Amateur home videos are a thing of the past with the increasing popularity of home editing software and high-tech cameras. Now, even little Jimmy’s first birthday video comes with background music and transitions. To satisfy the needs of the closet Spielberg in your family is the Vive from Cascade Audio.

Vive is a surround sound microphone that is compatible with any stereo video camera with a mic input jack. This device offers multi-channel listening and Dolby Pro Logic and Dolby Digital 5.1 compatible surround sound. The full sound also transfers directly onto any standard media like DV, DVD, CD, wav or mp3 with high performance audio recording with 20Hz to 20 KHz frequency response greater than 60dB signal noise ratio. And this amazing at-home technology is available for only $99, plus shipping. This price doesn’t even compare to its competitors that have been priced at over $1500.  read more »

Who would have thought that those Polaroid pictures would ever be outdated? These days everything is digital and if the inconsistencies between the shoe boxes of photos and the files on your hard drive have been bothering you, this is a product for you. A perfect gift for Mother’s Day, the Photograph to Digital Picture Converter from Hammacher Schlemmer is an easy solution to the age-old shoe box problem. It’s faster and easier than any scanner on the market. All you have to do is place the photos on a tray that slides into a converter and with the press of a button you have files instead of shoe boxes. And with a 5MP CMOS sensor with up to 1,800 dpi resolution, 10 bits per color channel, automatic exposure and color balance, you can be sure that your pictures will translate with the same digital quality you’re used to.  read more »

If you are looking for a creative gift this Mother’s Day you might think about a digital picture frame. It is the perfect mix of functionality meets sentiment and a great way to have memories circulate through the room. The new digital picture frames from ViewSonic takes the painful guesswork out of choosing photos for picture frame display. Now all of your favorite photos can share the same spotlight.

The frames come in color options of wood, black and silver or black and white and provide people with a traditional way to display their digital photos. And with the capacity to rotate between 4,000 digital photos with numerous options for transitions it is a perfect living room display. It is also a great beside companion with the bonus feature of calendar and alarm clock. The high resolution capabilities allow you to proudly display all of your high definition photos.  read more »

Pandigital just announced their new PanTouch line of digital photo frames with new touch control technology. Now, you can use simple touch and swipe motions on the surrounding matte to access your digital images, MP3 music and video clips. If you choose, photos can be viewed as if they were pages in a photo album with a page turn effect by simply using a forward or backward swipe motion on the touch matte. The frames also come with a remote control and are WiFi and Bluetooth compatible.

The PanTouch frames will come in three models (starting at only $120!) but all have multimedia features, a 6-in-1 memory card reader, and a minimum of 128MB of internal memory. In addition, they include standard and mini USB 2.0 ports for a direct connection to a PC or digital camera.  read more »