Well, I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that they are pancake lenses, but rather that they are better lenses... The FOV does improve, but Quest 2 has little FOV, my old Odyssey Plus glasses have more FOV than Quest 2 and Pico 4, and they are not Pancake.
I honestly don't think Pancake affects the video much, but it does affect 3D apps and games in terms of light leakage and so on.
That's why I use PC VR. The standard resolution of Quest 2 is what it is. But on PC with the power of a good graphic card you can apply supersampling to the video by 200 or 300%., and the definition is much improved. I am happy how I watch movies in VR, the definition I get is very good, even in JAV VR.
Of course, there are studios that have bad image quality, as you said.
I didnt mean that pancake lenses have a bigger FOV (actually the opposite is true) but the perceived FOV is higher because of the shorter distance to the lens. But thats compared to the Quest 2.
Odyssey+ does have a very good FOV, especially the vertical FOV is among the best.
Pancake lenses are clear lenses (think of using a regular glass) while fresnel lenses have these rings that always give some kind of blurry/milky image. But not all is better, you will have other problems (smearing and light leaking).
Having full clarity of the image would be beneficial for videos as well, but right now it seems that pancake lenses need much more light so Quest Pro and Pico 4 does not support 120Hz, which is a dealbreaker to me.
I advise you to try out the Pico 4 (they have it in a lot of electronic stores to try out in my country).
Your experience may differ but i think i have a good experience to compare (having watched JAV on Oculus Go, Oculus Quest 2, Samsung Odyssey+, HP Reverb G1, Meta Quest Pro (pancake), Pico 4 (pancake))
As for Sharpening: Heresphere for Quest 2 made a lot of progress implementing sharpening in the native Quest player. It does improve the image quality a lot, but currently we are reaching a point where CPU power of the Quest2 is noticable, so its good that Quest 3 with a lot more power is coming soon, although i think for 8k videos, not a lot of sharpening is required for having a good image quality.
Thanks for the recommendation. I will keep it in mind when I eventually purchase the device.
I have seen NAS mentioned here and there. Hm... I am a very simple individual - playing the files directly from the device is more up my alley, though I do acknowledge the lacking storage capacity and slow transfer speeds. I currently have 11 full VR videos - 238GB. My previous collection of 2D JAV was around 200GB for a little over 30 videos. Streaming from NAS does remove this limitation, but I'm just very lazy, haha. The simpler, the better. Though expensive, I'd much rather have a powerful laptop/pc and use a tethered PC vr instead. That is the end goal for me. The Quest will be my introduction to this world. A part of me wishes to wait and save up for a powerful enough rig, but I cannot bring myself to wait.
Yes, the relatively poor resolution compared to Western material is a sentiment I have seen throughout this VR thread. It is something I have deliberated on. Have a number of nitpicks with 2D JAV - I'm sure 3D comes with its own unique quirks. I have two videos from NHVR that I am looking forward to viewing, one older and one newer - hope I am not let down.
Having briefly peeked into the audiophile world, I have an appreciation for choosing the most suitable headphone for the occasion. I prefer wired headphones, though the ones I have my eye on are reported to be decent for sound cancelling, without having any ANC tech. Good to keep in mind. I'll amend my setup to maximise immersion when the time comes.
You dont really have to set up a NAS, especially with just having a few videos. Setting up a network share on your computer would not take longer than 5min and is supported by most players. guide i.e. here
https://pureinfotech.com/setup-network-file-sharing-windows-10/
Having a NAS would only make sense if you are having a really big library and want to use media library setup to easier browse your content (currently my XBVR has around 1500~ VR movies and around 30TB, it does really gets difficult to find a movie otherwise
)
If you just want to play videos having a powerful setup is actually not necessary as all Geforce 2xxx/3xxx are able to play 8k videos without any issues, as they do have the same video encoder. Quest 2 also has a chip specially designed for playing 8k content (Qualcomm XR2). I did use supersampling on my Odyssey+ as well back then, and wasnt really impressed (differs from Walle12's experience)
The Problem with tethered VR is that its mostly a dying market as most companies go for standalone VR. The only positive side is that you could get large FOV headsets like Pimax (but they do require a lot of tweaking and are quite expensive). Most other, more affordable, VR headsets are either discontinued like the Odyssey+ or not really much better than the Quest2, such as the Reverb G2.
So my advice for you would be, as you are not in a hurry and concious about spending to much:
Wait till fall for the Quest 3 release and get a new/used Quest 2 at that time, and as i said if would save the 100$/euros price difference and go for the small model as for that kind of money you could easily get another 5TB harddrive, because once you are hooked you want more content, and especially given 8k videos, you would need a lot of storage space.
Getting a device with larger storage would only make sense to me if you want to use it a lot when travelling.
