The Dragon voice recognition products from Nuance – NaturallySpeaking for Windows & Dragon Dictate for Mac – are not just a useful aid for teachers and educators but are also fast becoming essential tools for learning in our schools and universities for students too. Allowing children to speak their thoughts and not be held back by the speed of their typing which lets creativity flow. Helping children with their spoken diction and instantly showing the correct spelling of words as they are spoken are a huge benefit. That coupled with the fact that students are comfortable using computers it makes sense for schools and universities to be looking at this speech recognition technology. In summary benefits of speech recognition technology for students and educators include:

• Improves core reading and writing skills for students of all abilities
• Helps students with language-based learning disabilities more easily express themselves in writing
• Provides accessibility for teachers and students with physical disabilities that hamper typing
• Bridges English Language Learners’ oral and  written communication skills
• Prepares students to use emerging interfaces in the 21st century workforce
• Enables teachers to prepare more detailed assessments of student work through dictation

This is where we, Dictate Australia, can help as certified Gold Nuance Australia resellers. We can supply site education licences for learning facilities across Australia. This not only opens you up to larger discounts on Nuance pricing but also makes your software asset management more manageable compared to buying odd licences ad hoc. The licensing of Dragon NaturallySpeaking (Windows computers) and Dragon Dictate (for Macs) is slightly different for educational purposes than it is for commercial or government bulk licensing the differences being:

Commercial / Government – Dragon Site Licensing

• Dragon is licensed per VOICE profile, which allows a licensed user to install it on multiple machines, ie their work machine, a laptop, as well as their home machine. The EULA (End User LIcence Agreement) also allows a third party (ie secretary or personal assistant) to have it installed on their machine PURELY for use in transcription (relevant only for Premium & Pro Dragon NaturallySpeaking).

Educational – Dragon Site Licensing

• For Education users the site licence model is simpler, Dragon is licensed per machine. Each machine is free to have multiple users on that computer. If a teacher or educator requires Dragon for work and home use, they would therefore require TWO licenses.

For the purposes of this post we are focusing on the Nuance education site volume licence. Essentially there are five price points for each software licence depending on the number or licences you own, obviously the more licences purchases the cheaper the product becomes. An educational VLA (volume licence agreement) can be started with as little as five licences. The five price point levels kick in based on these number of licences:

• Level A 5-49
• Level B 50-199
• Level C 200-499
• Level D 500-1999
• Level E 2000+

Buying Dragon under a Volume Licence Agreement will give you a single Valsonic Analogue Headset/Mic with each licence purchased. These headsets are fine for basic use, we can work with you to provide higher quality Plantronics USB noise cancelling headsets/mics for Mac or Windows if required.

As an optional but highly recommended extra is a Maintenance & Support agreement. There is a one to one relationship, one licence requires one maintenance agreement, and will give you Nuance technical support and all updates, upgrades and service packs released during the term of the active one year maintenance agreement. Maintenance and support can be renewed yearly and costs 15% of the original licence cost and is the only ongoing costs associated with Nuance Dragon site licenses.

If you are considering voice recognition technology for your school, university or TAFE please give me a call to discuss (Dave Holmes 0403 968 672) or send me an email (dave@dictate.com.au). I can run through the associated costs and look at an initial pilot for you to evaluate the software.

More details on Dragon for Education including some sample applications using Dragon, testimonials and white papers on the Nuance Australia website – click here.

No, is the short answer. Voice or speech recognition software will only successfully work with one spoken voice and that spoken voice, for best results, needs to have trained the software to understand their voice and style of speaking known as creating a voice profile. Most people who use voice recognition software typically pop on a headset and mic and chat away to their Windows PC or Mac and watch as their voice is magically (or using the Dragon voice recognition engine if you don’t believe in magic) converted to text.

Voice recognition is currently going through a spike in popularity, especially since the release of the iPhone 4S running iOS5 with Siri, which has raised awareness of just how good voice recognition technology has evolved over the last couple of years, Nuance being the company leading the way in this technology on Mac, Windows and now inside iOS5 working closely with Apple.

