Guest happymac.support@gmail.com Posted July 15, 2007 Posted July 15, 2007 Hi, Is there any free software that can be used as an alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking? Thanx
Guest Ken Blake Posted July 15, 2007 Posted July 15, 2007 Re: FREE Alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking happymac.support@gmail.com wrote: > Is there any free software that can be used as an alternative to > Dragon Naturally Speaking? This is not a Windows XP question, and really doesn't belong here, but I'll answer quickly. First, note that Dragon Naturally Speaking is only one of several commercial products that do voice recognition. Second, voice recognition is a very difficult technology to provide. Dragon Naturally Speaking is one of the better products on the market, and even that is not good enough for regular use, in my view. I played with it for a while a year or so ago, and eventually gave it up. So, if there were any free voice recognition products (I'm not aware of any) they would probably be even worse, and not at all useful. One day this will work well, and we'll all probably be using it, but not yet. -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup
Guest Patrick Keenan Posted July 15, 2007 Posted July 15, 2007 Re: FREE Alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking <happymac.support@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1184520360.801183.147130@m37g2000prh.googlegroups.com... > Hi, > > Is there any free software that can be used as an alternative to > Dragon Naturally Speaking? > > Thanx As noted, if it were free, it would not likely be very good. Voice recognition is very complex - which means it takes a lot of work to implement. Do you work for free? And with English, technically, voice recognition can *never* work properly. There are too many factors like homonyms and accents that software can simply not evaluate. This is why it isn't relied on in commercial applications. VR can be used effectively if one person trains both the software and themselves, but the results still have to be reviewed. HTH -pk
Guest happymac.support@gmail.com Posted July 15, 2007 Posted July 15, 2007 Re: FREE Alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking On Jul 15, 10:38 am, "Ken Blake" <kbl...@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote: > happymac.supp...@gmail.com wrote: > > Is there any free software that can be used as an alternative to > > Dragon Naturally Speaking? > > This is not a Windows XP question, and really doesn't belong here, but I'll > answer quickly. > > First, note that Dragon Naturally Speaking is only one of several commercial > products that do voice recognition. > > Second, voice recognition is a very difficult technology to provide. Dragon > Naturally Speaking is one of the better products on the market, and even > that is not good enough for regular use, in my view. I played with it for a > while a year or so ago, and eventually gave it up. > > So, if there were any free voice recognition products (I'm not aware of any) > they would probably be even worse, and not at all useful. > > One day this will work well, and we'll all probably be using it, but not > yet. > > -- > Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User > Please reply to the newsgroup Thanks for the replies everyone. I understand that VR is not always accurate but Dragon Naturally Speaking has received some good feedback and it has worked for a lot of people. Anyway, is there another commercial alternative to Dragon?
Guest Ken Blake Posted July 16, 2007 Posted July 16, 2007 Re: FREE Alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking happymac.support@gmail.com wrote: > On Jul 15, 10:38 am, "Ken Blake" <kbl...@this.is.an.invalid.domain> > wrote: >> happymac.supp...@gmail.com wrote: >>> Is there any free software that can be used as an alternative to >>> Dragon Naturally Speaking? >> >> This is not a Windows XP question, and really doesn't belong here, >> but I'll answer quickly. >> >> First, note that Dragon Naturally Speaking is only one of several >> commercial products that do voice recognition. >> >> Second, voice recognition is a very difficult technology to provide. >> Dragon Naturally Speaking is one of the better products on the >> market, and even that is not good enough for regular use, in my >> view. I played with it for a while a year or so ago, and eventually >> gave it up. >> >> So, if there were any free voice recognition products (I'm not aware >> of any) they would probably be even worse, and not at all useful. >> >> One day this will work well, and we'll all probably be using it, but >> not yet. >> >> -- >> Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User >> Please reply to the newsgroup > > Thanks for the replies everyone. I understand that VR is not always > accurate but Dragon Naturally Speaking has received some good feedback > and it has worked for a lot of people. Anyway, is there another > commercial alternative to Dragon? Googling Voice REcognition gets 21,000,000 hits. Not all of these are software alternatives, but some are. Check them out. -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup
