Most everyone wants to be free. Free of the ties that bind them to the heavy weights of the world and when it comes to heavy weights in virtual reality (VR) you’ve got to be talking about the computer. Be that of the personal kind or the home console. The need to ‘cut the cord’, as it were, to the headset was one of the topics that grew in intensity throughout the entirety of 2017. Ultimately culminating in the announcement of the two Oculus headsets for 2018 – the Santa Cruz, which had first been revealed at Oculus Connect 3 and the Oculus Go standalone head mounted display (HMD) which has since found a twin in the Mi VR Standalone HMD, revealed at CES 2018 earlier this week.
One of the companies that has been leading the way in the field of wireless, certainly as one of the companies publicly working on solutions for wireless VR, is TPCAST. The Chinese based company was the creator of the first commercially available wireless VR solution, and they have since been pushing hard to deliver not just wireless solutions to VR HMDs but to headsets across the immersive technology spectrum including augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR). So far this week they’ve made two announcements at CES 2018.
TPCAST Plus: A whole product family that which includes adapter hardware and software upgrades that the company has developed following user feedback and that “positions TPCAST as the leader in the Wireless VR Market” according to TPCAST’s CEO Michael Liu.
And also Windows Mixed Reality support: TPCAST will be creating what it says will be a reference design for a ‘Universal Wireless VR Module’ which it hopes will facilitate faster development and adoption.
Adding to the above is now the reveal of TPCAST 2.0, which according to TPCAST will be utilising the latest generation of ultra-low latency codecs as well as an upgraded real-time data control protocol which will help the company deliver high quality video with low latency and real-time transmission at a range of distances.
The company explained in a statement the technical side of the three main features that make TPCAST 2.0 so important.
“The first element is the ultra-low latency codec, capable of compressing VR content on a 50:1 ratio which significantly reduces the bandwidth required for video data transmission while bounding the latency to 1ms. This easy-to-use, stable, and ultra-low latency codec enables TPCAST’s product family to deliver consistently high-quality real-time video transmission. The second feature of the TPCAST 2.0 technology is its scalability making it easy to adapt to any headset including 3k, 4k, and 8k video resolution HMDs in the market. The third feature is the capability to preserve the user experience compared to a wired connection. TPCAST’s proprietary technology and accumulated VR knowledge base, gained by its long-term leading position in the Wireless VR space, enables TPCAST’s products to deliver a stable and commercial-grade VR experience. TPCAST’s cloud VR rendering technology, recently announced at CES, combined with the adaptability of the TPCAST 2.0 technologies allows TPCAST to be the first wireless VR provider to support short, mid and long-range VR demands in multi-user environments. The short-range distance utilizes WiGig or 802.11ay technologies and supports the HTC VIVE, Oculus RIFT, Windows MR and other mainstream headsets. For the mid-range environments, TPCAST will support Wi-Fi or 802.11ax to allow users to utilize TPCAST’s unique large-space wireless solution. The support for long-distance uses Cloud VR to achieve real-time VR content sharing on the cloud (5G / 4.5G / FTTH).”
“The new TPCAST 2.0 announcement is another milestone for TPCAST’s innovation.” Said Liu of the company’s latest announcement. “As a leader in the Global Wireless VR space, TPCAST is committed to moving the industry forward with its technological advancements. The newest technology in Wireless VR, TPCAST 2.0, has the highest performance, the broadest scalability, and the most mature product capabilities. TPCAST 2.0’s support for a full range of mainstream headsets in various deployment ranges allows TPCAST to continue with its vision of unleashing the VR world.”
VRFocus will bring you more news about the developments revealed at CES 2018 very, very soon.