Because of this everyone now has an iPhone which is capable of recording audio and most who need to capture important meetings or interviews also have a high quality digital voice recorder. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium and Professional edition on Windows and MacSpeech Scribe on the Mac can take recorded audio and transcribe it, that is only for that single trained person who is speaking. So it is understandable that the leap is often made that if it can transcribe one voice it can transcribe many, not so. The technology is not there yet and in my opinion won’t be for quite some time.

Nuance on their website cleverly have a couple of pages dedicated to Transcribing Interviews or Transcribing Lectures using a technique called voice writing or parroting. The idea is simple, you record your interview, meeting, lecture or whatever it is that has multiple voices or a single voice that you can not get trained in Dragon (possibly the voice of someone making a speech or presenting at a conference). Then when you are sitting in front of your Windows PC or Mac (in this case running Dragon Dictate, not MacSpeech Scribe) you listen to your recorded audio and you speak what you hear. Therefore it is your trained voice that Dragon hears as you are repeatings other peoples words from your recording. Sounds simple doesn’t it – it isn’t, I have tried it a few times and have become extremely frustrated. You may find that the voice you are listening to is too fast for you to remember and repeat back which means you are constantly stopping and rewinding the audio, which on an iPhone app or basic digital voice recorder is not always that easy. You will likely often have to stop the audio to correct mistakes made by Dragon, maybe when unfamiliar names or terms are used which have not been trained into your user profile. It will work but it does take a lot of concentration and a large amount of practice, you can give it a try just search YouTube for a boardroom meeting and see if you can repeat what you hear while wearing a headset and mic.

So what are your practical options for transcribing audio or video of meetings and interviews or in fact any audio that you need turned from voice to text?

Option 1 – Type The Audio Yourself

You could transcribe the audio yourself using some specialised transcription software to help you, transcription is the process of typing what you hear. When I say help it won’t actually do the work of typing it for you but it will assist greatly with the audio playback. For example if you are a slow typist you could slow the speed of audio playback down to match your typing speed or conversly also speed up the audio if your fingers are a blur when you type. Using transcription software you can also easily rewind the audio, again set up to match your typing ability so you could either rewind back half a second or if you are a poor typist like me rewind the audio back up to 5 seconds. The biggest benefit of using transcription software is that audio can be controlled from inside the word processor that you are typing in. By that I mean using a USB connected foot pedal or pre-defined keys on your keyboard you can stop/play/rewind the audio without leaving the document that you are typing. This is a huge time saver, often people try to transcribe using Windows Media Player or Quicktime for their audio playback and they have to constantly switch between they document to the audio player to stop/rewind/play and then back to the document which adds a considerable amount of time to the whole transcribing process.

Pros Of Doing It Yourself

• Cost, from the point of view that you are not paying someone else to do the work.
• Cost, from the point of view that transcription software is free or relatively cheap depending on what you buy.

Cons Of Doing It Yourself

• It is hard work and not as easy as it sounds.
• Transcription typing does take a long time even if you are experienced.

Just as an indication of how long transcription takes, a good quality one hour audio file of an interview between two people would take an experienced transcription typist around 2-3 hours to transcribe. If you are not experienced expect that to rise to 4-5 hours and without the help of transcription software even longer.

Transcription Software

• Express Scribe from NCH Software – $FREE
• Express Scribe Pro from NCH Software – approx. AU$40 – Click Here To Buy Express Scribe PRO – Plays .dss .ds2 .dct .dvf .avi .mov .wmv audio and video files.
• Olympus AS-2400 Digital Transcription Kit – Includes software, headset and USB foot pedal – RRP AU$425 but usually it sells online for less. Windows & Mac compatible.

Option 2 – Outsource To A Professional Transcription Service

If you need your audio transcribed quickly and accurately then this option is for you. Just Google transcription service and see how many businesses are listed both organically and in the paid Google ads. Transcription has become a boom business over the last few years and that makes total sense. With the availability and high quality of digital voice recorders and iPhone apps just about everyone is recording their meetings, interviews, podcasts, vodcasts, focus groups, lectures, letters, assessments the list goes on. It is great to have a record of your meeting and the like stored digitally which can be easily shared within your business on your intranet or with the world on the internet but more often than not a written transcript is also required for offline reading, compliance or for public record. There are all kinds of reasons audio and video is transcribed into text these days.

