Thank you for your comments.

I heard only last week that the distributor for MacSpeech Scribe is no longer supplying this software due to many issues with the software, mainly around compatibility with Lion I am assuming. For some time now I have also been advising customers to wait as, like you said, Scribe is old technology and I am sure an update will come to Dragon Dictate to include this feature (likely a paid update).

Having said that, it would still not be suited for your needs. Voice recognition software is designed to be used with a single person speaking and that person needs to voice train the software so that it can understand how that individual speaks. Not only that but speech recognition relies on clear spoken audio with minimal to no background noise.

I would not put so much reliance on PCM recordings, instead concentrate on high quality MP3 (e.g. 320Kbps) with no background noise. PCM recording is not necessary for Dragon just clear spoken audio. But as I said above not suited for recording a lecture, only good for transcribing what you say as a trained user.

Below is a link to a blog I wrote about using Dragon to transcribe meetings or interviews. The same applies to sitting in an audience and recording the lecturer.

Using Dragon for Interviews or Meetings

I hope that helps. Please email me if you need more information.

Thanks

Dave
Dictate Australia

Would models such as the LS-7 work (which is a linear PCM recorder) or is there some thing about what “type” of recorder you have that determines if it would even work with macspeech scribe. A lot of these recorders I see use Olympus Sonority software and not DSS pro.

Also I will add I have a software called Switch installed on my laptop, which I use time to time for other things I do and I feel like this could come in handy.

On the Mac there are two seperate products for voice recognition currently available. MacSpeech Scribe which will only take digitally recorded audio and Dragon Dictate which will only take spoken voice via a mic, this is different from the Windows world where NaturallySpeaking Premium and Pro can take audio either spoken or by recording. As this is the case answering your second question is tricky as they are two separate things.

As for using MacSpeech Scribe or Dragon Dictate on a laptop, then as long as your MacBook meet the minimum requirements which are as follows then yes both products can run on your MacBook.

System Requirements for MacSpeech Scribe:
Intel-based Mac with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Internet connection required for product registration. Transcribed audio must be of a single speaker’s dictation in one of these file formats: .wav, .aif, .aiff, .m4v, .mp4, or .m4a.

System Requirements for Dragon Dictate:
Intel-based Mac with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Internet connection required for product registration. Nuance-approved USB microphone for Mac (included with new boxed-product purchase). For a full list of mic options available in Australia take a look at this blog post: click here

Thanks

Dave
Dictate Australia

You can order MacSpeech Scribe from the MacSpeech Australia website – http://www.macspeech.com.au/pages.php?pID=181

There is no free trial that I am aware of.

I hope that helps.

Dave
Dictate Australia

Background noise does not help, for best results recording audio in a quiet environments would be best. Actually using the standard iPhone headset and mic would help the cause as your voice will be close to the mic on the headset cable, no need to invest in a more expensive headset. Also, the inbuilt mic in the iPhone (and now the iPad) is very good.

I hope that helps.

Dave
Dictate

Is it worthwhile investing in a higher quality iphone headset beyond the standard apple earphones + mic?

I tend to do a lot of my audio recording in the car and are wondering whether the background noise of the engine/traffic is going to be a big problem and whether a better quality headset would resolve some of the issues?

Cheers!

Amanda

According to the manual you will need aiff (or wav, aif, mp4, m4a, m4v) from your iPhone. Here is a link to the MacSpeech Scribe manual page 37.

Thanks

Dave
Dictate Australia

The DM-420/DM-520 are not available in Australia, we tend to lag behind the US and Europe with recorders.

Thanks

Dave
Dictate

I also picked up a copy of Scribe (naturally) but being a long holiday weekend in the US, will have to wait until I get back into work on Tuesday before loading it up since my iMac at home’s only running 10.5.8. Great bunch of peeps at MacSpeech BTW. Not sure how it’s going to roll for customers outside the US but they promise free tech support for Scribe (and for their other products I’m assuming?) for as long as you own the product. Kudos to the company for this impressive gesture.

One last thing – I can recommend the Olympus DM-520. MacSpeech has blessed the DM-420 but I think the 520′s a better overall deal. It’s as close to a perfect voice recorder used for transcription that I’ve used, in addition to being capable of ingesting Audible .aa files and moonlighting as a iPod. My guess is that since it also records linear PCM (at 16bit 48kHz) you might find some musicians using it too. The included case even comes with a 1/4-20 tripod lug and a flip-up metal stand for interviews and multimedia work. And the Micro SDHC slot can allow you add on memory on top of the 4 gigs soldered inside so theoretically you can record 5000 hours (1k on board, 4k on chip) before needing to take your files off. Best of all it takes AAA batteries, so no worries about getting stuck with some custom battery that could be hard to track down years down the road. If you guys down in Oz have a chance to look this over, I think the DM-520 might impress you.

Almost forgot, great website you guys got going here – nicely done.

Yes you are correct, .mp3 is not a supported format – that was a mistype of .mp4 on my part. How was MacWorld? Did you come away with a long list of goodies for “your must” have list?

Thanks

Dave
Dictate Australia