Early Bigscreen Beyond Pre-orders Slip into Q4 Delivery Window

Bigscreen announced its thin and light PC VR headset, Bigscreen Beyond, is facing delays in production, which the company says will see shipping dates for initial preorders pushed later into October and November.

Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar says in a blogpost that manufacturing bottlenecks have led to slower-than-expected production rates, making for what the company calls “approximately 25% of the target [production] rate” in some bottlenecks than previously projected.

Bigscreen says around 20% of US-based pre-orders initially quoted for a Q3 shipping window will be shipped by next week, with the rest expected to be completed by November. Most of those Q3 pre-orders were made in February, which was the company’s “biggest month of sales.”

“The remaining 80% will take another 2-7 weeks to ship. We aim to complete all Q3 preorder shipments by November 6-November 19,” Bigscreen says, noting it will reach “full capacity” production by November.

Meanwhile, the company says more recent pre-orders given a tentative Q4 shipment date are still on track, which includes both US and international orders. Here’s the proposed schedule moving forward:

Image courtesy Bigscreen

Bigscreen details a number of issues that contributed to the delays, including important calibration machines lost in customs on the way to a China-based parts supplier, and being out of stock of certain IPDs as they await additional headsets and parts to be produced.

“We’re taking this seriously,” Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar explains. “Solving these bottlenecks requires significant effort with multiple flights to China and our team in California working until 5AM. To ensure we improve our manufacturing and calibration bottlenecks, I will personally remain on-site at our factories in China for the next month to ensure ramp up goes smoothly. In addition to these new machines, we will begin a second night shift at our factories to improve production. We’ve also doubled the size of our LA factory team in the past 2 months.”

The tiny SteamVR headset sets itself apart from the competition by offering a much lighter and compact design than traditional PC VR headsets. It does this by including high-resolution microOLEDs, pancake lenses, outside-in SteamVR tracking, and a custom facepad made specially for each customer to insure zero light leakage. Check out our review of Bigscreen Beyond to learn more, and hear our full impressions about what has undoubtedly become a pioneer in VR headset design.

Thin & Light PC VR Headset Bigscreen Beyond Now Shipping in US

Bigscreen announced it’s now shipping Beyond, the company’s thin and light PC VR headset unveiled earlier this year.

Created by the same team behind the Bigscreen Beta VR app, Bigscreen Beyond is a tethered PC VR headset that uses Valve’s SteamVR tracking standard. Priced at $1,000, the headset makes for an interesting value proposition for users already hooked into the SteamVR hardware ecosystem, offering up a slim design thanks to the inclusion of pancake lenses and micro-OLEDs. Check out the specs at the end of the article.

Now Bigscreen says it’s started shipping Beyond, with packages going out daily to customers in the United States; international shipments are said to begin in “mid to late Q4.”

“Since launching in February, demand was stronger than expected and we’ve got an overwhelming amount of headsets to build! We’ve spent the past few months ramping up production in order to ship tens of thousands of units in the coming months ahead,” the company says.

To meet demand, Bigscreen says it’s hiring more engineering and production staff for its LA-based factory, and meeting with overseas manufacturing partners in China to ensure production proceeds “without a hitch.”

There’s also a bigger international expansion on the horizon. In addition to taking preorders from customers in the US, UK, most of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, the company is also set to expand preorders to Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The company says it also plans to sell in South Korea, Israel, “and more soon.”

Check out our hands-on with Beyond back in March, where we tested out every aspect of the headset, including its display clarity, brightness, custom ergonomics, and got to grips with its next-gen form-factor.

Bigscreen Beyond Specs

Resolution 2,560 × 2,560 (6.5MP) per-eye
microOLED (2x, RGB stripe)
Pixels Per-degree (claimed) 28
Refresh Rate 75Hz, 90Hz
Lenses Tri-element pancake
Field-of-view (claimed) 93°H × 90°V
Optical Adjustments IPD (fixed, customized per customer)
eye-relief (fixed, customized per facepad)
IPD Adjustment Range 58–72mm (fixed, single IPD value per device)
Connectors DisplayPort 1.4, USB 3.0 (2x)
Accessory Ports USB-C (1x)
Cable Length 5m
Tracking SteamVR Tracking 1.0 or 2.0 (external beacons)
On-board Cameras None
Input SteamVR Tracking controllers
On-board Audio None
Optional Audio Audio Strap accessory, USB-C audio output
Microphone Yes (2x)
Pass-through view No
Weight 170–185g
MSRP $1,000
MSRP (with tracking & controllers) $1,580

