Customer Reviews

VIAVOICE SIMPLY DICTATION (WIN 98SE,ME,XP)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

(Original review date 9/29/2004) I'm not typing this review. It is being dictated directly into the space using the ibm ViaVoice simply dictation for Mac OS X. (the failure to capitalize is due to my lack of familiarity with the software, not the software itself)
As you can see, this is pretty easy to use! In fact I just started using it at about 30 minutes ago. It took about an hour to train the system to my voice and set it up. I've had many years of experience in dictating to tape recorders and to live people, so my technique may be more consistent with what the dictation software expects than yours. All in all this seems to be a very useful tool particularly for people who dictate versions of the same letter on a daily basis. The software allows you to train it to words that are specific to your work and also to capture "Macro phrases" that might include entire paragraphs of text.
I would highly recommend this software to anyone who has had experience in dictating for transcription. This is not for everyone as some attention to articulation and phrasing is necessary in any dictation, computer or human. If your willing to speak clearly and distinctly to your friendly computer this software will enable you to do exactly what I've done: to transcribe a paragraph without having to touch a key.

UPDATE! I don't know what happened for the "*" reviewers below, but I'm still using it as of 2007 on OS X 10.4.8 and it works fine.

This version is NOT compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. The manufacturer says a new version may be available in 2006. Be aware: the box says it is compatible with 10.1 and 10.3, but doesn't say anything about 10.2 and 10.4. Of course I had to find this out after I received it since Amazon doesn't mention it.

This program consistently fails to recognize even the slowest speech. I've trained it for three readings and it still makes a huge amount of errors. The errors don't even resemble a phonetic approximation, let alone what I dictated. Correction is user hostile. It doesn't seem to learn as I painfully try to correct the spellings. This voice recognition software isn't one tenth of Dragon Naturally Speaking for the PC.

I used ViaVoice for about two years. It was spooky accurate at times. I found that if I read the training texts in my most normal voice (do not read slowly!), it worked very well. In fact, it seemed to be more accurate at faster speech speeds than in slower ones.

Anyway, in regard to compatibility, I don't think the issue is the OS version as much as it is the processor type. When I bought my Mac Mini with the Intel processor it wasn't supported by ViaVoice. I had to keep my old computer to run it.

One last thing, back up your training files. If there's a crash you won't have to retrain it.

Clunky with system 10.3, I agree with the previous reviewer, this is not functioning properly in system 10.4. It wasn't worthwhile when I bought it, but I was too slow finding a USB compatible microphone to find out before refund period ended. Pass.

I recently purchased this software to experiment with voice recognition. I am dictating this review using ViaVoice Simply Dictation. After only an hour of set up, I find that the software is incredibly easy to use. I can tell with this will take some time to be used to, but would recommend it to anyone interested in the technology.

The onscreen text produced by ViaVoice requires more proofreading than the product's learning curve should allow.

Fortunately I only spent $ 6 on this used. I have a MacBook 10.4.11 and cannot install it.

i think this is the best via voice. i had the old one it did not work i had to pronounce hard words that i dont know. over all the new one rocks