Taiwan-based display and electronics maker AUO plans to showcase a range of new displays this week, including a 2.9-inch 3.5K × 3.5K display with HDR capabilities for VR headsets.
AUO announced Monday that it plans to showcase its newest displays during the annual Display Week event this week in Silicon Valley. Among its latest wares is a 2.9-inch LTPS LCD display made for VR headsets.
Beyond simply having a very impressive resolution of 3,456 × 3,456 (1,688 PPI) per display, AUO says the new display uses mini LED backlighting which affords it up to 2,304 dimming zones for HDR.
HDR (High Dynamic Range) is the ability of a display to produce ranges of brightness that far exceed standard displays, thereby allowing the display to more realistically portray varying levels of brightness, especially for high brightness content like scenes with bright sunlight, fire, explosions, and more. No commercially available VR headsets offers HDR capabilities.
Though the HDR capabilities of AUO’s display can’t be controlled on a per-pixel basis, the 2,304 dimming zones spread across the display can be adjusted individually to boost brightness where needed according to the current frame.
Other specs of the display are still unknown: refresh rate, response time, contrast ratio, and response time of the HDR zones, and it isn’t clear what challenges the latter could pose for critical VR-specific display characteristics like low-persistence.
The company says that some of its other new LTPS LCD displays (not intended for VR) boast a 120Hz refresh rate, 8.3ms response time, and up to 1,000 nits peak brightness, though it isn’t clear if these specs are shared by the VR display.
AUO plans to show the new HDR VR display this week at Display Week, though hasn’t spoken of price or availability of the display.