Why was the 4-foot model built without the ability to separate?

[Ray Hardgrit]

CRTs don't look blurry and soft if they are in good working order and adjusted properly.

CRTs absolutely soften the image, that's why pixel art looks so good on them:

The classic example is transparency tricks like Sonic the Hedgehog 2's waterfall, as the alternating pixel-wide columns of blue waterfall and background are blurred together in way that leaves no hint of how it was done:

You stick an episode of TNG on that, and the subtle detail on the 6 foot miniature's hull doesn't stand a chance.

 

[David cgc]

It's exciting the first time in "Encounter at Farpoint" because it's new, but imagine in future episodes everything grinding to a halt for 2-3 minutes to show scenes of people transferring between hulls, the bridge crew taking the emergency lift to the battle bridge and the same stock special effects footage you'd seen a bunch of times of the separation itself.

It's only a problem because they allowed it to stop them. Look at the Stargate TV shows. After a couple episodes, they stopped showing the lengthy activation sequence, and by season 3, they'd just have the characters be on an alien planet without actually showing them getting there or back. If they'd established saucer separation as being common, they'd have eventually done the same thing, just cutting to the battle section on its own without any more ceremony than the average beam-down. Or, for that matter, the Defiant in DS9, or shuttlecraft, all of which stopped having their elaborate transfer-and-launch sequences almost immediately.

It wasn't that big a deal even in BoBW.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I suspect that was not so much a limitation of the model as a limitation of Image G. I suspect ILM could have done just fine with it. Heck, the refit Enterprise model built for TMP was even larger, about 8 feet, and the late, great Doug Trumbull said he would have preferred it to have been larger than that.

That’s what I meant, that Image G had a much smaller studio than ILM, and they didn’t have the same resources to shoot the six footer given both its size and weight. In fact the original plan for the Stargazer in “The Battle” was that it was supposed to be a Constitution class. I assume that was changed because Image G knew working with the Enterprise model would have been more trouble than it’s worth, so the decision was made to make a new class starship they could work with better.

 

[MaximRecoil]

CRTs absolutely soften the image, that's why pixel art looks so good on them:

Except, I already posted two pictures of my own CRT TVs showing far sharper images than the ones you posted.

Pixel art looks good on them because the corners of pixels get rounded off. It is most analogous to anti-aliasing. It does not make the picture blurry. Like I said, I wouldn't be able to watch anything on a CRT if they were anything but sharp appearing. With a blur, my eyes constantly try to bring it into focus, which is impossible because the blur would be part of the image itself, and that results in eye strain. If you want to see blurry on a CRT, turn the "focus" pot on the flyback transformer in either direction away from its proper position.

The Sega Genesis has terrible composite video output hardware, and does add its own blur to a video signal. That's why that waterfall trick loses its effectiveness if you use the Genesis' RGB output and feed it to a 15 kHz CRT arcade monitor, a 15 kHz consumer CRT TV that has been RGB modded, or a 15 kHz professional CRT monitor like a Sony PVM series.

Note that my first screenshot was from an NES (original front-loader), which has far superior composite video output compared to a Sega Genesis, or Sega anything, for that matter. Even the NES' RF output is far superior to the Genesis' direct composite video output.

You stick an episode of TNG on that, and the subtle detail on the 6 foot miniature's hull doesn't stand a chance.

Due to the resolution limitation of an NTSC broadcast, made worse by the Betacam SP source, which has less quality than NTSC is capable of. That signal chain wouldn't fare any better on a modern digital display (it would look worse IMO, though the amount of discernible detail would be the ~same).

The TOS DVDs look drastically better on a standard CRT TV than the TNG ones do even over RF (RF being an NTSC broadcast), and that's because the TOS DVDs were made from 35mm film scans while the TNG DVDs were made from Betacam SP transfers. Betacam SP tapes were also the source of the original over-the-air TNG broadcasts.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I remember when I switched from doing art on a 800x600 resolution CRT computer monitor to a LCD screen, the difference in sharpness was immediately noticeable, and that's in the best case scenario with a VGA cable. Before then I was using a TV with my Amiga 500 and viewing text on that could be a bit of an effort.

Maybe you just have a god-tier TV with astounding sharpness and clarity.

 

[MaximRecoil]

I remember when I switched from doing art on a 800x600 resolution CRT computer monitor to a LCD screen, the difference in sharpness was immediately noticeable, and that's in the best case scenario with a VGA cable. Before then I was using a TV with my Amiga 500 and viewing text on that could be a bit of an effort.

Compare the sharpness of the checkerboard pattern in my picture to yours:

Maybe you just have a god-tier TV with astounding sharpness and clarity.

I have lots of CRT displays, including TVs, arcade monitors, and PC monitors. I'm also using one right now to view this forum, the same one I've been using with my main PCs since 2006. Out of all my CRT displays, there's only one I've ever had any sharpness issues with: a 17" Samtron PC monitor that I got in a bundle with the first PC I bought in 2001. It's acceptable at 800 x 600, but anything higher than that is terrible. Even at 800 x 600 it's not as sharp as other PC monitors I have, even when they are at a higher resolution. And I've already adjusted its focus pot, so it's as good as it gets.

