Thinkpads Forum

Is there a voice dictation software that is better than the one included is MS Office? I've gone through all the calibration passages (some of them more than once), and while it's kinda close, it's not nearly close enough to actually use for dictation.

I've heard that Dragon Speak is pretty good.
EDIT: I guess it is actually called Dragon Naturally Speaking, by Nuance.

I wish they had a demo version of the software you could use for yourself for a few days, though I guess that wouldn't really work since they require you use their headset.

Anybody else have any other suggestions? It would be ideal if I could use the microphone built into my T60.w

marlinspike wrote:Is there a voice dictation software that is better than the one included is MS Office? I've gone through all the calibration passages (some of them more than once), and while it's kinda close, it's not nearly close enough to actually use for dictation.

IBM ViaVoice?
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/voice/viavoice/

I used a (much) earlier version of it for some time a few years ago, and it worked pretty well. In the end, though, my RSI abated and I can type a lot faster than I can talk (or at least talk so that speech recognition actually works).

tomh009 wrote:(or at least talk so that speech recognition actually works).

So can they not really recognize speech as fast as they say? I can type at about 90wpm, though, I can't really type all that fast without looking at the screen (say, while reading).

Hmmm, I found a review of Dragon 9 on NPR. Apparently for single voice transcriptions it gets just about every word right without even calibrating it. They did note that when they got someone else involved (making a mock conversation) it didn't work at all, and also that the versions he had tried in the past didn't work...so maybe Dragon is the way to go?

I do remember ViaVoice way back when my brother got a top of the line Aptiva desktop with a Pentium II 400mhz cpu, and IIRC once calibrated using a headset it worked about as well as the one built into MS Word does with the built-in mic...though that ViaVoice was from a long itme ago.

marlinspike wrote:So can they not really recognize speech as fast as they say? I can type at about 90wpm, though, I can't really type all that fast without looking at the screen (say, while reading).

Hmmm, I found a review of Dragon 9 on NPR. Apparently for single voice transcriptions it gets just about every word right without even calibrating it. They did note that when they got someone else involved (making a mock conversation) it didn't work at all, and also that the versions he had tried in the past didn't work...so maybe Dragon is the way to go?

I do remember ViaVoice way back when my brother got a top of the line Aptiva desktop with a Pentium II 400mhz cpu, and IIRC once calibrated using a headset it worked about as well as the one built into MS Word does with the built-in mic...though that ViaVoice was from a long itme ago.

It does do continuous voice, but how fast ... I don't know. It's at version 10 now, and I think my version was somewhere around 5, so it's not really comparable, I expect. The personal version is only $30 though so if you wanted a cheap trial ...

A couple of reviews:
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/pro ... 689,00.htm
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/b ... hp/2110351

This review of Dragon Naturally Speaking has convinced me that if I do get one it's Dragon.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=5577523

Hi,

I have been using Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred for couple of years now. I upgraded to last version 9.0 once it came out. It works pretty good. I have T41P with 1.5 MB Ram and there is no slowness on my system. I also purchased the USB mic from http://www.emicrophones.com/ it helped a lot.

If you decide to buy it PM me for a better price link.

Sepehr

I would recommend Dragon Naturally Speaking, it is pretty good and I usually use it for dictation.

I can't figure it out, is there a reason to get professoinal over the home version?

The professional is mostly for lawyers and doctors

Yeah, and now I see the professional is $900...though it does let you control everything. I see the headset that comes with it is extremely uncomfortable, and apparently you need a pretty good one for it to work...since the software alone was all I could afford to spend, I guess I'll pass for now. On the plus side, the nice thing about the Thinkpad is that since the keyboard is so good it lets me type faster (before I was limited to about 85wpm by my keyboard on my HP laptop, this thing seems to be able to type faster as here I'm at around 93wpm and that will probably get faster as I get used to this keyboard...it's just that it's hard to type in bed).

marlinspike read the last part of my first message once more.

akhavan wrote:marlinspike read the last part of my first message once more.

Gotcha. I actually missed that message entirely. I'll have to think if I really want it first/look at my funds.

I have tried VIAVoice recently. (Version 10) It is very good at recognition, but you have to spend several hours reading scripts to train the software to your voice. Once you invest the time training the software, it is lightning fast, and very accurate. I was really surprised that it understood my voice to the level it did.