Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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237 of 242 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I think that it's pretty good, it got better with 1.5, March 31, 2008
Version upgrade info: Here is info from 1.5 press release: Anyone who registered MacSpeech Dictate on or after April 1, 2009 is eligible to receive a free upgrade, and will be notified automatically via email. so you get version 1.5 if you buy this.
This is a review of version 1.5:
Okay here we go this is a review of MacSpeech 1.5 I will not be correcting any of the errors while I dictate this review. I have done all of the training as of now as to make its recognition the best possible.
One thing to note you cannot use an internal mic on a Mac computer with this version you need to use an external mic. Now I feel this is horrible and needs to be corrected as it makes it way more inconvenient to use. I feel you should at least be given the option. (note: While Speech Recognition software works "best" with a good mic, reading the mac speech forums you find many users were satisfied by the results of their internal mac mics. Now that it is dropped with out the option of using inter mics, leaves users high and dry)
Up to this point in the review I'm amazed at how perfect it has captured all of my speech. I have been using speech recognition for many years so I understand speaking in word clumps, which is essential for speech recognition software.
Now I haven't tried setting up custom words in their new editor, but will at some point if I come across a word that I use like LOL, wow it even got LOL if he doesn't understand something I go back and type it in by hand.
As you can tell the software is spot on!
Here I will repeat the Gettysburg address:
Four score and seven years ago our fore fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dictate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
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Pretty much spot on this program is 98% accurate by my accounts that is really awesome. E
my setup is a tabletop mike running to a mixing board that runs into my Mac. I'm sitting about 8 inches from the Mike and it's picking up perfect recognition I'm using a high-quality mic ( $70 XLR)
Enjoy!
Also send the company some e-mails requesting they add back the option of internal mics is the one serious flaw in this otherwise great program.
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-Version 1.1 to 1.4-
I have been a dragon date the user (DragonDictate user) on and off for years. And Dragon dictate was very good, and I think that MacSpeech picks up there. This review will be unedited so any words that are wrong or words that MacSpeech has gotten wrong.
I use a desktop microphone since I am disabled facing the hassle up putting on a headset is daunting. I think the principle reason many people fail with speech recognition is that you need to speak in Word clumps, and pronounce each word clearly.
With this in mind I sit about 6-8 inches away from my microphone and get almost perfect recognition. I also make it a habit to do all the training that is available, this way the program understands what I sound.
So as you can see from this review, MacSpeech did a rather well job of capturing everything that I want to say.
The only real complaint I have, is where is the health (help) section. Hopefully they improve this in future releases, not having a PDF manual to look at is kind of annoying. And also I have not found a way to train specific words as I save them (say them) this needs to be remedied ASAP.
Thanks for reading and I hope that this review helps you.
Charles Bittner
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165 of 169 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Speech Recognition Software I Have Ever Used, April 14, 2008
I am a disabled web developer. I was born without hands, and my arms are about 8 inches long. I have tried many different speech recognition programs over the past 15 years. In fact I was one of the first students in Michigan to have a wheelchair mounted voice-recognition laptop. It was horrible and recognize nothing. Then a few years later I tried a few other pieces of speech recognition software, nothing was very good at all. I kind of gave up on speech recognition until last year I tried a program called iListen even that wasn't really up to par, but a month ago I received MacSpeech Dictate as a gift and after installing and setting up my voice profile I was in love with how accurate this software is. I am not sure software can get more accurate than this.
I have seen some negative reviews on Amazon and I'm not sure how anyone could give this software a bad review. Like I said I have tested and use a lot of software in the past and nothing has compared to this. I recommend this software to anyone with a disability, or anyone that is a slow typer.
I even typed this review with MacSpeech Dictate and it only took a few seconds. Because it allows me to speak in my natural voice and at my natural pace.
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193 of 200 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Problems with installation AND little support from the company (Amended review), March 29, 2008
I hate to echo the sentiments of other posts, but it is important to get the point across that this software IS NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME. As with other posts, when I got to the "establish a profile" area, the software crashes. I tried it on 2 other machines (all Intel Macs) with similar results. After multiple attempts at contacting product support (no returned e-mails and hour long waits on hold), I was able to speak to an unhelpful support person. He said that they were having "tons of problems with installation profiles" and that they still did not understand what was causing the crash. He then sent me an e-mail with various "logs" to be sent back to them.
Do not buy this product until they have released version 1.1 or 1.2 to fix these problems. Even then, I would seriously consider not purchasing from a company that does not release the fact that they are having an epidemic of problems with this software, does not return e-mails, and has excessive wait times for customer service.
Amended review:
I was finally able to obtain a new data disk from MacSpeech. Although their customer service was terrible, I must say that they are pretty good as far as their dictation software is concerned. Having used Dragon since version 7.0, MacSpeech Dictate is by far the best voice recognition software I've ever used. The recognition is well above 99% in my experience. Probably the best aspect of this software is the ability to import terminology and have it recognized without having to actually train the terms into the program.
MacSpeech certainly needs to improve their customer support (shorter wait times on hold, better communication with customers, and support forums), their product is certainly quite good and worth the wait (and the tremendous hassle to obtain a functional data disk).
I must amend my review from one star to four stars. The only reason I withhold a five star review is because of the aforementioned customer support issues.
*Please note that I have dictated his entire review using MacSpeech dictate.
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