This is where a professional transcription service can come in to help you. Simply send them your digital audio or video via the internet and they can set to work using their team of experienced transcription typists to convert your voice to text. Here is a security tip, always make sure that the transcription service you use has their own secure file server and that the data you send them is encrypted either using FTPS (not FTP) or HTTPS (not HTTP) – this is important for two reasons. 1. your audio/video is encrypted as it travels across the internet from you to their servers. 2. by ensuring they run their own secure server they will have full control and access over what happens on that server. Many transcription services use third party providers like SendThisFile.com and they nor you have any control over your data on that third parties servers. Ask any transcription service that you approach about their security and file transfer mechanisms. Many still use FTP and not FTPS, transferring files across FTP alone does not encrypt the file contents, be it audio, video or worse still your transcribed documents.

Any good professional transcription service will turn your audio around quickly and the final transcript will very accurate. Typically there are two phases to the transcription process; phase 1 is the transcription typist who listens and types your audio/video to text. Phase 2 is a quality assurance phase, a proofreader will listen to your audio and proof against what has been transcribed. This double verifies the typists work and the document can be formatted to your specific requirements. Obviously we recommend The Transcription People, not just because this is our sister company but because they are leaders in the transcription industry in Australia who service clients not only from Australia but also the US and Europe

As audio and video for transcription is mainly digital you can utilise the services of a transcription company anywhere in the world, you may want to do this for cost benefit reasons but more often than not to take advantage of time zones. Many UK and US businesses will use the services of Australian based transcription companies for just this reason as Australia tends to work their business day as Europe and the US sleep.

Pros

• Speed, this is a transcription services core business. Reputable companies will turn around audio and video very quickly.
• Accuracy, again as a core business this is how transcription services are rated from a customers point of view. A good transcription firm will always produce high quality accurate transcriptions because of the two phase approach.
• Ability to adapt, regardless of how much audio or video you send you should always expect the same fast, accurate turn around of transcripts.
• You don’t have to do it so you can focus your time on more productive work.

Cons

• Cost is the only con, you are paying for a service so compared to you doing it yourself there will be a cost involved. Obviously the larger more reputable transcription companies will have different rates from the work from home type of micro transcription service.

So there you have it ! Reasons why Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Windows or MacSpeech Scribe for Apple Mac are not good for transcribing meetings or interviews and the options you have open to you to convert recorded audio or video into text.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking from Nuance, currently at version 11.5, can use a digital recording of your spoken voice and transcribe that into text (Premium and Professional versions only), this is commonly referred to as deferred transcription. With so many people now owning either a digital voice recorder and/or an iPhone or iPad with a voice recording app the question is often asked “is the recording quality good enough for use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking?“.

Luckily the nice people at Nuance have a quick and easy way for you to check, via the Nuance Hardware Compatibility website. This site shows compatibility for all Nuance software but you can specifically drill down on Dragon NaturallySpeaking and then look through the Recorders (current) or Recorders (legacy) for older digital voice recorders.

The Nuance Hardware Compatibility website is also worth a visit if you are planning to buy a new microphone or mic and headset combo for use with Dragon Naturally Speaking as these too are listed and given a Dragon accuracy score out of six, the more dragons the better the accuracy. We like the Plantronics DSP-400 and have been promoting that for a few years now. The DSP-400 achieved a six dragon accuracy score and is an excellent all round headset/mic combo which is both Mac and Windows compatible, works with Skype also.

Currently the only universal (iPhone and iPad) voice recording app which is listed as compatible is the awesome Andrea Pure Audio Live Recorder app (found in the Recorders (current) dropdown which achieves five out of six dragons. I have this app on my iPhone 4 running iOS5 and it works beautifully, the app also works on the 3GS iPhone.

