Dragon Dictation

Simon201

I'm sure I've seen some other posts about this app previously but after watching that 'Click' programme on BBC this weekend they had an article about this app and I can say it works exceptionally well!
Maybe recent updates have it working much better than before and for a free app it's excellent. Now I've yet to try it while driving.... that'll be the real test!

Only available at the moment on the US app store tho.

_Whimsical_

I would love if this app worked well for me but I find it might only get 2 or 3 words correct in every sentence even if I speak very slowly and distinctly.
I don't have any real accent and my voice is clear so it's quite disappointing. I've tried it with friends and noticed that it didn't work for the girls but did work well for male voices.

Does anyone have any tips for using it?

Should I be expecting a long period of correcting it's mistakes in the hope of "teaching" it to recognise my voice well?

coylemj

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

Does anyone have any tips for using it?

Should I be expecting a long period of correcting it's mistakes in the hope of "teaching" it to recognise my voice well?

The main reason why voice dictation s/w doesn't live up to expectation is because people don't invest the time to 'teach' the s/w their own voice and their environment.

Emphasis on 'environment' because the acoustics of the surroundings have a major effect on the sound that the device picks up, this includes furniture, carpet or hard floor, low or high ceiling and your own voice, which changes over time as you age.

Case in point which illustrates all of the above:

Several years ago I worked for s/w company and a solicitor who was trying to get off the ground with our voice dictation s/w phoned up, said he was new to PCs and could I help him, he was very pleasant, lived close by and sounded like a genuine guy so I called around to him and helped him to get set up.

When I left him he was the most satisfied user in the entire world. About a year later a law lecturer in one of the local universities rang and asked if we had any legal reference for our voice dictation s/w, I immediately thought of the solicitor guy so I phoned him to see if it was ok to pass on his name as a satisfied customer. To my consternation he said that he no longer used the s/w as it was a piece of crap.

I held him on the line to ask if he had been doing the 15 seconds setup recommended that you should do most days (basically to read a line of text back to the machine), no he had not. I then pointed out that if he wasn't doing this then the s/w could not detect changes in the voice which occur over time and which would affect the ability of the machine to convert speech to text. I said that if the acoustics of the room changed, if he had a cold, if he gave up smoking, all of thse things would affect the accuracy of the dictation. Guess What? He ticked all of the boxes, he had given up smoking, he had changed the furniture in the room from fabric-covered sofas to leather chairs and had replaced the carpet with a hardwood floor - and he expected the s/w not to notice!

Read the manual and whatever training the machine requires, do it and if there is a quick line of text that the machine would like you to read back to it every day, do it. The s/w will teach itself over time to recognise your voice but you have to put in the effort.

Owen

Works perfectly for me, even in the car. Very rarely misses any words.

brophs

Works great for me apart from the fact that I can't get full stops to work. When I say the word 'period' it simply puts the word rather than they symbol.

coylemj

brophs wrote: »

Works great for me apart from the fact that I can't get full stops to work. When I say the word 'period' it simply puts the word rather than they symbol.

Is there a function that you say like 'new sentence' which will give you the period and capitalize the following word?

brophs

coylemj wrote: »

Is there a function that you say like 'new sentence' which will give you the period and capitalize the following word?

I'm not sure about 'new sentence' but there defo is new line/para. I got the full stop working by saying 'full stop' of all things. Despite the website saying that 'period' is the correct command.

coylemj

brophs wrote: »

I'm not sure about 'new sentence' but there defo is new line/para. I got the full stop working by saying 'full stop' of all things. Despite the website saying that 'period' is the correct command.

That might be a setting that changes based on whether you selected English (UK) or English (American) as your home language. I guess you must have been asked at install time which one you wanted because selecting one or the other gets you colour or color, analyze or analyse etc.

Simon201

Yeah it is indeed "Full Stop" for the end of a sentence if you're languages are set to 'English (UK)'.
On another note, guess what, when I try and use it in the car it says my bluetooth connection isn't supported by the language chosen??
Of course it works when I change the language to 'English (United States) so I have to do my best USA accent when dictating in the car!!

Cotts

where do you download it,cant find it on itunes

muletide

US Itunes only, not in Ireland for some reason

Itsdacraic

you can get it from the UK App Store.

Found it disappointing to be honest.