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Home » Best of Tech 2010 Part 2

Best of Tech 2010 Part 2

Maxon’s Cinema 4D was used to create this image from “A Kinght’s Tale” Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

by Dan Ochiva & Joe Herman

Here’s the second part of our series on what we consider the 10 best products of 2010. You can read part 1 here.


Panasonic AF100

When Canon and Nikon added video to their DSLRs and begat HDSLRs, you could almost hear the shudder that went through the camcorder divisions of Sony and Panasonic. Suddenly, highly portable, relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use cameras could create HD video with the shallow depth of field that was long the hallmark of the high end of professional cameradom.

With its AF100 camcorder, Panasonic turns the tables again, this time using the four-thirds format sensor popularized in new still/video cameras that started delivering in 2008 to take on HDSLRs, which suffer with their own issues, including rolling shutters, moiré patterns, and an awkward-for-shooting-video form factor.

Panasonic’s AF100 is now gaining fans, rapidly. While slightly ungainly to hold, the camcorder offers a good feature set including the ability to use a wide range of interchangeable lenses, XLR mic inputs, uncompressed audio, and external monitoring. Other useful features include a modest though useful slow motion setting (which can be initiated with the touch of an external button), zebras for focusing, and a waveform/vectorscope

With a list price just under $5000 (expect to lay out around $7500 for a more usable setup with added storage, a camera rig, and an added lens) this camera could set the bar for the other single sensor camcorders due to release at NAB in April.


Nvidia Quadro (Fermi Series)

It’s tough in some ways to single out graphics cards for inclusion in any year’s list of best tech, since the blandishments of manufacturers make every new model seem a breakthrough.

But Nvidia has done something considerable with its latest Quadro series. (The previous series uses an “FX” after “Quadro”, which the new series drops.) The Fermi chip integrates three billion transistors, about three times the number of transistors in Nvidia’s most powerful graphics chips now on the market. Tom Halfhill, senior analyst at Microprocessor Report says “Fermi surpasses anything announced by NVIDIA’s leading GPU competitor (AMD).”

The cards offer 2GB or more of the latest speedy GDDR5 memory, the memory bandwidth itself grows by an additional 35 percent and the chip sports up to 512 CUDA processing cores, enabling an average 5x faster graphics performance over the prior FX series. With its considerable parallel processing chops and extensive support for programming languages like C++, the chipset will also be more attractive to HPC (high-performance computing) users. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for one, is building what it’s calling the world’s fastest supercomputer using the cards.

Besides top performance in 3D and graphics apps, folks in our industries will like the continued integration with the rest of post via Nvidia’s SDI Capture card which enables multi-stream, uncompressed video (up to 12-bit color) to be streamed directly to Quadro SDI-enabled GPU memory. Support for the Quadro SDI output card also delivers integrated graphics-to-video enabling 2D and 3D effects to be composited in real-time with 2K, HD, and SD video.


Maxon Cinema 4D, version 12

Version 12 of Maxon’s Cinema 4D is a great upgrade to this versatile modeling and rendering software. We’ve already reported about its growing importance, especially among motion graphics users. Version 12 has a host of new features and enhancements but we think that the new dynamics system and linear workflow are the most important. Its character animation tools are also top-notch. In the New York Design community, Cinema 4D is a very popular application and version 12 continues the tradition of quality German engineering. Our recent review gives the details on why we like the new version of the app.

About Dan Ochiva

New York City-based journalist and NYCPPNEWS founder Dan Ochiva writes and consults on film, video, and digital media technology.

Community & Partner Links

LA Sees 43-percent Film Permit Boost Since January

Film permit requests in the city were up 43 percent this past month compared to the top of the year.

Filming in Los Angeles is beginning to pick back up again.

FilmLA, the organization that tracks production in the city, says it received 777 film permit applications in February, representing a 43 percent increase compared to the month of January. The organization notes that a late-month surge in production took place, making February the third busiest month the city has experienced with regards to filming since last June.

For the full story in the Hollywood Reporter, click here.

Rupert Neve, the Father of Modern Studio Recording, Dies at 94

When the Seattle grunge band Nirvana recorded their breakthrough album, “Nevermind,” at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, Calif., in 1991, they used a massive mixing console created by a British engineer named Rupert Neve.

The Neve 8028 console and others he made had by then become studio staples, hailed by many as the most superior consoles of their kind in manipulating and combining instrumental and vocal signals. They were responsible in great part for the audio quality of albums by groups like Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd.

Read the full obit in the New York Times.

New York City Movie Theaters Can Reopen at Limited Capacity, Gov. Cuomo Says

After nearly a year of closures, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has given movie theaters in New York City permission to reopen at limited capacity starting on March 5.

During his daily press briefing, the Empire State leader said cinemas in the city will be permitted to operate at 25% capacity, with no more than 50 people. Moreover, other safety measures such as masks, social distancing, and heightened sanitizing measures will be required. Last October, New York venues outside of the city were allowed to reopen with similar restrictions.

To read the full article in Variety, click here.

Stimulus Offers $15 Billion in Relief for Struggling Arts Venues

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

If you want to start production, here’s the latest news from the Mayor’s Office

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

Amazon Prime Video Direct and the Dystopian Decision to Stop Accepting Docs


Chris Lindahl and Dana Harris-Bridson outlined Amazon’s position in IndieWire: “When Amazon made a unilateral decision in early February to stop accepting documentaries and short films via Prime Video Direct (a policy that also covers ‘slide shows, vlogs, podcasts, tutorials, filmed conferences, monologues, toy play, music videos, and voiceover gameplay’), the announcement also served as a quiet purge.

The above continues on to some surprising conclusions on DOC NYCs Monday Memo, 

Disney to Close Upstate Blue Sky Studios

Various sources have reported that Disney is in the process of shuttering Blue Sky Studios, the largest animation studio on the East coast. The former 20th Century Fox animation division pulled in $5.9 billion churning out 13 feature films including the Ice Age franchise.

Publications have noted how Disney – which had three animation studios including Pixar and Disney Animation – couldn’t make the case to have these many houses when the pandemic took a toll on the company’s profits.

Some 450 employees will lose their jobs, though some hope to get into one of Disney’s other animation houses.

Here’s Deadline’s report.

Here’s Variety’s report.

Epix Announces ‘Godfather of Harlem’ Season 2 Premiere Date

Epix revealed that the second season of “Godfather of Harlem” will premiere on April 18. Set in 1964, the crime drama series explores the collision of the criminal underworld and civil rights movement. The second season will follow Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker) battling the New York crime families for control of the French Connection, a pipeline for heroin that runs from Marseilles to New York Harbor.

To read the full Variety article, click here.

Sony’s FX3 is a compact $3,900 camera for filmmakers

Sony has announced the FX3. As expected, the camera is essentially an A7S III with features from the company’s Cinema line crammed into a body that looks like the A7C. Its backside-illuminated full-frame sensor has an effective resolution of 10.2-megapixel when shooting video and 15 stops of dynamic range.

To read the full story on Engadget, click here.

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