Former Oculus CTO Reviews Bigscreen Beyond: “like a prop for a futuristic movie”

John Carmack, legendary programmer and former CTO of Oculus, is known for giving his unfiltered thoughts on almost every aspect of the XR industry. While he departed Meta in December, concluding his “decade in VR,” Carmack is still very interested in the medium, as he recently went hands-on with one of the latest PC VR headsets to hit the scene, the slim and light Bigscreen Beyond.

Bigscreen Beyond is a tethered PC VR headset that uses Valve’s SteamVR tracking standard, which starting at $1,000 for just the headset makes it an interesting value proposition for users already hooked into the SteamVR hardware ecosystem. It’s largely praised for its slim and light profile, which is thanks to the inclusion of pancake lenses and micro-OLEDs, serving up 2,560 × 2,560 pixels per eye at 70 to 90 Hz refresh.

You’ve probably already heard what we think of it though. Now for the master:

“Bigscreen Beyond feels like a prop for a futuristic movie, but it works!” Carmack said in a Twitter thread on Monday. “Far and away the smallest and lightest PC VR headset.”

That’s high praise coming from a key figure in the Oculus genesis story, not to mention co-founder and lead programmer of id Software, the studio behind pioneering ’90s 3D games Wolfenstein 3DDoom, and Quake.

Image courtesy John Carmack

To hear all of Carmack’s thoughts on Bigscreen Beyond, we’ve formatted his tweets below for easier reading:

Bigscreen Beyond feels like a prop for a futuristic movie, but it works! Far and away the smallest and lightest PC VR headset.

As a result of the iPhone based face scanning before ordering, the fit is perfect, with zero light leaks. The custom printed facial interface is comfortable, but not breathable, so it isn’t great for fitness activities.

The prescription lens inserts snap in with magnets and work well. The visuals are a trade off vs Quest Pro. The resolution is clearly higher, but there are more internal reflections in the pancake optics, and the quality falls off more toward the edges. There are parts of the view where screens look fantastic, good enough for actual productivity work, but not across the entire view.

I sorely miss integrated audio. Having to mess with headphones severely impacts the minimalist feel of the headset. I know some people have strong opinions, but I still feel Quest made the right decisions around audio.

The cable to the PC and the tracking base stations are the biggest downside. The magic of stand-alone VR is real, and while some people happily trade it away for the raw power and flexibility of a PC, I wouldn’t recommend any PC VR setup as an entry point to VR.

For people considering an upgrade to a PC VR system, Bigscreen Beyond should be in the mix. I am very happy to see this extreme focus on light weight, and I hope it impacts Meta’s future designs.

In a follow-up tweet, Carmack points to a review from Adam Savage’s Tested, which he says “hits most of my points in more depth.”

In it, Tested’s Norman Chan reports back after having lived with the headset for a month, using a development unit as the office’s primary PC VR headset. Chan shows through-the-lens images, and discusses “the good, the bad, and the weird with this unique approach to high-end bespoke VR,” the video’s description reads.

Check out Tested’s review below:

Bigscreen Beyond Teardown Overviews Design Decisions Behind Compact Headset

CEO Darshan Shankar sits down with the upcoming Bigscreen Beyond VR headset for a teardown and explanation of the company’s design decisions.

Bigscreen Beyond is a made-for-enthusiasts VR headsets coming from the makers of the social VR theater application Bigscreen. In our recent hands-on with the headset we found an impressively well-built device that’s taking a different approach than other PC VR headsets on the market.

Photo by Road to VR

Bigscreen Beyond is due to start shipping in Q3, and ahead of its release Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar has sat down to tear the tiny headset open and talk about the decisions the company made and why.

Bigscreen Beyond is impressive in many ways, but it’s priced for serious VR enthusiasts. The headset starts at $1,000, which doesn’t include controllers or tracking beacons (which would add another $580).

