Customer Reviews

Via Voice 9.0 Standard Edition

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This is my third purchase of a ViaVoice product. The first two (Version 7, and Millenium Edition) were disappointing. I think it might have been because I didn't have a powerful enough processor with enough memory to run the application. The third try has been a charm! (I'm now running on a 500-Mhz, 256-Meg Pentium III.)

The installation was quick, easy, and straightforward. Based on other reviews (and experience with earlier releases), I expected 95-98% accuracy. My expectation was that the errors would be throughout the dictated document. To my surprise, they were localized to short phrases that were easily corrected, much easier than I found in earlier releases of the product.

I do have to be fairly consistent and clear in my speech, but I found that it adjusts to my own way of speaking quite well. What I was also surprised about was that I didn't have to speak each word with unnatural, uncomfortable distinction. I could speak as I normally do, in phrases rather than individual words. The tool does a great job of understanding what I'm trying to dictate.

My earlier experience required lots of mouse clicks after locating errors that had to be corrected. The current product can locate and correct errors through voice commands without having to touch the mouse or keyboard. I really found this to be significantly more productive than I expected.

This is a quote I read somewhere regarding ViaVoice V.9 about its compatibility with other software on your Windows system. I got ViaVoice 9 up and running pretty quickly (and installed the mic after a bit of hassle due to Windows, not the software.) It does indeed recognize words well (though I'd have to put in a specialized dictionary of scientific terms like "proteomics" because ViaVoice thinks I said "show me your picks.") And it's fun hearing "Woodrow" the pencil-shaped cousin of the evil Clippy read in a voice borrowed from Stephen J. Hawkins.

But, though this works well in Speakpad, installing ViaVoice totally hosed my Microsoft Word, to the point I have to de-install the ViaVoice and HOPE I can get away without de-installing and re-installing Word. The software seems to change some kernel dll and this is NOT A GOOD THING.

If you need speech and read-back ability, and you can live with quirks like this, I'd say, it's a cheap way to get speech recognition software on your PC. (Might work for a budget-limited person with special needs.) But if you are going to dictate to Word or even USE Word without the speech, this is a no-no. Find another software package.

This product is a total disaster. The ratio of correctly translated words to words the software misinterprets is roughly 8:1 at best. In my estimation it is unusable. Stay away!