Yes, 11.5 is now ready for download and upgrade in Australia for all registered Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 users. The upgrade will open up the use of your iPhone as a remote wireless mic into Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Windows (unless you are a Home user) aswell as some new social tools like tweeting and Facebook updates using Dragon. I am willing to bet 20c that we will see another upgrade soon to include posts to Google+, here’s hoping.

Want to know how to use your iPhone with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5? First you will need to grab the free Dragon Remote Mic app from iTunes here Then watch this official Nuance video … [click here for the video]

Some excitement over the last couple of weeks with rumours abound that Nuance have done a deal with Apple and have signed some kind of agreement to use their voice recognition technology in the up coming iOS5 release for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Since Siri was gobbled up by Apple back in 2010 we have all been waiting to see what Apple will do with the voice controlled concierge and the theory is Dragon will be used to power the new Apple stamped version of Siri when it finally emerges. These are just rumours for now but rumours which are growing in substance.

Moving on to the new release of Dragon NaturallySpeaking annouced out of Nuance HQ in Burlington, Massachusetts mid June 2011, version 11.5, it promises much the same as every Dragon release: faster and more accurate. But this time they have thrown in some Apple iDevice magic via a free iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app (available now from iTunes), you will be able to use your Apple device as a remote mic to feed Dragon via your WiFi. How cool is that ! Unless you are a Home version user then you are left out in the cold, remote mic only works with Premium, Pro and Legal 11.5

Of course I instantly grabbed the app, magically delivered to all my devices thanks to the new partially released iCloud service, and then reached for my laptop to “Check For Updates” in DNS 11. To my huge dissapointment no updates available, I’m still stuck on version 11. Some closer reading of the press release dampened my excitment a little more as the free upgrade (if you are already on DNS version 11) will be rolled out in a few weeks so read mid July 2011.

Also in the bump to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 you can now get social hands free if you are a twitter user or frantic Facebook updater with voice commands such as:

“Post to Facebook [Dictate Australia is an awesome company who know digital voice for Mac and Windows inside out]”

or

“Post to Twitter [Follow @dictates on twitter, they are the digital voice people in Australia]”

Please feel free to try those exact updates when yoo get your update to version 11.5

So, like the rest of the world we wait patiently for the bump. July is going to test all our bandwidth to the limit with iOS5 coming for iPhone/iPad, OS X Lion for our Macs and 11.5 for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Windows users, please don’t feel left out – the daily patches, bug fixes and security updates for your Windows should make you feel just as updated as the rest of us.

If you are thinking of buying Dragon NaturallySpeaking there is no need to hold back. We, like all resellers in Australia are shipping version 11, as soon as the 11.5 update becomes available it will be an electronic download for all registered version 11 users.

Read the official Nuance press release announcing Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5

Want to watch some official Nuance videos on the updates to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5? Of course you do, just a warning the American accent may induce sleep:

[Video] Post to Facebook or Twitter using voice commands

[Video] Using the Dragon Remote Mic app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch

Nuance Australia this week released the Legal vocabulary pack for Australian Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional users. The language pack is available as an add-on, you must have Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional already installed, or you can buy the language pack with DNS 11 Pro as a bundle.

The legal pack is designed specifically for Australian legal users and is crammed full of Australian centric legal terms, just over 200 million words Nuance claim which will help legal users achieve optimal accuracy out of the box when dictating legal terms.

As usual with Nuance there are numerous options open to you whether you are new to Dragon or you already have a version of Naturally Speaking installed. Only two options are currently available from the Australian Nuance distributors but a couple more will be coming later this year, including upgrades from earlier versions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred and Professional. Here are your options and the pricing for what is available now:

I Already Own Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional

Then all you need is the add-on language pack which self installs itself with your Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Pro.

• Product Name:  Dragon NaturallySpeaking Pro 11 Legal Commercial Vocab Only
• Product SKU: A509M-K00-11.0
• RRP: $499.95 incl. GST

I Am New To Dragon And Do Not Own Any NaturallySpeaking Software

Then you will need the DNS11 Professional plus DNS11 Legal vocabulary pack.

