Transcripts

"Gifts & Gadgets" Part 2 - Software Selections

SUSIE GHARIB: If you're stumped on what kind of holiday gift to get for dad, our tech guru says software is always a good choice. As our series "Gifts and Gadgets" continues, Scott Gurvey has the latest software for managing pictures, making movies and converting old records and tapes to digital.

SCOTT GURVEY, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Now that you've purchased that new computer, what do you intend to do with it? Handling digital photographs and videos is at the top of many to-do lists. To help in that process, Adobe has updated its Elements bundle, which contains consumer versions of Photoshop and Premier. Photoshop Elements' user interface has been simplified to make complex tasks, like creating a composite picture from multiple stills, almost foolproof. And product manager Mark Dahm says this year Adobe has added an organizer for all your video images.

MARK DAHM, SR. PRODUCT MANAGER, ADOBE: With something like 60 billion photos taken over this last year, people are really beginning to run into this problem of being able to store photos in a way they can find them. Folders really aren't an efficient long-term strategy for being able to instantly go in and pick out just your favorites. So having a whole database really is the technology driving a perfect solution.

GURVEY: For ease of use you can't beat Ulead's DVD movie factory, which can automatically generate a respectable movie from your camcorder clips. But it also has all the editing tools you need for authoring DVD's with menus and complex special effects. The big change this year to Dragon Naturally Speaking is the price. Scratch that. There is a holiday special on this best of breed dictation system and it's a steal at $99.

If you have a collection of phonograph records or a set of cassette or eight track tapes you'd like to preserve as compact disks or MP3 files, give Magix audio cleaner a try. Magix makes professional audio tools so this consumer version has all the bells and whistles, but Magix marketing director George Levy says it also has simple automated features to make those old recordings sound better than new.

GEORGE LEVY, MARKETING DIRECTOR, MAGIX ENTERTAINMENT: My father has a very simple approach to it. He just takes his LPs and he basically loads them. He imports them into the computer and then he applies simple one- click options to really just, say, OK, de-hiss, de-pop, you know, remove all these cracks and then export then to CD and DVD. I on the other hand, I really like to dig in there, so actually pop open these filters and actually tweak all the different like base, treble and really get in there.

GURVEY: If you want to make your own music, Cakewalk has updated its sonar home studio package, a consumer version of its award winning professional product. It has also released Cakewalk studio instruments, an inexpensive package which adds a high quality drum kit, bass guitar, electric piano and string section to whatever recording software you're already using. Most of these products come in both Windows and Mac/OS versions. And in case you get tired of doing productive work on your personal computer, there are loads of new games this year you can play. We'll take a look at some of those tomorrow. Scott Gurvey, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, New York.