Subject: Cheap eye-phones idea

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1991 21:50 EDT

A friend of mine recent bought a used colour video camera from a store.
(It's one of those pre-camcorder thing with external VCR required)
The video cameria comes with a attachable B/W monitor.  It comes with a
len to correct the focal distance for viewing through the eye piece.
These would be quite useful for mounting onto a helmet.  All the electronics
are built and accept a composite video (NTSC) and DC power.  No messing
around required.  There is a switch to flip the image (for viewing from the
other side of the camera.)  This comes in handy as you can get the two monitors
out of the way of each other by flipping one.

He got the whole thing for about $150 Canadian.  The owner of the store
told him that he might be able to find defunction camera for parts at a much
cheaper price...  Look around pawn shop & used video equipment store around,
you might be able to find something useable for a VR homebrew project.

My second idea involve splitting the screen into 2 side for each eye.  This
save you 50% cost & weight at the expense of losing resolution.  Some optic
trickery is required...

                                _______
                               |       |
                               |       | ---->   This half for the right eye
                              -+- - - -+-
   This half for the left<---- |       |
                               |_______|

                               (screen rotated
                                by 90 degrees)

By dividing the screen this way, you can get a wider aspect ratio as a side
effect. :)

Hope this sparks some new ideas...

K. C. Lee
Elec. Eng. Grad. Student