• Product Name:  Dragon NaturallySpeaking Pro 11 Commercial + DNS Legal 11 Australian Edition
• Product SKU: A509M-G00-11.0
• RRP: $829.95 incl. GST

For those of you running older versions of Dragon Naturally Speaking, be it the Professional or Preferred versions there are upgrades available for you to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional, which you must have installed before you can install the add-on. Currently you need to purchase the upgrade to DNS 11 Pro and the legal vocab separately.

As always, any questions please drop a comment here or tweet us @dictates

Nuance has quickly forged their authority on the Dictate brand of voice recognition software for Mac and with their first release Dragon Dictate 2.0 they have done an excellent job. But what now for the Legal and Medical edition still stuck at MacSpeech Dictate version 1.5 and the fairly new offshoot product MacSpeech Scribe currently at version 1.1, all of which are using the older Dragon speech recognition engine and not the new one included with Dragon Dictate.

I have some theories for these products which may or may not be correct so please don’t hold me to them. These are my best guesses and have not been confirmed or denied by Nuance, just my two cents worth.

MacSpeech Scribe in my view can go in ne of two directions. It can either be discontinued and the voice to text functionality built into a later Dragon Dictate update, much like Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium or Professional for Windows. Or Nuance will embrace this as a separate product and continue to push it as a stand alone offering for transcribing only recorded audio. I have always been torn on MacSpeech Scribe, I have never understood why you would create a separate product for transcription of digitally recorded audio but that maybe because I have been so used to the functionality from the Windows side of the fence. As MacSpeech Scribe is still fairly new I have a feeling Nuance will continue with it and we will likely see a Dragon Scribe product appear in the very near future.

So what about the Medical and Legal version of MacSpeech Dictate, are we going to see an equivalent in Dragon Dictate? My personal view is that we are likely to see a Legal version for Dragon Dictate but maybe not the Medical version. From my understanding the Legal dictionary of terms is fairly standard and so can be quite easily built into a speech recognition dictionary. Wheres Medical with its large number of specialised area of understanding would be an unwieldily dictionary to maintain and build. For the Medical side of things I think we will see a third party put their hand up and claim an exclusive partnership with Nuance to provide and support that medical crowd.

So when can we see what I have theorised about above. Dragon Scribe I would think would be very close, if it is coming, and we would likely see this before the end of the year. Dragon Dictate Legal I would also see on the same time line, especially as we now have Dragon Dictate in the wild adding a more comprehensive legal dictionary can’t be that far behind.

Of course as soon as we get wind of any new voice recognition products from Nuance for the Mac or Windows we will post the info.

We are not ones for blowing our own trumpet but this week we are feeling well and truly chuffed with ourselves. Dictate Australia have just become certified Gold Dragon NaturallySpeaking resellers, this gives us bragging rights to call ourselves experts in the leading speech recognition software for the Windows world. Having studied and passed our exams we can proudly display the Nuance Gold Certified reseller logo on our website, blog, e-mail signature and on our T-shirts, in fact I may even get it tattooed on my arm! You can throw at us any Dragon NaturallySpeaking question and we will be able to answer it (and if we can’t, we have the contacts in Nuance Australia who can).

So why do we also call ourselves experts in Mac voice recognition. Well, we have been supporters of MacSpeech Dictate since version 1.0 first appeared a couple of years ago. We have seen this product grow since version 1.0 into the advanced voice recognition product for Mac that it is nowadays. We are also beta testers for MacSpeech, so we are always up to date with what’s new and what is coming in the next version. This is very exciting for us and sometimes a little hard to keep quiet on some of the new features and functions as we see them during testing.

We often hear from people in the Dictate Australia office who say “yes but is voice recognition any good nowadays?”, this commonly comes from people who tried Dragon NaturallySpeaking in the version 6, 7 or 8 days. We too tried voice recognition in the early days and found it hard going. The reason we moved back into voice recognition software was because of MacSpeech Dictate, we could see the advances that have been made and we wanted to give it another try. Now that MacSpeech is owned by Nuance an already excellent product can only get better, and will get better very quickly.

