Oculus's $80 sensor cameras are just low resolution webcams aka: facebook can watch you fap

[El Periodista]

[QUOTE=J!NX;51744517]Vives tracking is the samish as Rift, except in reverse

instead of a mounted tracking device, the headset itself is the tracking device with mounted ceiling emitters. This is why the controllers and headset are made of swiss cheese, so the emitters can send signals to the tracking nodes in the devices

the rift has a mounted tracking device, and the rift itself sends signals

this means that you can't actually use the vive's "camera's" as camera's. In fact, they don't even connect to the computer at all. They are blue toothed to the headset and together so they sync up[/QUOTE]

Aside from the actual camera. You can use that as a camera.

[editline]29th January 2017[/editline]

[QUOTE=Saxon;51744562]Got a source on that? Cause all I see here is a low resolution camera from that still[/QUOTE]

Read the article. It's low-resolution because of the way the sensor parses data before it sends it to the software. As well, to understand exactly why the Rift sensor has the resolution that it does, you have to understand a few things about digital cameras, which I will explain.

Digital cameras record a scene by using a sensor chip made of smaller sensors, called photosensors. Each one of these sends a signal to a processing chip when it is struck by photons. To capture an image, the software scans the frame, and reports luminance values for each photosensor to a signal processor that converts it to data. In the case of a video camera, that data will be converted into video data. In the case of the Rift's cameras, that data is converted to signal frame data, which isolates and tracks the positions of IR LEDs on the headset and controllers. If you've ever played around with a PS3 EyeToy, you've seen the kind of visible light masking that the Rift also uses.

Anyway, scanning the sensor takes time, and that time is only increased with each additional photosensor on the chip. Potential framerates are directly proportional to the resolution of the sensor. This is one of the reasons why many cameras that can take a still image above 4K cannot record 4K video, and why many webcams have framerates of 30-60 frames per second. [URL="https://www3.oculus.com/en-us/blog/building-a-sensor-for-low-latency-vr/"]The camera tech Oculus was working with back in 2013 supported polling rates of 1000hz, or 1000 frames per second[/URL]. I was not able to find a more recent source, but there isn't reason to believe they would reduce the polling rate of the camera in the consumer product, so we can assume it's somewhere around there.

Sensors that support these polling rates also have to be designed with larger thermal sinks, as each scan of the sensor produces waste heat that can potentially damage the sensors if not vented. We see this in cameras like the Sony A6300, which features 4K recording at 30p with a hard-limit of 30 minutes to avoid damage. As the Rift is meant to be used for a significantly longer period of time, the cameras have to be designed so as to not overheat during extended sessions.

The upside to these high framerates is that very little light is actually striking the sensor between frames, which acts as a sort of visible light filter. Everything that isn't the high-intensity infrared light produced by the headset (and direct sunlight, which is why windows and mirrors can mess with tracking) is unlikely to resolve in the final image, similar to shining a flashlight at a camera but underexposing the image by several stops.

The Rift's sensor is a relatively unique product, as high-frequency infrafred cameras are often limited to lab equipment and industrial hardware. And this sort of niche use case makes it expensive to manufacture, even though the sensor itself is fairly low-res.

[Curls]

[QUOTE=El Periodista;51744673]Aside from the actual camera. You can use that as a camera.[/QUOTE]

To be fair, that is directly meant to be a camera so

[Paul-Simon]

[QUOTE=Saxon;51744562]Got a source on that? Cause all I see here is a low resolution camera from that still[/QUOTE]

There's a source in the OP.
Apparently the camera runs at 1280x960 @ some framerate unknown, likely 90fps.(?)
IIRC, if you push the PS Eye to that framerate, it'll run at 320 x 240.

I am not sure why the picture the guy got out of it looks so bad, however.