Voice recognition software in 2005

On or about 9/13/05 1:33 PM, thus spake "Darren Woolley"
<darrengbd.com.au>:

> A need to do a little less typing in the office, due mainly to repetitive
> strain injury problems, has made me think that perhaps it's time to look at
> voice recognition software.

You mean speech recognition. You don't want to be identified by your voice,
you want your speech (what you say) to be understood.

> Some searches indicate that ViaVoice hasn't been review on Tidbits since 2002,
> and there appear to be some other products on the market now.
>
> <http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06708>
>
> Does anyone have practical advice on what works best in an office environment?

In my view the options have not changed significantly, except that computers
are much faster and have much more RAM, so speech recognition works better
than ever. m.

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I get asked about this a lot because I am the head of a Mac user group for attorneys, and as you can imagine, many attorneys would like nothing more than to be able to dictate their briefs to their computer and have their computer automatically transcribe them.

The only voice recognition software for the Macintosh that is still actively being developed is iListen from MacSpeech: http://www.macspeech.com/

ViaVoice, from IBM, is still being marketed, but all development has been abandoned (for both the PC and the Mac). Marketing of ViaVoice has been outsourced to Scansoft, a company that specializes in marketing discontinued software: http://www.scansoft.com/viavoice/osx/

There is an e-mail discussion list that is dedicated to Macintosh voice recognition products that you might find helpful.

MacVoice http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/macvoice

A representative of MacSpeech, Chuck Rogers, hangs out on that list to answer questions.

Voice Recognition (VR) and transcription takes a lot of commitment to get it to work acceptably. The user has to train the program by reading stories to it, and then the user has to spend a lot of time using the program and methodically correcting mistakes that the program makes to bring up the level of accuracy to something approaching 92%. Of course, even at that level of accuracy there will be 8 mistakes for every 100 words. That isn't acceptable for many folks, and many users won't have the patience to train the program to get it to work at an acceptable level. Even if you get the program to a high level of recognition, and you are happy with its less than perfect accuracy, you will have to continually re-train the software, as one's voice tends to change over time.

For some folks VR never comes anywhere close to an acceptable level of recognition. That's because the voice model that the software uses is far off from the user's voice.

VR will work better if you have a very quiet work environment and if you purchase a better microphone than the one that comes with the software to dictate into. My feeling is that you should only try VR if you really need it, and you are willing to invest the effort required to make it work.

_______________________________________________

Randy B. Singer

Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

Webmaster of: OS X Routine Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html

_______________________________________________

Quite a few years ago I used IBM ViaVoice for Macs and I found it quite good. I now use Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a PC. The accuracy of the later product has increased substantially. Apparently, this has to do both with improved software and a more powerful machine to drive it.

I understand that ScanSoft now own both of these products, so the quality may well be the same for both lines.

I can certainly recommend the Dragon software. I am always amazed at how accurate it is.

Paul

The sad state of affairs is that voice recognition software on the
Mac just isn't up to par with VR on the PC. And with voice
recognition software, not quite good enough will drive you nuts.
You'll spend more time correcting than dictating. I would LOVE it if
there was a great VR program available for the Mac, but there just
isn't.

The good news (for those of us with RSI) is that Dragon
NaturallySpeaking 8 for the PC is pretty darned amazing. The claims
they make are really true. I can dictate entire paragraphs with fewer
errors than when I type on the keyboard. With practice, you can
compose using Dragon faster than by keyboard, even accounting for
making corrections. I recently wrote the better part of an entire
book by voice. I'm using mine on a newer low-end Dell notebook, so
you don't need a huge amount of horsepower anymore to get acceptable
results.

So if you're serious about needing VR, my recommendation is to get
Dragon 8 and any newish PC. I wish there were a great Mac VR software
package, but if this is a tool you rely on for everyday work you'll
be happier going the PC/Dragon route.

Andrew

I worked in my (physician) office with MacSpeech for a couple of
months, and for one month with Via Voice. Went back to typing, because
it took less than half the time that either of the VR systems did.
never could get VV to work worth a damn, and MacSpeech, although it
worked, was exceedingly time consuming. I work 12 hour days anyway,
and needed the sleep more than the rest for my hands. My colleagues on
PCs are finding Dragon useful, especially the medical model.
Recognizes words like dysdiadochokinesis right ott. I am envious, but
not enough to give up my virus proof baby.

Christine Robb
G4Powerbook OS 10.4

I use iListen 1.6.8 on my iMacG5 and am very happy with the results. You can even train iListen to learn your own writing style. I also have Via Voice but with a good headset (very important) iListen is indeed excellent.





Michael A. Riccioli

On 9/20/05 12:15 PM, "Christine Robb" <crobbmdmac.com> wrote:

> I worked in my (physician) office with MacSpeech for a couple of
> months, and for one month with Via Voice. Went back to typing, because
> it took less than half the time that either of the VR systems did.
<snip>
> My colleagues on PCs are finding Dragon useful
>
I don't know whether the problem with VR on the Mac is one of OS, hardware,
or [my own guess] lack of serious resources put into the development.

I wonder whether the new Intel chip Macs, if they actually turn out to be
able to run apps written for Windows in native mode, will be the solution to
this and a handful of other application-related problems that we still have
on this platform. A big "if" to be sure, but still...

Best,

Stephen

I have a similar problem (incipient carpal tunnel). I write for a living, so its scary. I recently purchased the Dragon Speaking Naturally System, version 8 (the latest version.)

It is great! Buy it. There is a microphone headset included, you just plug it into the mic port on the back of the PC (next to the speaker port). The headset includes one earpiece, like a phone headset, and a mic on a stem.

Training is quick and easy. it works very well.

The biggest potential problem for most people will be noise, which you don't have because you have an office.

Everything that is typed is a correctly spelled word, its just that some of the words are wrong. But the error rate is pretty low (I can't quantify it.) You have to proof read, but I find it much easier than proofing my crummy typing (even though in both cases, of course, I still use Microsoft spell check afterward.)

It's not the same as talking, of course. You are still inputting words into a PC and there is some learning and adaptation. You may need a glass of water nearby, the mouth can get dry. Getting angry at the program works very badly, as recognition plummets. In fact, when the program has trouble getting a word, the trick is to talk more quitely and calmly, not loudly and angrily.

The manual is confusing, I feel. It is sort of set up for a disabled person, in my opinion. (Of course this is great for a disabled person, I'm just saying they need 2 manuals.) Because I would never use the program to move the cursor, etc. You can do anything you want from the keyboard at any time.

And it will save your hands!

By the way, it is late at night and I am typing this. My apartment has thin walls and I cannot use the program at night as it woudl disturb the neighbors.