Headplay


Last night I had a chance to checkout a new technology that has been getting a lot of hype around here. Headplay is a display headset that gives a more immersive visual experience.

My experience with it was relatively positive given the short time I had the product. I had a bit of trouble adjusting it adequately to my field of vision, but I have a problem with one of my eyes that probably hindered my efforts.

It doesn’t track your head movements, which sounds cool, but after discussing it with the rep, the logic to not include that function makes sense. There is too much of a learning curve getting used to different types of control.

The system includes The Viewer, an adjustable display that can project resolutions up to 1024 x 768 on its LCoS micro display. The Liberator is the heart of the system. It handles all of the interpolation and can receive signals from NTSC, PAL and SECAM. The box has inputs for composite, component and S-Video, as well as VGA.

All-in-all, I think this could be appealing to some of the more hardcore gamers, but I’m not sure it’s all there just yet for typical consumers. This sentiment is echoed by the $499 price tag.