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How big was the Enterprise?

I thought that you guys knew.

They did it to drive us nuts.

Me? I go with the 947 foot length as depicted. Trying to find excuses to disregard the lengths, because they were never verbal...


Think of it in another way.

Leg room.

Is there enough practical room not to go insane in eighteen years as a maximum concept?

In still other words, at what point is this size of ship, too small for a prolonged mission?

For those whom have never even opened the book, the stated maximum sustained mission is eighteen years.

That one chapter, is full of numbers. Numbers count.
 
You should show us with some photos of a CRT monitor or CRT TV displaying comprehensible numbers from that scene in "The Enterprise Incident".

I was pointing out that reason is sufficient. By analogy, if you posted a blurry ruler and challenged me to tell you in which direction it is pointed, I don't have to be able to read the digits if I can see equidistant digits and the fact that the splotchy text suddenly widens at the tenth and beyond.

I'm not saying you're grasping for straws but even with a perfect photo of the image on a CRT monitor it won't magically produce legible text.

Maybe so, but your images do not demonstrate that with half the lines missing on the important bits.

If you don't care to build what you are seeing in the illustration then sure it is close enough to cling to for the size of the Enterprise. :beer:

Straw-grasping, indeed.
 
That's a 13 inch screen, which is what I had in my college dorm TV/VCR combo unit.
That's not the critical stat. What's most important is the picture resolution.

Great. From your own source, here:

North American television settled on the NTSC standard. Image transmission would occur at 30 frames per second (or, really, 60 fields per second). (Unfortunately there was a minor glitch found with this in the early color TV era, and thus the framerate was bumped down a smidgen to 29.97fps.) Transmissions featured 525 actual scan lines, though with some of these budgeted for non-visual detail only 480 were theoretically visible. Given the 4:3 aspect ratio, the maximum resolution was 640 x 480, or about 0.3 megapixels. In practice, though, broadcast TV only featured about 330 pixels per horizontal scanline. That's 330 x 480, or almost .16 megapixels.​

Sorry, but at that resolution, there are only about three or fewer vertical scanlines per digit (or character, in the case of the text under the ruler), and even fewer phosphor triads horizontally. See picture below.

Also, it was often easier with 480i to read something when it was being played rather than trying to freeze frame, due to interpolation.

It couldn't make a difference. Even a 3 x 3 pixel character set, and this is generous under the circumstances, is just too low resolution to come to any firm conclusions about what information is being represented. Under optimal conditions, 5 x 5 is considered minimal.

theentinc_ntsc.png


edited to add - I'll even concede that it would be arguable to conclude that numbers over the scale read 0, 50, 100 based on the perceived numeral widths and alternating ruler pattern, which shows a five count, but the unsolvable problem is what are the units? It's in the text below the ruler, but the resolution is too low to read the letters, which could be anything.
 
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Won’t that be the case for any 720x480 interlaced CRT display, regardless of if it’s 10 inches diagonal or 50?
The issue is that his pictures have the lines specifically missing only on the area of interest.

Here's the demonstration from my previously linked primer of interlacing:

deepimpact-scanlines.jpg

Compare to the full image used to demonstrate progressive scan:

deepimpact.jpg


His images look like the latter until you get to the text area, and then they look like the former.

Therefore, they do not prove the claim that the text is unreadable, and they fail to do so because half the image is missing.
 
Is there a suggestion here that the canonicity of this diagram entirely depends on how it was first viewed or aired?

I wasn't alive in the 60s or 70s so a lot of exposure to that era was the movies and occasional repeat on the BBC. It wasn't until TOS-R that I could watch it in its entirety, and the same picture quality is now available on Netflix UK. (Actually it seems more crisp on Netflix, maybe there was a later remaster?)

I don't think I'm alone in that either, so I question why a particular medium at a particular time is required to authenticate the image.
 
Is there a suggestion here that the canonicity of this diagram entirely depends on how it was first viewed or aired?

I wasn't alive in the 60s or 70s so a lot of exposure to that era was the movies and occasional repeat on the BBC. It wasn't until TOS-R that I could watch it in its entirety, and the same picture quality is now available on Netflix UK. (Actually it seems more crisp on Netflix, maybe there was a later remaster?)

I don't think I'm alone in that either, so I question why a particular medium at a particular time is required to authenticate the image.

Not necessarily. The question of what information is contained in the diagram was put to rest with The Making of Star Trek.

The claim that the information was legible on screen is what I was addressing, and I think not.

In any case, being in canon is not decisive to determine the definitive dimensions. There is contradictory information in canon, James R. Kirk vs James T. Kirk being one oft-cited example. Saying it's in canon is only that, saying it's in canon. Canon and continuity are two different things.

What people want to know is what are the dimensions of the Enterprise in-continuity.
 
Is there a suggestion here that the canonicity of this diagram entirely depends on how it was first viewed or aired?
I think people are appealing to, for want of a better term, the "rubber-ducky rule." Something that was expected to be illegible in the final product shouldn't have as much weight as something that everyone knew would be clearly seen like, for instance, the relatively tiny shuttle with plenty of room in the shuttlebay (which we know from diagrams and later "to scale" versions should've been a much tighter fit).
 
That's not the critical stat. What's most important is the picture resolution.

Both are relevant, especially since he is trying to use the 13 inch CRT even with NTSC DVD source to claim it is unreadable.

Sorry, but at that resolution, there are only about three or fewer vertical scanlines per digit, and even fewer phosphor triads horizontally.
It couldn't make a difference. Even a 3 x 3 pixel character set, and this is generous under the circumstances, is just too low resolution to come to any firm conclusions about what information is being represented. Under optimal conditions, 5 x 5 is considered minimal.

