The Bridge Main Viewing Screen

[ZapBrannigan]

Can we all agree this was the best and coolest widescreen TV ever?

My rough measurements put the aspect ratio extremely close to modern television's 16:9. Which raises a couple of questions.

1) Is it a coincidence? The bridge screen is unlike any monitor that existed in 1966 (recall the rounded "mini-CRT" in the classic Tricorder), and it looks exactly like today's 16:9 flatscreen TVs. Were the designers of widescreen TV influenced by Star Trek, as happened with the flip phone?

2) Does anybody have a fix on the actual size of the main viewing screen, as it existed on the studio set? If so, what are you basing it on? The Michael McMaster blueprints put the length at 6 feet even, and the diagonal measure looks like about 81 inches, give or take. Franz Joseph doesn't give us a square-on view. But neither of them are entirely authoritative anyway.

 

[Green Shirt]

Were the designers of widescreen TV influenced by Star Trek, as happened with the flip phone?

That's an interesting idea, but they may have been more influenced by movie screens.

 

[Kor]

As far as aspect ratio goes, the 1.85:1 ratio was already one of the most common for motion pictures. This is pretty close to the 16:9 (1.77:1) aspect ratio of contemporary TVs.

Here's a good comparison:

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Kor

 

[Doug Otte]

Maybe the best way to estimate the actual size (if there is no production documentation) would be to observe the scene from Spock's Brain where Kirk walks in front of it.

 

[BillJ]

Can we all agree this was the best and coolest widescreen TV ever?

It is awesome. But it is one of the few things from TOS that I think the Abrams films improved on.

 

[GSchnitzer]

For what it's worth, our Main Viewing Screen on our STNV bridge is an 80-inch flat screen. I think it's a tiny bit too small by about six inches--but any larger was cost-prohibitive.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

As far as aspect ratio goes, the 1.85:1 ratio was already one of the most common for motion pictures. This is pretty close to the 16:9 (1.77:1) aspect ratio of contemporary TVs.

But our contemporary TVs were not built at 1.85:1, which they easily could have been. They were built at 1.77:1 to match TOS's main viewscreen. If the match is a coincidence, it's a very striking one.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

For what it's worth, our Main Viewing Screen on our STNV bridge is an 80-inch flat screen. I think it's a tiny bit too small by about six inches--but any larger was cost-prohibitive.

That's very cool. Have you considered decorating the borders with metallic blue foil, which might be found (I'm guessing) as fancy gift-wrapping paper that could be cut into strips?

Or is there a better estimate of what that seemingly luminous blue border was around the screen? It was either metallic and reflective or translucent and back-lit, but it was really there:

It does appear that the big ones get expensive fast:

 

[Kor]

Practically speaking, the difference between 16:9 and 1.85:1 is so minimal as to be just about unnoticeable to somebody who isn't meticulously measuring the screen with a ruler. My point was that this general shape was already common in motion pictures.

Anyway, if we want to be precise, this online writer has determined that the TOS main viewscreen actually had an aspect ratio of 1.73:1 (not 1.77:1 aka 16:9):

http://gizmodo.com/5241562/just-how-big-is-the-enterprises-viewscreen

The design may have had some basis in scientific research.

"Opticians in the early fifties found 1.73:1 to be the lateral vision of the naked eye." Source: Camera-cut-composition: A Learning Model, by Aaron Sultanik, page 142, note 15. https://books.google.com/books?id=A6KdGAiDWiIC&pg=PA142#v=onepage&q&f=false

Kor

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Hmm... this online writer has determined that the TOS main viewscreen actually had an aspect ratio of 1.73:1 (not 1.77:1 aka 16:9):

http://gizmodo.com/5241562/just-how-big-is-the-enterprises-viewscreen

Is he blind? His own screencap, on my monitor, comes to 9 cm by 5 cm, which means 1.80:1. That's close to my prior measurments, and a small rounding error from 16:9. What is he measuring? He's way off.

And the FJ Tech Manual, much as I'm nostalgic for it, is way off on a lot of measurements.

 

[Kor]

Is he blind? His own screencap, on my monitor, comes to 9 cm by 5 cm, which means 1.80:1. That's close to my prior measurments, and a small rounding error from 16:9. What is he measuring? He's way off.

To be fair, he was using Franz Joseph's "Starfleet Technical Manual" as a reference, and its precision in these areas may be questionable. I'll have go dig out my copy (if I still have it), and see if it actually gives any measurements.

