Following reveals of TPCast Plus and TPCast for Windows Mixed Reality, the wireless VR specialists TPCast have also announced their “next-generation” technologies, called TPCast 2.0. The company claims their improved system can ‘easily adapt’ to VR headsets as high as 8K resolution, while reducing the latency to 1ms.

Despite HTC’s announcement of an official Vive Wireless Adaptor that supports both Vive and Vive Pro systems, TPCast refuse to have their CES thunder stolen, announcing a “next-generation” wireless VR solution adaptable for “any headset” up to 8K resolution. No launch window or pricing estimates were provided.

According to the press release, TPCast 2.0 employs a “new generation ultra-low latency codec technology and an upgraded TPCast ​​real-time data control protocol.”  The new codec is capable of a 50:1 compression ratio, which “significantly reduces the bandwidth required for video data transmission while bounding the latency to 1ms.”

Image courtesy TPCast

TPCast 2.0 is said to benefit from scalability, “making it easy to adapt to any headset including 3K, 4K, and 8K video resolution,” and has the capability to “preserve the user experience compared to a wired connection.” The statement also claims TPCast’s proprietary technology can deliver a “commercial-grade VR experience.”

“The new TPCast ​​2.0 announcement is another milestone for TPCast’s innovation,” said TPCast CEO, Michael Liu. “As a leader in the Global Wireless VR space, TPCast is committed to moving the industry forward with its technological advancements. TPCast 2.0 has the highest performance, the broadest scalability, and the most mature product capabilities. (Its) support for a full range of mainstream headsets in various deployment ranges allows TPCast to continue with its vision of unleashing the VR world.”

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With the recent announcement of 5G cloud VR rendering technology, combined with the new TPCast 2.0 technologies, the company claims to be the first wireless VR provider to support “short, mid and long range VR demands in multi-user environments,” through the use of WiGig or 802.11ay for short range, Wi-Fi or 802.11ax for mid range, and 5G / 4.5G / FTTH for long distance.

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Dominic Brennan
The trial version of Microsoft’s Monster Truck Madness probably had something to do with it. And certainly the original Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. A car nut from an early age, Dominic was always drawn to racing games above all other genres. Now a seasoned driving simulation enthusiast, and former editor of Sim Racer magazine, Dominic has followed virtual reality developments with keen interest, as cockpit-based simulation is a perfect match for the technology. Conditions could hardly be more ideal, a scientist once said. Writing about simulators lead him to Road to VR, whose broad coverage of the industry revealed the bigger picture and limitless potential of the medium. Passionate about technology and a lifelong PC gamer, Dominic suffers from the ‘tweak for days’ PC gaming condition, where he plays the same section over and over at every possible combination of visual settings to find the right balance between fidelity and performance. Based within The Fens of Lincolnshire (it’s very flat), Dominic can sometimes be found marvelling at the real world’s ‘draw distance’, wishing virtual technologies would catch up.
  • Wildtz0r

    Why not start making the current Rift/Vive implementation work properly first?

    • Rita

      Go-o-gle is paying 97$ pe-r- hour,with wee-k-ly payouts.You can also ava-i-l this.O-n tuesday I got a brand new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $11752 this l-a-st four weeks..wi-t-h-out any doubt it’s the most-c-o-mfortable job I have ever done .. It sou-n-ds unbelievab-l-e but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it!wx18q:➨➨➨ http://GoogleCashGlobalWorkFromHome/online/easytasks… ♥♥j♥♥♥l♥p♥i♥♥♥h♥♥v♥♥t♥a♥♥♥s♥i♥♥♥q♥♥♥u♥y♥r♥♥♥h♥♥y♥♥♥c♥♥t♥♥♥p♥♥m♥♥j♥♥♥u♥♥e♥♥♥y♥i:::::!dw262f:lweid

      • XE

        Good answer,

        Not Re-a-l-l-y.

  • JustNiz

    The level of lossy video compression they are using to achieve this will degrade the image quality noticeably, especially for higher resolution headsets.

  • Yulius Halim

    Well, I told pimax through the forums to try out TPcast’s wireless solution 2.0, so they’d know how well it can work with their 8K headset on thursday. Would have been great marketing for both companies. But Pimax ignored it… not sure what’s going on in their head.

  • Lucidfeuer

    Wifi.ay or ax? Now, that’s straight forward! But it’s the hardware they need to work on, not codec or compression…

  • John

    Tpcast is struggling to stay relevant. Its quite telling when HTC announce their own wireless package directly competing with one of their own highly hyped ViveX-accelerator members. Tpcast will be gone in 12 months.

    • Joe Roche

      They have the only available wireless solution for vr. How more relevant can they get?

  • Mukund Dhananjay

    First, fix the damn tracking bugs which render games nearly unplayable if you put the base stations anywhere more than 4.5-5m apart in room scale. You get grey screens literally everywhere, with absolutely no way to predict where it’s going to happen.

    And for god’s sake show diagnostics, about when packet loss occurred, and fix the damn restart cycle.

    Till that point, the TPCast is nothing more than an expensive science project.

    • Joe Roche

      What has base station position got to do with tpcast?

      • Mukund Dhananjay

        In theory, nothing.

        When using in a large room scale setup practically? Everything. The headset loses tracking literally everywhere and anywhere, even in areas where it has no business losing tracking. The net result is that we get a bunch of grey screens and an unplayable game.

        With the cable attached? No problems at all.

        • Joe Roche

          Yes but that’s got nothing to do with how far apart your base stations are. Tracking dropouts are related to the WiFi router – try changing the wireless mode to 11a only and changing the channel if there is wireless congestion in your area/network. Alternatively, OpenTPCast can improve your performance. It requires another piece of £25 software, but in my opinion it’s well worth it.

          • Mukund Dhananjay

            Whatever you’ve mentioned, I’ve tried. It just does not work consistently enough. I’ve mentioned the base station distance, because in all my tests, as long as the base stations were within 5 meters of each other, I had fewer dropouts. The minute I placed them more than 5.5m away, boom. Dropouts everywhere.

            Re OpenTPCast: honestly, I’m sick and tired of this POS hardware. I would like to do nothing more than just chuck it away and forget it exists.

          • Joe Roche

            Haha yeah I feel your frustration, and no you weren’t being rude. It’s a very badly flawed piece of tech, I only wished you a better experience! Hopefully the next wireless product to market will be more consumer ready.