Guest Mark Conrad Posted July 16, 2007 Posted July 16, 2007 Re: FREE Alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking In article <#Z7aCcxxHHA.1484@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl>, "Patrick Keenan" <test@dev.null> wrote: > As noted, if it were free, it would not likely be very good. Voice > recognition is very complex - which means it takes a lot of work to > implement. Do you work for free? > > And with English, technically, voice recognition can *never* work properly. > There are too many factors like homonyms and accents that software can > simply not evaluate. This is why it isn't relied on in commercial > applications. > > VR can be used effectively if one person trains both the software and > themselves, but the results still have to be reviewed. I agree with all that. Having used Dragon ever since its inception, when it was called "Dragon Dictate", all varieties of voice recognition still have big problems. Not the least of these problems is how to justify the high cost of the 'better' voice recognition programs. The medical version of Dragon, version 9.5 that runs on Vista, still lists at $1,200 which is a lot of money. Any productive uses of that program are few and far between. To the OP: For experimenting with Dragon, the so-called "Preferred" version at $200 is ideal, it is not too costly and does not have all the drawbacks of the low end 'cheapy' version, which is called the "Standard" version. 'Preferred' is sold almost everywhere, at Office Depot for example. As others have posted, voice recognition software is one area where it does not pay to 'think cheap', as you will just get frustrated with the poor results you get from the free and low-cost alternatives. Mark-
Guest Plato Posted July 16, 2007 Posted July 16, 2007 Re: FREE Alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking happymac.support@gmail.com wrote: > > Is there any free software that can be used as an alternative to > Dragon Naturally Speaking? No, none exists, even the pay for ones aren't that "perfect". -- http://www.bootdisk.com/
Guest happymac.support@gmail.com Posted July 27, 2007 Posted July 27, 2007 Re: FREE Alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking On Jul 16, 4:28 pm, Plato <|@|.|> wrote: > happymac.supp...@gmail.com wrote: > > > Is there any free software that can be used as an alternative to > > Dragon Naturally Speaking? > > No, none exists, even the pay for ones aren't that "perfect". > > --http://www.bootdisk.com/ Amazingly, I did find a free alternative that has the same base function as Dragon. Microsoft Office XP 2002's Speech Recognition worked like a charm. It got about 75% of the stuff I said right. You have to train the computer to understand your voice by going through several training sessions. The more you train the more its accurate. You can enable the feature by following these instructions: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306537
Guest Mike Scirocco Posted July 28, 2007 Posted July 28, 2007 Re: FREE Alternative to Dragon Naturally Speaking happymac.support@gmail.com wrote: > On Jul 16, 4:28 pm, Plato <|@|.|> wrote: >> happymac.supp...@gmail.com wrote: >> >>> Is there any free software that can be used as an alternative to >>> Dragon Naturally Speaking? >> No, none exists, even the pay for ones aren't that "perfect". >> >> --http://www.bootdisk.com/ > > Amazingly, I did find a free alternative that has the same base > function as Dragon. Microsoft Office XP 2002's Speech Recognition > worked like a charm. It got about 75% of the stuff I said right. You > have to train the computer to understand your voice by going through > several training sessions. The more you train the more its accurate. > You can enable the feature by following these instructions: > > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306537 Do you know of any performance comparisons? I found these: Dragon came out looking pretty good. http://aginggrandparents.suite101.com/article.cfm/review__dragon_naturally_speaking http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=9&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spectronicsinoz.com%2Fdownloads%2Freviews%2FVoice-Recognition_Consumer-Report.pdf&ei=UIyqRvKQGKOooATj1IiRBg&usg=AFQjCNF8k_fITtBRKOSCYTpCzHZynDCjzQ&sig2=9XQqp6dsKe9MjXLPdNqv6A Mike
Recommended Posts