Sol7 (ImmersaView) Commitment to supporting this community

Thanks everyone so far for all the comments and interest in Sol7. This forum has had some great responses which I hope has generated some good news for all!

Today we've had a number of internal discussions which I thought would be valuable to share with everyone before any 'official' announcement. Our aim here is to try and ensure we meet expectations before settling on a official position.

We're potentially opening up a Pandora's box by listing our thoughts, but we have tried to strike a balance between all factors!

Our current thoughts are ....
- provide a home-sim (non-commercial) version of Sol7
- add support for TH2Go and horizontal span mode
- software would be licensed on a per PC model, so a number of projectors can be run from one PC.
- pricing would be in the region of 350-400 USD per PC with one full year of email support as well as immediate access to all minor and major upgrades
- optional upgrades and support beyond the first year at $50 per annum to stay up to date with current versions

I look forward to hearing responses and please feel free to respond via email if preferred. I hope this shows our commitment to supporting this community and aiding with visual set-ups with the use of Sol7. :D

Wow. At that level of pricing I might even consider using this for my new sim!
Now I just need to find projectors in a reasonable price range.

Andy,
this is great news for the community! I feel glad to have brought Sol7 to the attention of the home flight simulation community as well as bringing the opportunity in the home sim market to the attention of Immersaview.

I hope with the new features, new pricing and new market, everyone will benefit! This is truly one of the advantages of being part of a community.

Steve

:cool: Thanks Andy! Definitely good news for the credit card...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andyb

- provide a home-sim (non-commercial) version of Sol7
- add support for TH2Go and horizontal span mode
- software would be licensed on a per PC model, so a number of projectors can be run from one PC.
- pricing would be in the region of 350-400 USD per PC with one full year of email support as well as immediate access to all minor and major upgrades
- optional upgrades and support beyond the first year at $50 per annum to stay up to date with current versions

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Well, you've got my purchase as soon as this is finalized. It addresses all my immediate needs. :D

Fantastic news AndyB, you've definately got me as a customer :) :) :)

Andy- thank you for working with and for the community- it is my sincere hope that you benefit greatly from this, as there has always been a need to address this and it appears that now a solution is finally at hand, and for a very reasonable cost.

Thanks again

Anxiously waiting and ready to invest...major news!

Great news !

Spread it on :D

So, to sum it all up,

I think that we have determined that this is our solution to:

*Use curved screens to project our external views onto without the inherited issues of warping and side-speed issues.

*Future Tripple Head 2 Go integration

*There is a software solution to forego the TH2G

Please feel free to add on to this, or to make a summary, if you guys care to.

Wow

Sounds like christmas can be very early this year:)

This is exellent news.

This will sure help alot of people around the globe including me:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AndyT

Wow. At that level of pricing I might even consider using this for my new sim!
Now I just need to find projectors in a reasonable price range.

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I just bought the Optoma 32HD(or70HD), 688.00 Hands down per several magazines and my personal seeing it, BEST buy for 07,08!!!!!!!!!!!!


Count me in as a future buyer!! :)

andyb:
Great news. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andyb

- add support for TH2Go and horizontal span mode
- software would be licensed on a per PC model, so a number of projectors can be run from one PC.
- pricing would be in the region of 350-400 USD per PC with one full year of email support as well as immediate access to all minor and major upgrades
- optional upgrades and support beyond the first year at $50 per annum to stay up to date with current versions

:D

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With this I will be a definite customer !

Erhard in Thailand

Hi Andy,

Even with my single Projector Curved setup, I feel that Sol7 may be able to help me achieve better visuals.

Perhaps I should try the demo and see where it benefits. This is more the Pricing that we as home builders would be able to budget for.

Great work, and I am eager to see the product in action.

Trev

Just wondering if anyone has got Sol7 demo working with fs9?

I can get it working with other applications, but not fs9!

I talked with Andy, and his testing was on fsX, so just wondering if any gurus out there have done the trick.

Don

I tested Sol7 with FS9 and it was flawless :) Quite exciting to see it worked so well!!!

Hopefully not a dumb question, but is there a difference between FS9 and FS2004??

Just to clarify that we've tested Sol7 with 2004 and X with no problems.

Hi Andy,
FS9 is MS Flight sim 2004;).

Sorry Andy

I reloaded fs9, and now no problems.

It is possible that that the shortcut that I was launching fs9 from was a shortcut to "safe mode"

Just to let everyone know, that I rang Andy about my problem, and his support on the phone was great, even though I have not yet purchased his software.
Says a lot for this Company.

I am sure that this software will be of great advantage to sim builders worldwide, and with this sort of support, it really is a winner.

Don

To expand a bit on what Phill said....

Microsoft labels the product by the year it came out. MS Flight Sim 2004 is the 9th version of the sim, so that's what we normally call it. With FSX they changed and are now calling it 'Ten' (Roman 'X').

I am in.
And to support a aussie company as well, gotta be good.:D

Yes, count me in as well.

Darryl

So Matt- I have the feeling that now all the hard work you put into building a curved screen can actually be put to some use? Give us some feedback on your thoughts, since you were working so hard on that project before the sim was tore down.

TH2GO and Sol7 is the ultimate for us builders, great great news !

