I read somewhere that the new communicator looks the same as the original but with the addition of a viewscreen, so maybe this pic is fairly close?
I always assumed that the little deal in the middle of the communicator was a viewscreen anyway.
My logic is this... it's less secure, and more power-intensive, to send multimedia transmissions (assume that you have two or more vid pickups to give 3D imagery). Assume that the device compresses its signal into "packets" which are then burst-transmitted to their intended target (with a "to and from" header on every packet). The amount of data to be sent is far greater with video.
SO... under ordinary circumstance, you use just the audio to conserve battery power and to make yourself as "stealthy" as possible. You'd only use the 2-way video capabilities when there was a compelling reason to do so.
When you're not using it for video communication, it just shows a display of the electromagnetic (or subspace?) field the communicator is picking up... that's what the moire pattern always struck me as. A visual representation of the "radio signal."
I wish they'd have kept the display round (round displays are better than rectangular for some applications... just because we're USED to rectangles doesn't make them better, just more suitable for our current encoding systems). But otherwise, I love it.
And as for the tricorder... yeah, I'm diggin' that too. The phaser looks better still... you'd never know it wasn't a TOS one unless you compare 'em side-by side, but the new one is just a little more sturdy and "real."
Of course, the pre-TOS and post-TOS era stuff is all new... and that's more of the movie, so those of you who don't want to see the "same old same old" don't have to worry. You'll only have to bitch about TOS-era stuff for a few scenes.