This blog post has been written using MacSpeech Dictate.

Dragon Naturally Speaking 11 HOME, PREMIUM and PROFESSIONAL are available to buy online in Australia from Dictate Australia.

Above is a screen shot of multiple word selection in Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11. The green boxes highlighting the number or each word matched have been slightly increased in size to make them easier to view in this blog post. Multiple match text during formatting and editing, one of the new features in version 11 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking from Nuance. Below is a video example of multi text match in use, once we get a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 in the office we will produce and Australian video of this feature, until then we have to rely on our friends from the US

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 HOME, PREMIUM and PROFESSIONAL are available to buy online in Australia from Dictate Australia.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 HOME and PREMIUM editions can be pre-ordered from Dictate Australia, will be available in Australia early September 2010.

]]> http://idictate.com.au/2010/08/dragon-naturallyspeaking-11-screen-shot-home-premium-professional-voice-speech-recognition-australia-dns11/feed/ 0 http://idictate.com.au/2010/08/nuance-dragon-naturallyspeaking-version-11-home-premium-professional-australia/ http://idictate.com.au/2010/08/nuance-dragon-naturallyspeaking-version-11-home-premium-professional-australia/#comments Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:22:02 +0000 Dave http://idictate.com.au/?p=651

Barely a year goes by without a major release for Dragon NaturallySpeaking, not surprising with the huge advances in technology being made especially in the voice recognition world. The latest version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the leading speech recognition software in the Windows world has now ticked over from version 10.1 to version 11. With the new release comes the usual claim of faster, more accurate and easier to use: exactly what is expected of any major upgrade. Also thrown into the mix is support for Microsoft’s latest Office 2010 along with much needed improvements to the UI which has been kicking around in its existing look and feel for some time, the UI improvements should make DNS11 even easier to navigate and use.

The product names for the NaturallySpeaking family have also had a revamp, gone are the Standard, Preferred and Professional editions, now we have Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Home (was Standard), Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium (was Preferred) and Professional which remains as is. These new versions will appear in Australia towards the end of August or early September, pre-orders are being taken now by most certified Dragon resellers, including us, Dictate Australia.

I currently own an older version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, can I upgrade to Version 11?

This depends on the version of Dragon you currently own. If you currently run Dragon NaturallySpeaking Standard then you are out of luck. But, if you own version 9, 9.5, 10 or 10.1 Preferred or Professional then yes, you can get an upgrade package to version 11.

• You can upgrade from Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred version 9, 9.5, 10, 10.1 to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium
• You can upgrade from Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional version 9, 9.5, 10, 10.1 to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional
• You can upgrade from Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred version 9, 9.5, 10, 10.1 to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional

What digital voice recorder comes with the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium Mobile edition?

Packaged in the Premium Mobile edition is the Philips Digital Voice Tracer (DVT) 662. This is a good little recorder which is both Mac and Windows compatible. It records in either .mp3 or .wav (PCM) audio formats and has 2Gb of built in memory. The 2Gb gives you 23 hours of .mp3 recording in the highest quality recording mode and just over 6 hours of recording in the high quality PCM .wav recording mode. This recorder is excellent for recording your voice notes for Dragon NaturallySpeaking but will also be good for recording interviews and small meetings.

What is the bluetooth headset in with the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium Wireless edition?

The wireless edition comes with the Plantronics Calisto bluetooth headset. This is the over-the-ear typical bluetooth style headpiece and gives you freedom from wires whilst dictating to your PC. Plantronics are leaders in the headset world.

I use a couple of PCs, one in the office and one at home is there a multi install licence for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11?

Yes, with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium you have the choice of a standard single install licence, two install licence and five install licence packs.

How much does the new Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 cost?