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tomlin

So Matt- I have the feeling that now all the hard work you put into building a curved screen can actually be put to some use? Give us some feedback on your thoughts, since you were working so hard on that project before the sim was tore down.

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Anxiously waiting for the final Sol7 product to be announced :) It will work perfectly with my screen setup. Looking forward to it :)

I am waiting to see your result aswell Matt O. Sure it will be great.

:)

This is exactly what I was waiting for..... one copy for me please :-)

Christian

I tried the demo version with FSX. It took me maybe 2-3 minutes to have the curved screen nice and straight no flared edges. I am running with a Q 6600 4gig ram 512 MB geforce. 2 Dlp projectors with the matrox dual head to go.There was no noticable frame rate drop .But switching into stereo mode, it did not work .it messed up the image. I tried a movie with Power DVD and it did not work still had flared edges..So there's my 2 cents worth.
I would buy the software especially if they can solve the stereo issue.

@canadian

If you read all postings about this matter, you will find that Sol7 is not made for video applications, only for 3D stuff like Flight Simulator or similar. And you would also know that it is currently working with only 1 screen per PC. The multiscreen thing (or maybe stereo too) is something that will come in a future release.... I hope so.

Christian

Hello

I tested Sol7 thanks to Chris' personal hint. For the time being this is not a solution for my cockpit-setup.

Reasons:
- too expensive (my limit would be 200 $)
- not useful for 1-beamer setup
- not useful for low-resolution beamer (HD-ready or full-HD is recommended)


Regards - Valentin
http://homecockpit.blogspot.com

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Majorfibbs

Hello

I tested Sol7 thanks to Chris' personal hint. For the time being this is not a solution for my cockpit-setup.

Reasons:
- too expensive (my limit would be 200 $)
- not useful for 1-beamer setup
- not useful for low-resolution beamer (HD-ready or full-HD is recommended)


Regards - Valentin
http://homecockpit.blogspot.com

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NICE thing is, REAL HD 'beamers' are as cheap as low res ones now. I just bought a top rated HD projector for 688.95!!!!!!!!! Awesome quality! You can buy 2 of these for what i paid for my Dell2400 3 years ago!! :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 737NUT

NICE thing is, REAL HD 'beamers' are as cheap as low res ones now. I just bought a top rated HD projector for 688.95!!!!!!!!! Awesome quality! You can buy 2 of these for what i paid for my Dell2400 3 years ago!! :(

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Ops, i thought the Full HD projector were in 2.5k-5k Euro range. Beware HD ready and Full HD are different!
Only the Full HD proj. are capable of display High resolution, the HD ready only accept signals then they do scaling.

So can you point as which projector you had bought?

NTSC = 720x480
720p = 1280x720
1080p = 1920x1080

I own a few InFocus SP5000's, which are 720p. HD tends to mean merely higher pixel resolution than NTSC. Lots of diff between 720p and 1080p though.

A great resource for finding info on projectors is Projector Central:
http://www.projectorcentral.com/projectors.cfm

They offer a great overview of features as well as pricing (RRP and Street!). Most models offer a throw distance calculator which is really handy for determining screen size.

For those planning to use single projectors on a curved screen, we would certainly recommend using 16:9 aspect ratio projects (720p / 1080p). If you can get it, lens shift is also a very helpful feature.

A couple of weeks back, we installed a single projector display at a local Uni in sunny Queensland, Australia:
[ame="http://youtube.com/watch?v=AqCcnXu1VWI"]YouTube - Curved Display[/ame]

The video shows a screen approaching a 100 degree horizontal field of view with a 720p projector .... I have one of these at home which works well from one projector:D:D:D

Look for Optoma HD70 and some were sold as HD32, They are TRUE HD and got voted best bargain/steal for an HD projector by several mags. I have owned CRT's and many projectors and this one is NUTS how good the quality is versus the price. They are 720P but i dare ANY of you to really notice a difference on 98% of material you watch, to see a difference between 720 and 1080. I'll argue it till i die. :)

Rob, Thanks for the projector info. I'll definitely be looking at those.

I agree with you regarding the difference between the 720 and 1080. My projector is a 720p and if it wasn't for the contrast ratio, you wouldn't be able to tell between the projector and a Plasma 1080i.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Majorfibbs

Hello

I tested Sol7 thanks to Chris' personal hint. For the time being this is not a solution for my cockpit-setup.

Reasons:
- too expensive (my limit would be 200 $)
- not useful for 1-beamer setup
- not useful for low-resolution beamer (HD-ready or full-HD is recommended)


Regards - Valentin
http://homecockpit.blogspot.com

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Hi Valentin, my understanding was that this software would be Perfect for those with a single projector, as you can have a single beamer shooting at a big curved screen placed close to your sim and then you would be able to put off needing additional projectors for a while. Andy?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 737NUT

HD projector for 688.95

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Rob, you're talking about the HD70, right? Lowest price I can find is $799. Where did you buy yours? Oh, and the 1000 lumens, you think that's bright enough?

Matt O.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MattO

Rob, you're talking about the HD70, right? Lowest price I can find is $799. Where did you buy yours? Oh, and the 1000 lumens, you think that's bright enough?

Matt O.

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The InFocus SP5000 is also in that price range. I've seen the consistently around $600-700.