We aren't dealing with pixels or perfectly placed scanlines. We're dealing with analog in all its fuzzy glory, with information to be gleaned from each variation in brightness and color here and there with each run of the gun across the screen.

And do recall that this was perfectly readable in PAL SD DVD screenshots as posted online 24 years ago, so he would have an uphill battle making the claim he is making even if his images had been complete.
 
I was pointing out that reason is sufficient. By analogy, if you posted a blurry ruler and challenged me to tell you in which direction it is pointed, I don't have to be able to read the digits if I can see equidistant digits and the fact that the splotchy text suddenly widens at the tenth and beyond.

Maybe so, but your images do not demonstrate that with half the lines missing on the important bits.

Straw-grasping, indeed.

It is sounding alot like you can't produce a photo of that scene from "The Enterprise Incident" from a CRT with the numbers legible. I'd be happy to see any photos to show otherwise.
 
By the way, one problem that people keep overlooking is: How are you going to repeat a first run viewing? Where are the video recorders? Is your plan to shoot a movie of the TV screen? Quick, with your camera!??

By the time people had recordings of the episodes to work with, The Making of Star Trek was already on bookshelves. Heck the book was out the same month that "The Enterprise Incident" first aired, rendering the question academic. :techman:

In any case, when we discuss first run legibility, it's very much a one and done thing. You got one chance. Blink, you miss it, and you have to wait for a rerun, or you phone your friend and ask what they saw.

For a gauge of what's actually legible, absent good behind-the-scenes depictions of the graphics employed, even with multiple digital versions, we're still to this day debating what's in the Star Ship Status chart in "Court Martial." The numbers there have much greater resolution than those in the monitor display in "The Enterprise Incident"!
 
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It is sounding alot like you can't produce a photo of that scene from "The Enterprise Incident" from a CRT with the numbers legible. I'd be happy to see any photos to show otherwise.
That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

To review, you made the claim that no one could have discerned anything out of "The Enterprise Incident" diagram as aired (while also arguing that we should notice the minor differences in the drawing versus the eleven foot model and consider them reason to disregard the drawing, with no apparent thought given to the self-contradiction inherent in that juxtaposition). Therefore, you seem to argue, the diagram isn't canon or doesn't count or something.

I pointed out that you might not be wrong about the visibility insofar as the words (i.e. "SCALE IN FEET"), but that (a) the numbers on the scale chart are comprehensible and (b) your images are not proof of your claim because they are uniquely unclear with missing imagery elements on the areas of interest, compared to non-text areas in the same photo.

I did not suggest that (b) was intentional on your part. After all, taking a picture with missing lines in an attempt to prove that something cannot be read would be very dishonest, and I am sure that was not your intent. I'm sure you also didn't mean to further challenge someone who pointed out this problem to go get their own CRT rather than actually prove the claim with complete images. That could be viewed as even less scrupulous insofar as it could represent an attempt to shift the burden of proof while refusing to acknowledge that the claim is unproven.

Rather than continue down that hole, I'd be tempted to stipulate that the chances of someone discerning the words on the diagram in the period 1968-1985 on NTSC televisions without additional information were very low, in the absolute best case, or completely zero, at worst. That said, someone familiar with engineering sketches and used to scale diagrams of the type might've made a convincing argument for "XXXXX XX XXXX" next to an obvious scale marker being "SCALE IN FEET" -- were it not for them having the diagram in hand from the bookstore in 1968 short-circuiting any such need -- so your mileage may vary.

(The natural follow-up either way is "what of it?" It doesn't change the fact that it was in the episode, readable in a standard definition releases, along with being known to everyone at the time. I am all for a high burden of proof in regards to arguments from canon details, but the reality of 1968–1985 was that you've get Greg Jein types optically blowing up film cels for blurry mimeographed fanzines for impressed readers, not debating whether they could really see it when they watched.

Even if it wasn't "canon-to-the-viewer" until VHS or Laserdisc releases or 1999 DVD releases, so what? That doesn't make it non-canon.)

Similarly, no one is suggesting regarding (a) that the digits are perfectly clear and readable on your small CRT image. What is true, however, is that anyone who has been trying to read tiny text from screens ever would know that one uses one's brain in such scenarios. If I see a picture of a Constitution Class ship and a blurry XXX Xxxxxxxxxx beneath and NCC-1701 on the hull, I don't have to be able to mindlessly read the text to be able to reasonably assert that it says USS Enterprise. As before, I am equally certain that intentional obfuscutory obtuseness mixed with a demand for absolute 100% crystal clarity of evidence from your opponent wouldn't be your standard of behavior.
 
The Discoprise is a Cutlass. The TOS design is a Mustang.

We need a 305. The Boss 302 didn't cut it.
 
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I can’t read what that Enterprise/Klingon ship diagram says on my tv screen.

TMOST showed the diagram in the book, and I now know what that diagram read despite not being able to see it on screen.

So now it’s down to two choices:

1. I can either accept what the diagram says even though it’s illegible on screen, or

2. I can ignore it, even though I know what it says thanks to a secondary source, precisely because it was illegible on screen.

There was a time when I considered everything like this to be immutable (i.e. option 1), but over time I’ve changed my tune. I’m now more of an option 2 guy. (Especially with those ship plaques in PIC season 2.)
 
There was a time when I considered everything like this to be immutable (i.e. option 1), but over time I’ve changed my tune. I’m now more of an option 2 guy. (Especially with those ship plaques in PIC season 2.)

Same here. I'm reminded of the various equipment labels in TNG, especially the one that had the lyrics to Gilligan's Island on it.
 
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