Dragon Naturally Speaking 10

Okay next in writing tech adventures, speech recognition software.

For those that don't know, DNS 10 is speech to text software. It's some of the best on the market. Vista comes with a similar program. However I got this for my b-day and folks have been asking about it.

There are a bunch of different version of DNS 10. I got the preferred mobile edition. But just a quick break down:

DNS runs from $100 to $1000 depending on the version.

The cheapest is Standard. With standard you can use one voice and no mobile devices. Basically if all you need is to talk to your computer and have it write to you or maybe do some voice commands...this is the version you want.

Preferred has various flavors and runs $150 - $350 depending on the type. Since this is what I got, I'll expand on this in a bit.

Professional is the most expensive. It's made to work over networks and for even more money you can get it work with lawyer speak and medical speak. This isn't meant for causal people but basically folks that can't or won't type or use a mouse at all. It can be used with mobile devices and you can have many voices. If you interview folks, this is the version to have.

Preferred only works with one voice, but it works with mobile devices. You can buy the basic preferred, wireless (the head set it comes with is wireless) or mobile(mobile comes with the wired headset and a phillips digital recorder).

I wanted the mobile edition because I wanted to be able to write during my commute. Basically I plug the head phone and mic into the digital recorder then upload that file to my computer and then feed it to dragon.

I write fantasy...so I expected it to stumble a bit.

It installed fine on Vista. Just a few notes on this: restart after you install. Go through training.

I then gave it my file to transcribe (scene 6 chapter 26). While dragon transcribes just fine into any editor (ywriter, word, wordpad, notepad, and open office worked fine). I found that I should just use the dragonpad for the initial transcribe and edit. Because it's easier to teach the software.

Everything transcribes in a big block. I used the correction to corret words it didn't catch or know. It then began catching them the next time. Once I corrected the entire text (listening the file for when I forgot what I had said). I copyed that into my novel file.

The transcribed text was actually really good. It stumbled on some names and proper nouns of my world but really the overall text came out near perfect. In 30 minutes of speaking on my way home, I wrote 10,000 words. Go me.

Even if what I work out in speech isn't written gold, the basic idea is down. I'm pretty happy with this.

Don said:

Wow, that sounds great. How much time does the digital recorder have?

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The one that comes with DNS mobile has about 33 hours and 4 folders to record in. It's not a very expensive model ($58.00 about), but it works well.

I thought about getting the plain preferred then just buying the DR but it costs about the same.

Carmy said:

Dragon speaks works fine unless you're a Brit who happens to make a t sound at words ending with t. If you do, it adds it after every word ending with t.

Even after training DS I find it stumbles over the way I pronounce words. If I use a fake American accent I get along a lot better.

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Even when choosing a British Accent to train in? With 10 you can choose a variety of English accents...

Old Hack said:

I use Dragon 10 Preferred for just about all my computing because I have severe RSI and typing by hand isn't a good idea for me. I can and do use it for editing, and it's good--once you know the basic commands you should be able to edit by voice as easily as by hand.



Just a quick quibble--you can use Preferred with more than just one voice: all you do is train a new user, and you're away. So my husband could also use it, if he wanted; and I've trained it to recognise my various headsets or my digital voice recorder, each one as a separate user. Training is so very quick and easy with v10 that it's no bother, and it does lead to excellent accuracy.

I'd also like to question the point Carmy raised above about it struggling to recognise certain British English accents: I'm English and have not experienced the problem described. I wonder if Carmy set Dragon up to use an American speech model instead? This would, if I understand things correctly, have big implications for the accuracy and might be well worth checking.

(I've blogged about Dragon and the various headsets and peripherals I use with it to improve accuracy, if anyone's interested--just go look at my blog--there's a link below--and click on the "gadgets" label.)

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You're right about the new user thing...my bad. the difficulty people have found in the reviews I read, were that they couldn't interview some one and have it work. That's what I meant by different voices.