To celebrate the launch of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 in Australia, Nuance have a promotion which lasts until the end of September. I will write a new post with the pricing post-September when the information becomes available. The initial pricing is as follows:

• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 HOME – $99.95 incl. GST
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 PREMIUM – $249.95 incl. GST
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 PREMIUM (2 install) – $299.00 incl. GST
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 PREMIUM (5 install) – $699.00 incl. GST
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 PREMIUM Wireless – $299.00 incl. GST
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 PREMIUM Mobile – $299.00 incl. GST
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 PROFESSIONAL – $649.00 incl. GST
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 PROFESSIONAL Wireless – $769.00 incl. GST

And the cost of the upgrade packages:

• Upgrade from DNS Preferred 9/9.5/10/10.1 to DNS11 PREMIUM – $99.00 incl. GST
• Upgrade from DNS Preferred 9/9.5/10/10.1 to DNS11 PROFESSIONAL – $369.00 incl. GST
• Upgrade from DNS Professional 9/9.5/10/10.1 to DNS11 PROFESSIONAL – $269.00 incl. GST

At Dictate Australia we plan to list all versions of Naturally Speaking version 11 as it becomes available in Australia.

Official Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 press release.

So, this year has been a big one for Olympus voice with a revamp of all their digital recorder range. Not content with being left behind Philips had a go back in April when they rolled out, finally, Mac compatible note takers with the DVT (Digital Voice Tracer) range comprising of the 660/860/880 models. This week Philips have done a rejig in this range and discontinued the young 660/860/880 recorders and replaced them with new model numbers although essentially they are the previous recorders upgraded. Philips have also added some innovative voice recorder packages, like a set aimed at reporters and a set aimed at writers who might want to attempt their own transcription.

So what has been discontinued and what are their replacement models:

• Philips DVT LFH0660 discontinued, replaced by DVT LFH0662 (2GB – RRP AU$189)
• Philips DVT LFH0860 discontinued, replaced by DVT LFH0862 (4GB – RRP AU$249)
• Philips DVT LFH0880 discontinued, replaced by DVT LFH0882 (4GB – RRP AU$279)
• Philips DVR DragonNaturallySpeaking Voice Recorder Edition LFH-660/10 discontinued, replaced by LFH0667 (RRP AU$259)

A common change across the range is an increase in memory, that makes sense with solid state memory continuing to grow in size and drop in price. Also added to all recorders are a visual record level indicator and the USB connection, as well as powering the unit, will now also charge a rechargeable battery.

Other notable changes include uncompressed PCM recording now available on the LFH0662. High Sensitivity mic added to the LFH0862 and LFH0882 with the new “Zoom” function.

As mentioned another innovative thing Philips have done is create some Digital Voice Tracer combination packs, new packs are:

• LFH0868 (RRP AU$279) – 862 Digital Voice Tracer with docking station.
• LFH0888 (RRP AU$339) – 882 Digital Voice Tracer with docking station.
• LFH0867 (RRP AU$369) – Writers Set. 862 Digital Voice Tracer with the media player USB hand control (LFH2370/00)  which allows audio control with yours thumbs.
• LFH0885 (RRP AU$369) – Reporters Set. 882 Digital Voice Tracer with stereo lapel mic.
• LFH0895 (RRP AU$749) – Compact Meeting Recorder. I like this one, 882 Digital Voice Tracer with two of the best looking and good quality boundary mics available.

Expect to see these new models appearing around Australia from October.

Released mid 2009 in Australia in a joint venture between Philips Dictation and Nuance was the Philips Dragon NaturallySpeaking Voice Recorder Edition (LFH0660/10) at an incredibly cheap price of RRP AU$259.00 incl. GST. At that price it certainly makes you sit up and pay attention, after all the package contains Dragon NaturallySpeaking v10 and a very competent Philips Digital VoiceTracer 660.

Not much to say about the Philips DVT 660, a great little recorder, perfect for single speaker audio. The 660 records in MP3 format and like all recorders has multiple recording modes (tip: always use the highest quality recording mode, SHQ on the DVT 660). This is a note taker not a dictaphone so you are not able to rewind/review your audio just simply record and stop, although you can pause during recordings. The recorder has 1Gb of in-built flash memory, can be powered by two AAA batteries or by USB and can record on the highest quality audio setting for 17.5 hours.Included in the box is version 10 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking (Windows only) which uses the latest Dragon speech recognition engine, this is a drastically cut down version of the software so does not include features that you would see in the Standard or Preferred edition, hence the cut down price. The recognition engine though is the same so no skimping on the quality of the speech recognition.

