fear exile.

However, current VR headsets are very low-latency, have great displays, and have great head tracking. I think I could hack something together that'd allow me to render the feed from a video receiver into 3D space, and take head rotation and use it as input for gimbal servos.

It would be annoying to lug around a laptop capable of doing this though, and I don't really know enough about the VTX/VRX hardware to pull it off yet. But I don't think it's strictly impossible... it'd just be an unnecessarily expensive setup. If someone could recommend an FPV setup that gets me decent resolution into a form usable by a typical PC, we'll have a fun build thread here.

 

[pressalltheknobs]

Hobby FPV uses analog video, PAL or NTSC. FPV googles just display this on a simple analog screen, or two, I think, if you have a fancy pair, and there are some lenses to shorten the focal length...

Not really sure what the difference between them and VR goggles would be except there is no VR. It's just video and if there is a head tracker it controls actual servos that move a real camera... not that hard of a problem to get working but perhaps hard to perfect for a price. Since this is hobby RC, then standard RC servos are generally used since they are cheap and work and hobby RC is all based around its particular notion of PWM servo control.

 

[kemmerich]

Yeah, it doesn't seem like there would be much of a difference between a high-end set and a VR headset at this point. It's definitely not cost effective unless you just happen to already have a VR headset.

Still, it is tempting to try...

 

[mn2sam]

Would you not be better to look at using a wide angle HD camera at the front end, then an SD display on the headset? That way you could have an SD section of the HD image to be able to look around in, rather than have to worry about actually moving the camera and the latency etc - it would all just be in software from the HD downlink. Of course getting that HD video to the ground is the hard part. I'm lucky in that I work for a video transmission company, so I managed to put together an HD Tx from bits of broken units with only about 40ms delay, but to do it "properly" would be expensive.

 

[PsyBorg]

Right now the thing holding back true HD resolution is the tx protocols. Sending that much data still produces too much lag to fly with.

I have looked into the Vuzix Video headphones and am leaning towards getting them. They will work with anything that has an HDMI input and upscale or down scale the video to work with the signals. I have already found an analog to usb converter that can be modded to work with that headset in the field with a normal analog receiver. For the price less then the upper end Dominators I can get something that is true HD, works with MANY other devices and will be ready for when the day comes they break that HD tx problem of lag. That's about as close to VR that I can see FPV getting with the tech so far.

This is the video I made after setting up my quads receiver to send the video to my big screen tv thru an hdmi input.