Macromedia Launches Director MX 2004

Macromedia has announced Director MX 2004--its latest version of the long-standing multimedia development and prototyping tool. (Director MX 2004 is the most recent addition to the MX 2004 line of products, which includes Dreamweaver, Flash, Coldfusion, Fireworks, Freehand, and Studio). Key new features of Director include the addition of Javascript support (which can be intermingled with Director's propiretary Lingo scripting language), better integration with Flash, support for nonlinear playback of DVD content, and beter playback of Quicktime, Windows Media, Realvideo, and AVI video formats. Director MX 2004 is expected to ship in February 2004, and pricing is $1,199 (MSRP)/$399 (upgrade from Director 8.5 or MX), and is supported on Mac OS X, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.