Hands-on: Bigscreen Beyond – A Little Headset That Could be a Big Deal

It’s exceedingly rare to see a VR software startup transition to making hardware, let alone decent hardware. But that’s exactly what Bigscreen—creators of the long-running social VR theater app of the same name—has done with its upcoming Beyond headset.

Bigscreen has clearly targeted PC VR enthusiasts who are willing to pay for the best hardware they can get their hands on. And with major players like Meta and HTC focusing heavily on standalone headsets, Bigscreen Beyond could prove to be the best option they’ll find any time soon.

Photo by Road to VR

The company has set out to make a headset that’s not just better than what’s out there, but one that’s much smaller too. And while it remains to be seen if the headset will hit all the right notes, my initial hands-on shows plainly the company knows what it’s doing when it comes to building a VR headset.

Bigscreen Beyond Specs
Resolution 2,560 × 2,560 (6.5MP) per-eye
microOLED (2x, RGB stripe)
Pixels Per-degree (claimed) 28
Refresh Rate 75Hz, 90Hz
Lenses Tri-element pancake
Field-of-view (claimed) 93°H × 90°V
Optical Adjustments IPD (fixed, customized per customer)
eye-relief (fixed, customized per facepad)
IPD Adjustment Range 58–72mm (fixed, single IPD value per device)
Connectors DisplayPort 1.4, USB 3.0 (2x)
Accessory Ports USB-C (1x)
Cable Length 5m
Tracking SteamVR Tracking 1.0 or 2.0 (external beacons)
On-board Cameras None
Input SteamVR Tracking controllers
On-board Audio None
Optional Audio Audio Strap accessory, USB-C audio output
Microphone Yes (2x)
Pass-through view No
Weight 170–185g
MSRP $1,000
MSRP (with tracking & controllers) $1,580

Custom-made

Bigscreen is building something unique, quite literally—every Beyond headset comes with a custom-made facepad. And this isn’t a ‘choose one of three options’ situation, Bigscreen has a sleek app that walks buyers through the process of capturing a 3D scan of their face so the company can create a completely unique facepad that conforms to each specific customer.

And it really makes a difference. The first thing that Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar showed me during a demo of the Beyond headset was the difference between my personal facepad (which the company created for me prior to our meetup) and someone else’s facepad. The difference was instantly obvious; where mine fit against my face practically like two connected puzzle-pieces, the other facepad awkwardly disagreed with my face in various places. While I’ve recognized for a long time that different facial topology from person-to-person is a real consideration for VR headsets, this made me appreciate even more how significant the differences can be.

The facepad may look rough, but it’s actually made of a soft rubber material | Photo by Road to VR

Shankar says the custom-fit facepad is an essential part of making such a small headset. It ensures not only that the headset is as comfortable as it can be, but also the user’s eyes are exactly where they’re supposed to be with regard to the lenses. For a headset like Beyond, which uses high magnification pancake optics with a small sweet spot, this is especially important. And, as Shankar convincingly demonstrated by shining a flashlight all around the headset while I was wearing it, the custom-fit facepad means absolutely no external light can be seen from inside.

And the custom facepad isn’t the only way each headset is dialed in for each specific customer; instead of wasting weight and space with the mechanics for an IPD adjustment, the headset ships with one of 15 fixed IPD distances, ranging from 58–72mm. The company selects the IPD based on the same face scan that allows them to make the custom facepad. And given the size of the Beyond headset, there’s no way that glasses will fit inside; luckily the company will also sell magnetically attached prescription inserts for those who need them, up to −10 diopter.

Diving In

With my custom facepad easily snapped onto the headset with magnets, it was time to dive into VR.

The baseline version of the $1,000 Bigscreen Beyond headset has a simple soft strap, which I threw over the back of my head and tightened to taste. I felt I had to wear the strap very high on the back of my head for a good hold; Shankar says an optional top-strap will be available, which ought to allow me to wear the rear strap in a lower position.

Photo by Road to VR

As I put on the headset I found myself sitting in a dark Bigscreen theater environment, and the very first thing I noticed was the stellar darks and rich colors that are thanks to the headset’s OLED displays. The second thing I noticed was there was no sound! That’s because the baseline version of the headset doesn’t have on-board audio, so I still had to put on a pair of headphones after the headset was donned.

