Although it's now reached version 11.5, it's probably still worth outlining what Director does. It's the second release of the product since Adobe bought Macromedia, its original author, and is now Adobe's multimedia designer, which can be used to produce movies, games, demos, prototypes and simulations for the Web and for PC and Mac desktops.

Director 11.5, only a half-point upgrade from 11.0, still includes several important improvements, such as 5.1-channel sound encoding - mixed down from a 16-channel soundtrack - plus advanced 3D physics to model collisions and gravity, and expanded video format support.

The layout of the main editing screen won't be strange to anybody who has used earlier versions of Director, and has similarities with some video editors, too. It's divided up by default with a palette of ‘actors' or component objects along the bottom, a ‘score' window on the left, showing when each actor is set to appear, and a preview of the application under development on the right. Everything from a backdrop to a complete sound mixer can be an actor and each can be worked with, a bit like placing the elements on a DTP page.

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New video formats are now supported within Director, so you can work with H.264, F4V and FLV movies and produce HD output and streaming video for Web use, which doesn't have to be fully downloaded before playback. There's still no support of ActionScript 3 (AS3), though, Adobe's own scripting language, introduced with Flex 2.0. Without native AS3 support in Director 11.5, both applications have to be used together to work with it, and content transferred back and forth during development.

Previous versions of Director have supported stereo sound output, but it's useful to have the 5.1 multi-channel support, used by Dolby and other audio encoders to provide surround sound for more immersive multimedia and games.

There's an upgrade to Director's ability to create and handle 3D objects, too, with support for the Nvidia PhysX Engine. This is widely used, obviously, in Nvidia graphics adapters, to improve simulated 3D interactions between objects. Unusually for Adobe, a wide range of samples is provided, including objects colliding and a naturally swinging chain of links. Director 11.5 can now import Google SketchUp models, so providing a huge range of ready-made 3D objects.

Other improvements include the introduction of the ByteArray datatype as a core object in Director's Lingo language, which enables easier manipulation of binary data; a graphic, an audio track, a video or just about any other object. Related to this, Director 11.5 now supports the direct application of bitmap filters, such as drop shadow, bevel and glow.

The audio and physics improvements to Director are welcome, and it's a mature application with a good track record for commercial application authorship, but it's still an expensive option, even if you're upgrading. Also, you shouldn't underestimate the time needed to learn Director's Lingo scripting language, if you're coming to the program for the first time.