The natural anti-aliasing effect of CRTs may be interpreted as being less sharp than an LCD, though I don't see it that way. A good CRT looks perfectly in focus to me. On PC monitors, that natural anti-aliasing effect makes typical Web and GUI fonts look perfectly fine as-is, while LCDs need an artificial anti-aliasing effect applied to text (e.g., Microsoft's "ClearType") to try to accomplish the same thing.

 

[knightgrace]

How much does the six foot weigh versus the four foot? Then remember that time was of the essence...

In other words, laziness. You plan ahead, and know what you need to do, and do it. Yes, you can still fail, but if you are doing it right, and to your best, then most likely it will turn out well.

Furthermore, stock footage use should be minimized, for just in case situations.


The two foot for all distance shots. The four foot for moderate shots and the six foot for close ups.

In meantime all possible angles are filmed so as block us critics.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

The natural anti-aliasing effect of CRTs may be interpreted as being less sharp than an LCD, though I don't see it that way. A good CRT looks perfectly in focus to me.

When I say a CRT softens the image I don't really mean it looks out of focus. In fact CRT screens are great at making it seem like you're seeing a lot of detail.

This is the effect I'm talking about. The screen's gotten rid of all those nasty DVD MPEG compression artefacts like magic, but the runabout landing pad has disappeared too.

Though if my VHS tapes are any indication of the quality of the signal coming down the wires, then TVs weren't being given much detail to lose:

 

[Tomalak]

Although domestic VHS recordings were typically lower resolution than the full broadcast signal.

 

[CoveTom]

Although domestic VHS recordings were typically lower resolution than the full broadcast signal.

Especially since people recording programs in their homes often drastically reduced the quality by reducing at SLP speeds to get more recording time on a single tape.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

That was captured from my official copy of Lonely Among Us & Justice, for what it's worth. It's a real high quality product... uh, just ignore the fact that Geordi's not wearing his visor.

 

[MaximRecoil]

When I say a CRT softens the image I don't really mean it looks out of focus. In fact CRT screens are great at making it seem like you're seeing a lot of detail.

The person I originally replied to used the terms "blurry and soft," which is what you get when something is out of focus, such as when the focus pot on a CRT's flyback transformer is out of adjustment. Here's a picture of a Star Trek TOS DVD playing on my 32" CRT TV:

Sharp / in focus, and that's with an RF connection, which I prefer to use because I am going for the NTSC TV broadcast look (and a signal from an NTSC RF modulator is literally an NTSC TV broadcast, just a very low-powered one). My TV also has composite video, S-video, and component video (YPbPr) inputs, the latter of which would give the highest quality picture with a DVD, since DVDs are encoded with digital component video (YCbCr) to begin with.

This is the effect I'm talking about. The screen's gotten rid of all those nasty MPEG compression artefacts like magic, but the runabout landing pad has disappeared too.

Yes, CRTs are great for improving the look of poor quality video sources. Did you take those two pictures? If so, what are the details of each one?

Though if my VHS tapes are any indication of the quality of the signal coming down the wires, then TVs weren't being given much detail to lose:

VHS (240-250 TVL) isn't full NTSC broadcast quality. Betacam SP (~330 TVL) is approximately NTSC broadcast quality, and was the de facto standard TV broadcast format for many years (it was never a consumer format, unlike the completely different Betamax format, which was about 250 TVL like VHS HQ), including the years that TNG was in production. LaserDisc (~425 TVL) exceeds NTSC broadcast quality, and DVD (TVL doesn't really apply because it's a digital format, but in analog terms it would be 540 TVL) exceeds it even further.

Even though Betacam SP is NTSC broadcast quality on paper, in practice, it adds a certain "flavor" of its own to the picture, and you get better results from an NTSC broadcast by using a higher quality source, such as LaserDisc or, especially, DVD. Anything higher quality than DVD is completely wasted on an NTSC broadcast though.

Also, keep in mind that not all CRT TVs were created equal, not even when talking about the standard-resolution (~15 kHz) consumer ones. Some of them could display significantly more detail than others. When I was a kid in the 1980s it was mostly the high-end ones from the big Japanese companies (e.g., Sony, Mitsubishi) that could do that, but by the end of the CRT era in the mid 2000s, even most mid-tier ones (like my 32" RCA) were producing very good pictures by ~15 kHz standards.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Yes, CRTs are great for improving the look of poor quality video sources. Did you take those two pictures? If so, what are the details of each one?

The top one is a capture from a Region 2 DVD video file, the bottom is the same disc played through the internal player of my whatever-inch screen, photographed with my phone. I thought I was being overly optimistic, taking photos to show off the sharpness without using a tripod, but then I zoomed in and saw this:

And figured 'eh, that's steady enough'.

 

[MaximRecoil]

The top one is a capture from a Region 2 DVD video file, the bottom is the same disc played through the internal player of my whatever-inch screen, photographed with my phone. I thought I was being overly optimistic, taking photos to show off the sharpness without using a tripod, but then I zoomed in and saw this:

And figured 'eh, that's steady enough'.

Your TV's convergence is a little off; particularly the red gun. Less than perfect convergence makes the picture look not quite as sharp as it should look.