While the baseline headset lacks on-board audio, Bigscreen is offering a $100 ‘Audio Strap‘, which is a rigid headstrap with built-in speakers. As someone who really values rigid straps and on-board audio, I’m glad to see this as an option—for me it would be the obvious choice. Unfortunately the company wasn’t ready to demo the Audio Strap.

Shankar toured me around a handful of VR environments that showed off the headset’s 2,560 × 2,560 (6.5MP) per-eye displays, which offered a level of clarity similar to that of Varjo’s $2,000 Aero headset, but with a smaller notably field-of-view (Bigscreen claims 90°H × 93°V).

On many current-gen headsets like Quest 2 you can’t quite see the individual lines of the screen-door effect, but it’s still clear that it’s there in aggregate. While the Beyond headset isn’t ‘retina resolution’ there’s essentially no evidence of any screen-door effect. Everything looks really sharp. This was best demonstrated when I ran around in Half-Life: Alyx and the game felt like it had instantly upgraded graphics compared to a headset like Valve’s Index.

There is, however, some persistence blurring and glare. Shankar openly demonstrated how the brightness of the display directly relates to the level of persistence. While there’s some noticeable persistence at the default brightness, when overdriving the display’s brightness the persistence becomes entirely unbearable. The reverse is true; turning the brightness down below the default cuts the persistence down noticeably. While it would be nice if the default brightness had less persistence, at least users will be able to trade brightness for lower persistence based on their specific preference.

Continue on Page 2: Dialing In

Bigscreen Avatars Grow Arms, Hand & Eye Tracking Coming Later This Year

Bigscreen just launched its Avatar 2.0 update.

Bigscreen is a social VR app designed around cowatching video content remotely. It supports YouTube, Disney+, Amazon Prime, movie rentals, and its own TV channels for shows like Rick & Morty.

The new avatars now have necks and estimated arms (no current VR headset has built-in arm tracking). They also have a wider range of skin colors, body types, hairstyles, gender-agnostic outfits, facial features, and more accessory options.

before (above) and after (below)

Despite the new features, Bigscreen claims the new avatars are significantly better optimized than the old ones. This should mean more avatars can be rendered in the same space without impacting performance, which is especially useful for standalone headsets like Quest.

The company plans to add support for hand tracking and eye tracking later this year for the new avatar system. Meta’s Horizon Home already supports eye and face tracking on Quest Pro and is getting YouTube cowatching at some point. Some VRChat worlds also support cowatching videos, and the platform will natively support eye tracking soon too, including on Quest Pro.

Bigscreen is also launching its own SteamVR headset later this year with 2.6K OLED microdisplays, called Beyond, set to be the smallest and lightest VR headset ever sold.

VR Veteran Studio Behind ‘Bigscreen’ Unveils Thin & Light PC VR Headset ‘Beyond’

The team behind social VR viewing app Bigscreen today unveiled a thin and light PC VR headset that not only promises a few intriguing enthusiast-grade specs, but also a custom-made fit based on a 3D scan of your face. In short, it’s a big first for the VR veterans, who are responsible for one of the most beloved VR content viewing platforms.

Called Bigscreen Beyond, the $999 headset presents an interesting set of features which are squarely aimed at PC VR enthusiasts: dual OLED microdisplays offering 2,560 × 2,560 per-eye resolution, pancake optics, and 6DOF SteamVR tracking support.

The company is billing the tethered PC VR headset as the smallest and lightest of its kind, weighing in at just 127 grams and measuring less than 1-inch at its thinnest point.

Image courtesy Bigscreen

Bigscreen Beyond starts pre-orders today, priced at $999. Ostensibly, Beyond is targeting PC VR users who likely already in the SteamVR ecosystem but want something thinner and lighter than the last generation of headsets, such as Valve Index. Notably, the headset doesn’t include the requiste SteamVR tracking base stations or SteamVR-compatible controllers like the Valve Index controller or HTC Vive wand—you’ll have to purchase those separately.

The reasoning: Bigscreen founder and CEO Darshan Shankar says the VR software studio wanted to build “the VR headset we wanted for ourselves.”

