Author Topic: Optiview Non Reflective Pinball Glass  (Read 732 times)

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Offline pinsanity

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Re: Optiview Non Reflective Pinball Glass
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2013, 11:07:47 PM »
While we are being coy....

I spoke to a sales rep for Viridian today (the company that manufactures Optiview anti reflective glass), who gave me some very interesting info on this product.

It seems this glass isn't quite as expensive as we are being led to believe.

#@#

(More info coming after the Easter break, once I have rock solid quotes and order quantities.)  ^^^

Hi any news come of this, the only place in Australia I can find that mentioned non reflective glass was Mr Pinball, but I can't find it on the site anymore and he doesn't bother with replying to emails on the subject..

Yes, I bought one "test" sheet direct from the Pilkington/Viridian factory for $175 a sheet (versus MrPinballs $350, PDI's $295 and JJP's $295).  It is a sheet of glass with an anti reflective clear laminated film* on both sides. The glass has a slight bluey/greenish tinge to it (due to the film?) when looked at it through the edges but is not noticeable when looking at it "front on". The film is not visible when viewed front on. There was a lead "waiting" time of about a month from memory - I presume they wait for sufficient orders to come in and then make them in bulk batches of various glass thicknesses to save labour costs due to the manufacturing process.

*This is simplifying it a bit, as it is more than just a sheet of laminated film, the film itself is chemically baked on to eliminate reflection. Viridian has patented and trademarked the process as "Optiview". Other manufacturers have similar processes which they have patented/trademarked as explained earlier in this thread.

Honest review (rather than I spent so much on a sheet of pinball glass so I want it to be amazing &&) is that it is far better than standard glass no doubt about it, but there is still "some" level of reflection that you can see at certain angles whilst playing (the orange DMD reflection in particular at the top of the playfield glass). I tend to move around a fair bit whilst playing pins in order to keep track of the ball - standing straight up and facing the machine is virtually crystal clear and looks like there is literally no glass there at all, but once you move around a bit and look at it on a sideways angle is when some reflection starts to appear - so it is definitely not 100% effective. (They do claim it will eliminate 98% of reflection so I guess this is the 2% margin of error :tumble:).*

Personally, I think the price would need to fall below the $100 per sheet price point for me to buy more.

I have heard similar feedback regarding lack of 100% anti-reflection from credible buyers of anti-reflective glass in their respective countries. In that case I am rather glad I didn't outlay the $300 plus shipping for a sheet of glass which essentially has the same reflective properties as the one bought locally.