From its first release, Apple's Motion has aimed squarely at this type of activity. It is neither unique in that regard, nor does it do more than other rival tools; instead, it promises to perform these tasks more quickly and with less effort. In its latest release, coming alongside   (FCP X), it sports a new look, expanded keying and parameter control, and a new under-the-hood architecture for greater performance. It also boasts new capabilities as a Final Cut companion. And then, there's the price.

So, is Motion 5 a must-have add-on for the new Final Cut, or even as a complement to rival editors or previous versions?

Motion, like FCP X, includes changes both visible and under-the-hood. The engine, now rewritten in Cocoa, incorporates OpenCL support for accelerating computation on compatible graphics cards, 64-bit architecture for optimized computation and access to greater memory resources, and support for Grand Central Dispatch multithreading technologies--all of which combine to help you squeeze the most out of your available hardware. As with FCP X and Compressor 4, there's also support for ColorSync color management, and a shared render engine. These changes cover the whole tool, from plug-ins to effects to rendering.

More visible are other subtle but significant enhancements to functionality and control. You can now take advantage of resolution independence--ideal for targeting multiple formats. You can combine parameters into rigs to consolidate live control of your compositions, and then publish those controls to smart templates and FCP X. With Final Cut integration, it's possible to produce transitions, titles, and generators that editors can reuse in Final Cut, especially useful for producing consistent in-house templates. On the compositing side, Apple has added greatly improved chroma keying.