“Today’s leading VR headsets have doubled in weight compared to headsets from 2016. We built Beyond because we felt VR was too heavy, bulky, and uncomfortable,” Shankar says. “We invented new technologies to increase comfort, and developed ultra-high-end components like OLED microdisplays and pancake optics to increase immersion. To deliver the best software experience for watching movies in Bigscreen, we also had to build the best hardware with Bigscreen Beyond.”

Image courtesy Bigscreen

Like many forthcoming VR headsets, Beyond is able to slim down thanks to the inclusion of pancake lenses, which Bigscreen says are a three-element optical design composed of glass, plastic polymers, films, and coatings.

Paired with two OLED microdisplays, each with a resolution of 2,560 × 2,560 pixels, Beyond boasts a high fill-factor with its 7.2-μm wide pixels and RGB stripe subpixels, resulting in what the company says eliminates the screen door effect—when the non-illuminated spaces between pixels make it seem like you’re viewing VR content through a screen door.

Resolution alone doesn’t tell the whole story, although for reference Valve Index is 1,440 × 1,600 per-eye, Meta Quest Pro is 1,920 × 1,800 pixels per-eye, and Pico 4 is 2,160 × 2,160 pixels per-eye.

Another one of Beyond’s big enthusiast-grade features is owed to Bigscreen’s ability to customize the fit of the headset to each user, which will be done by doing a one-time scan of the user’s face using an iPhone XR or more recent Apple mobile device. The dedicated Bigscreen scanning app is said to measure the shape of the user’s face and the position of their eyes, which allows the company to form a facial interface a unique to the individual and determine interpupillar distance.

The hand-washable facial interface is said to provide “even weight distribution, zero light leakage, and aligns the eyes and optics correctly.” Additionally, glasses wearers will have to spring for custom prescription lenses that magnetically fit into Beyond, as glasses do not fit inside the small form factor.

Although it ships with a soft strap, users can also spring for the optional audiostrap. We haven’t confirmed pricing for that yet, however we’ll update once we do.

Image courtesy Bigscreen

Granted, some things we’d consider ‘nex-gen’ are notably missing from Beyond, such as eye-tracking, face-tracking, optical 6DOF tracking, and the ability to use it wirelessly. As the first VR headset from a long-time VR veteran though, Beyond does check a lot of boxes for users such as simulator fans, and anyone looking for a better long-term VR media viewer.

Bigscreen Beyond is slate to ship in waves based on region. Preorders, which are fully cancellable and refundable up until shipping, are set to ship in the United States sometime in Q3 2023.

Second wave shipments will begin in Q4 2023 in Canada and Europe including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, and Belgium. A third wave of will come sometime in late 2023, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand. The company says Beyond will be available in more countries and regions in 2024.

Check out the spec sheet below:

Bigscreen Beyond Specs

Display Resolution 5120 x 2560 pixels (2560 x 2560 per eye) cloed at max 90Hz
Field Of View (FOV) 93° HFOV x 90° VFOV
Pixels Per Degree (PPD) 28°
Interpupillary Distance (IPD)
56mm-74mm accommodated (fixed IPD per device, 58mm-72mm)
Optics Type Custom Pancake Optics
6DOF Tracking SteamVR Tracking (aka Lighthouse)
Version V1.0 or V2.0 Base Stations. Not included.
Controllers SteamVR controllers (ex. Valve Index, HTC Vive). Not included.
Full-Body Tracking
SteamVR trackers (ex. HTC Vive Tracker, Tundra Tracker). Not included.
Audio Not built-in (USB C port for Audio), or optional Audio Strap
Ports USB-C accessory port (USB 2.0)
Microphone Input Stereo microphones
PC Connection DisplayPort 1.4 (video) and dual USB 3.0 ports (power, data)
Accessory ports USB-C (USB 2.0 speed)
Cable 5-meter custom fiber optic cable and Link Box
PC Requirements
CPU Quad Core Intel or AMD
GPU
Nvidia RTX 2070 or AMD RX 5700 XT or newer (DisplayPort 1.4 and DSC required)
Ports 1 x DisplayPort 1.4, 2 x USB 3.0 ports

Horizon Home Gets Some Free Lionsgate Movies For Cowatching

Meta is streaming some free Lionsgate movies each month to Quest 2 owners, who can watch together in Horizon Home with friends in the United States.

