Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) 
announced two new products, Motion and Production Suite,
at the Association of Computing Machinery SIGGRAPH conference in Los
Angeles Tuesday. SIGGRAPH caters to graphic artists working in audio, images and video.
According to Rob Schoeben, an Apple vice president, Production Suite allows users "to build stunning motion graphics in Motion [and] transfer them seamlessly to Final Cut Pro."
Motion, first previewed at a broadcasting convention earlier this year, offers motion graphics production capabilities. Production Suite, a compilation of Apple software targeting film and video editing, includes Motion, Final Cut Pro HD for video editing and DVD Studio Pro 3.
Adobe Competition
The company boasts that the application has an innovative user interface that reduces window and palette clutter. It also uses a dashboard approach with semitransparent, floating palettes.
The popularity of Adobe's (Nasdaq: ADBE) Creative Suites may have inspired Apple to
assemble the Production Suite. Production Suite bundles what Apple
calls the essentials for film and video -- an integrated production environment in which media and project files move seamlessly
through the creative process.
Production Suite includes professional audio scoring capabilities and integration with Apple's Soundtrack music composition solution. Soundtrack also includes audio plug-ins for migration to Apple's Logic Pro 6, for continued work in other multitrack environments.
Priced to Move
Motion retails at $299, while Production Suite will list at $1,299. Registered users of Final Cut Pro can upgrade to the Production Suite for $699.
"I think the price point is right where it needs to be for Production Suite," said Paul Troyer of Mahon Studios. "$1,300 is still cheap in the video industry. Considering all you get, it's a deal."
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