VIA VOICE FOR WINDOWS PERSONAL

by IBM

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005NVWE
• Item model number: 20P4981
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 6, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,890 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #25 in Software > Business & Office > Communication > Voice Recognition
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

ViaVoice Personal Edition 9.0 is for beginners in speech recognition. Setup is quick and easy, and dictation accuracy has never been better. The more you use ViaVoice, the better the program will recognize your voice. And it comes with a noise-canceling headset microphone that plugs into the microphone jack on the sound card of your computer.

Begin by creating a Personal Voice Model so ViaVoice can learn how you pronounce the words you use. Fine-tune your voice model for improved dictation accuracy through the Recognition Wizard. By using the microphone headset and SpeakPad, the ViaVoice speech-enabled word processor, you can talk to your computer instead of typing. Or dictate, edit, and format text directly in Microsoft Word 97, 2000, and 2002.

ViaVoice Personal Edition 9.0 can recognize new words as you use them, and adds them to the 160,000-word vocabulary, improving dictation accuracy the more you use the program. With the Text to Speech feature, ViaVoice can read back your typed and dictated text, making editing your documents easier. An improved Analyze My Documents feature allows ViaVoice to recognize your writing style and the words you use frequently, leading to greater accuracy. Also, use basic voice commands to access the Web and its contents in Internet Explorer using ViaVoice.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very promising piece of software., January 31, 2002

By 

R. Martinez - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: VIA VOICE FOR WINDOWS PERSONAL (CD-ROM)

I got ViaVoice...I have to say that it is very fun to use. And with every word it seems that it gets more precise. I still have to finish the voice analyzations, but even so the software is getting very good at understanding what I'm saying. I even tried to trick it a few times with some nonsense words that I use to "talk" to my cats. I even taught it to understand some bad words. LOL If you know what I mean. Voice recognition software isn't at the level of StarTrek yet, but it's getting there. There is one problem I have though. At startup it prevents either MSN Messenger or MSNBC News Alert from starting up. And sometimes prevent's Norton AntiVirus Auto Protect from starting up. You can fix this by just starting the features mentioned manually, but it can be a pain in the butt. Though, it's nothing to uninstall ViaVoice over. Not a bad package...

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ViaVoice is a great product which is very useful., January 26, 2002

By 

Henry R Pearson Jr - See all my reviews

This review is from: VIA VOICE FOR WINDOWS PERSONAL (CD-ROM)

I am very pleased with the performance of IBM ViaVoice. The technology upon which this package is based is obviously very sophisticated and powerful. I have been using ViaVoice for just over a month and the recognition rate is very high. Since the software provides for correction of any recognition errors, ViaVoice progressively refines my speech profile, resulting in a higher accuracy rate. Thus the accuracy is now significantly better than when I first started using the package. The vocabulary is amazingly big, including most proper names. Correction of any errors is quick and easy.

I can dictate to Speak Pad (which is the ViaVoice document processing program), or I can dictate directly into Word 2000. It is both easier and faster to use ViaVoice rather than having to key-enter text. I do have to copy and paste text in order to send out an e-mail or post a message on an Internet bulletin board. But that is simple and it certainly beats having to key-enter my message. I definitely believe that voice recognition has come of age and is an excellent application for anyone who composes messages frequently. Considering the very reasonable price of the Personal Edition of ViaVoice, I believe it is an excellent buy.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended for anyone with dyslexia!, December 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: VIA VOICE FOR WINDOWS PERSONAL (CD-ROM)

We use Via Voice 8 and love it. My 11 yo son is dyslexic. By using Via Voice he can dictate all his writing assignments. He wouldn't be able to keep up with his composition work without it.

I use the read back function to "read" news articles on the web. I can hop on my treadmill while Mr. Woodrow, the talking pencil reads website content to me.

And, best of all, (price). In fact I am here buying this product for other family members now!