Lionsgate movies like Gods of Egypt (3D) and Leprechaun can be watched together with friends in Meta Horizon Home. The free movies from Lionsgate will change monthly, Meta announced in a blog post, and this content is only available to people living in the United States. A Meta representative told UploadVR that in the future “we’ll explore the possibility of adding movies that are available to users outside of the US.

The latest feature lets people watch “2D and 3D rectilinear content together on a giant screen” much like startup Bigscreen has enabled with its VR service for years. Notably, Bigscreen went head-to-head with the company formerly known as Facebook a couple years back by contesting its platform fees for movie rentals. The startup continues to build its own synced video watching functionality, first launching free movies and recently making it easy to watch YouTube together.

Meta Horizon Home, meanwhile, was added to Quest this month with a key feature being the ability to invite friends to share your home space “as soon as you put on your headset” to see content like Alex Honnold’s recent 360-degree video release together. Cowatching traditional 2D content was promised late last year with the official announcement of Horizon Home, but Meta was non-specific about what videos would be watchable with the system.

Meta benefits from being the default experience you get with a Quest 2 headset and uses platform-level features starting with a “ Party—a VOIP call that lets you hang out and chat with friends in VR” which you can then use to “invite some friends to your Meta Horizon Home.”

The Lionsgate movies are available alongside a range of 360-degree content in the Oculus TV app.

Bigscreen Now Lets You Watch YouTube With Friends On Quest

Up to 15 people using Quest or PC VR headsets can watch YouTube videos together in Bigscreen with all the features of a fully logged in experience. 

That means people with Meta Quest, Valve Index, HTC Vive and all other SteamVR and Windows Mixed Reality headsets should be able co-watch any YouTube content via Bigdcreen. According to an email from Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar, that includes the ability to “rent movies and watch them on YouTube! The logged-in YouTube experience is exactly like on another YouTube surface.”

That’s a pretty significant addition to Bigdcreen as the feature should make it exceedingly easy to bring a large chunk of the web’s videos into a shared viewing experience in VR. Google also offers its own YouTube VR apps, but the key social feature of co-watching with others has been absent from official channels. Now, however, Bigscreen supports watching “YouTube with friends in your private room, or with random people in our public rooms” in a range of environments including the drive-in theater or a cinema.

Bigscreen has been working to improve its streaming quality and recently added a Remote Desktop feature to use a PC wirelessly while in Quest. The company is planning to add support for bluetooth keyboards and gamepads to the Remote Desktop feature “in the next few months.”

You can now Watch YouTube With Friends in Bigscreen

When it comes to socialising and watching movies and TV shows in virtual reality (VR) with your friends, Bigscreen is hard to beat. Today, the app has released a new update adding one big feature the community has been requesting, the ability to stream YouTube.

Bigscreen YouTube

Over the years Bigscreen has grown from a PC mirroring app to a fully functioning social experience, sitting on a virtual sofa to rent the latest films or switch things up to a nice cinema space. At its heart though, Bigscreen has always been about getting flatscreen content into VR, wherever it comes from, and YouTube always seemed like a big miss.

That’s now been rectified with Bigscreen’s own native YouTube all supported headsets such as Meta Quest, Valve Index, HTC Vive, and all SteamVR and Windows Mixed Reality. The free update means you can watch YouTube as you normally would – just in VR this time – whilst YouTube Premium users can log in to get ad-free viewing.

Nothing has been missed out by the sound of it, YouTube TV subscribers can still watch live sports and TV as well as rent movies through the platform. Being able to log in means you’ll still get all that tailored content you know and love from your favourite YouTubers.

Bigscreen

And because you’re in Bigscreen you’ll be able to watch YouTube with up to 15 people per room thanks to December’s Streaming update. That also improved the Remote Desktop feature for Meta Quest users ensuring the app now streams at 60fps over a local network.

As usual, Bigscreen has teased what’s next on its agenda, saying in the next few months: “we’re also launching a huge improvement to our Social VR platform with a new friends system, bluetooth keyboard/gamepad support for Remote Desktop, and more!”

For continued updates on the latest VR streaming technology, keep reading gmw3.