Kor

 

[GSchnitzer]

That's very cool. Have you considered decorating the borders with metallic blue foil, which might be found (I'm guessing) as fancy gift-wrapping paper that could be cut into strips?

Or is there a better estimate of what that seemingly luminous blue border was around the screen? It was either metallic and reflective or translucent and back-lit, but it was really there:

It does appear that the big ones get expensive fast:

For our episodes, the view screen and the blue border are laid in in post. That's how we solve the blue border matter. The practical TV is for our in-person visitors to our sets. E.g., we screened "Trouble With Tribbles" on the bridge with a rapt audience as David Gerrold acted as M.C. for the screening. Don't know if we have plans on creating a blue border somehow for our in-person visitors.

 

[spockboy]

For our episodes, the view screen and the blue border are laid in in post. That's how we solve the blue border matter. The practical TV is for our in-person visitors to our sets. E.g., we screened "Trouble With Tribbles" on the bridge with a rapt audience as David Gerrold acted as M.C. for the screening. Don't know if we have plans on creating a blue border somehow for our in-person visitors.

It would be very easy to do now with LED strips.
How did they do it back then?
Neon tubes?

I always wished they had done more rear projection on TOS.
All of those grainy processed shots could have looked crystal clear and both the people and the camera could have moved around (inlcuding Shuttlecraft interior shots) It could have been done regularly with standard star fields, but with episodes like Corbomite Maneuver, the effects would obviously not be ready for quite a while after shooting.

Spockboy

 

[Push The Button]

Did the blue border have anything to do with helping the f/x house to add the viewer footage that we see on the final print? I have noticed that blue border in several other scenes where we saw a viewer screen, not just the main screen on the bridge.

Edit: I just checked a few screengrabs on Trekcore, the Tantalus field viewscreen in Mirror Mirror has a blue border around it also, for example.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

This is weird: the border is dark and dull in S1E5, and the set has apparently not reached it's finished form (no travel lights below the screen)...

But the border was glowing before that, in S1E3:

and there's no way it was tricked in; it was really there:

and these caps pre-date the CBS Digital version. So I wonder why the set looked so "early" in S1E5 when the shiny or glowing blue frame was finished in S1E3.

 

[Harvey]

According to a November 21, 1966 memo from Eddie Milkis to Jerry Finnerman, the aspect ratio of the view screen was 1:85. Presumably that's a typo or shorthand for 1.85:1.

 

[Albertese]

I would consider it a kindness to refrain from using S#E# notation for Star Trek episodes. For most of us, it's not very meaningful, especially for TOS which has more than one valid and accepted viewing order.


In response to Spockboy's comment about rear projection, I doubt that would have worked well. With the lighting and film available, I expect the rear projected image would look pretty washed out. Films could get away with it with a bigger budget and a purpose-built set, but I doubt it would have worked well on a TV show like Star Trek. But then, I'm not an expert. I'd love to hear the opinion of someone more educated in such things.

--Alex

 

[Maurice]

Agreed. Most of us know the shows by the episode title, not the number. I never heard anyone ever refer to shows this way until people started parodying the way they thought Trekkies talked.

They did do rear projection occasionally, most notably in "Spock's Brain". Even sitcoms like Car 54 Where Are You? did it, so it wasn't much of a technical hurdle. More likely the issue is not having the VFX shots ready to rear-project, and the quality would be less on rear projection.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I would consider it a kindness to refrain from using S#E# notation for Star Trek episodes. For most of us, it's not very meaningful, especially for TOS which has more than one valid and accepted viewing order.


In response to Spockboy's comment about rear projection, I doubt that would have worked well. With the lighting and film available, I expect the rear projected image would look pretty washed out. Films could get away with it with a bigger budget and a purpose-built set, but I doubt it would have worked well on a TV show like Star Trek. But then, I'm not an expert. I'd love to hear the opinion of someone more educated in such things.

--Alex

Sorry. S1E3 is "The Corbomite Maneuver" and S1E5 is "The Enemy Within". This is in order of live-action production, not counting when all the fx and music scores were finished (which for Corbomite came later).

I agree that rear-screen scenes have to be filmed just so, or they don't work. A lot of care is involved to get the brightest and sharpest image possible.

 

[Wingsley]

Here's another angle to consider: how the does the size and aspect ratio of the earlier "The Menagerie" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" pre-refit main vliewscreens compare with the later-spec-viewer? Exact same size & shape, or different?