The aim of the  Digital Voice Recorder Edition is to allow people to dictate into their digital voice recorder for later transcription by the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software. The user does not need be in the office and in front of their computer while dictating, therefore gives them the freedom to record dictation whenever and wherever they want, which of course is very convenient. Because the software is a cut down version you can not directly talk to the software using a headset and mic as you can with the Standard or Preferred versions, the software will only transcribe audio from a digital recording. Now this does not have to be a recording made on the 660, any recording in the audio format .mp3, .wav or .dss can be used. The software can be configured for multiple user profiles (or speakers) so if you have a number of people in the office all with a digital voice recorder that records in a compatible audio format they could all use one installed copy of the software, once they have trained their profile to their voice.

Installation of the software is quick and easy and you are guided through each step of the install with clear and precise instructions, normal with any Dragon NaturallySpeaking install. When installation is complete you are presented with a selection of eight transcripts, any one of which you are required to read for your initial voice training. To do this read your preferred transcript and record your voice using the Philips VoiceTracer 660. This must be recorded into one single digital audio file and not split over multiple files. You have the option to display the transcripts on the screen or print them.

The selection of eight voice training transcripts to read are:

• 3001 – The Final Odyssey (Harder Reading – Science Fiction)
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Reading for Teens – Fantasy)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Reading for Teens – Adventure)
• Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (Reading for Teens – Adventure)
• Dave Barry in Cyberspace (Medium Reading – Humour)
• Dogberts Top Secret Management Handbook (Harder Reading – Humour)
• Success is a Journey (Medium Reading – Business Philosophy)
• The Captain of Battery Park (Reading for Teens – Adventure)

I suggest you print one then take yourself away somewhere comfortable to sit and read the transcript while recording your voice with the digital voice recorder.

Tips when recording your first voice training transcript:

• Speak in your normal voice but make sure your speak clearly.
• Speak at your normal speech rate, do not rush or speak too slowly.
• Make sure the digital voice recorder is set to SHQ recording mode.
• Take some time to understand how the voice recorder works before you begin. You can pause during the recording of reading the transcript, work out how to do this before your start.
• Record the audio somewhere quiet, not at a cafe or in a busy office with phones ringing and people talking around you.
• Have a glass of water handy and take some sips if and when your pause recording, helps keep your audio clear.
• Do not dictate punctuation.

I was interrupted a couple of times in my office while recording my voice training transcript hence the tip for learning how to pause the recording. Training the software to recognise your voice and more importantly the way you speak is key to the success of this software and ultimatly your user experience with it. Be warned the selection of transcripts can take some time. For my voice training I selected “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” which took just over twenty minutes to record (with a couple of interruptions).

Once you have completed the recording of your voice training audio connect the digital voice recorder to your PC via USB. Then select the location of the audio file which by default is in Folder A on the voice recorder unless your specifically selected another folder prior to recording. By default the software looks for a file called in.wav, simply browse to the voice recorder and select the recording you just made:

Dragon NaturallySpeaking will transfer a copy of the audio from the recorder to a temporary folder on your PC where it will verify the audio. Verification checks the audio quality and clarity of your recording as well as the signal to noise ratio. If all is good Dragon NaturallySpeaking will identify which one of the eight transcripts you chose to read, as you can see from the image below “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was identified, click next and the real work begins. Dragon will process your audio against the transcript and work out how you speak and how you sound.

Verification of the audio can take up to an hour, for me it only took around 20 minutes until the process was complete. Nearly finished, hang in there…. Finally you have the option of having Dragon NaturallySpeaking analyse your writing style, the software can look at your email (Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or Lotus Notes) and your documents (Microsoft Word, Text and Rich Text files) and adapt to your writing style. This helps Dragon NaturallySpeaking produce documents in your style of writing, this part can be skipped.

That completes the voice training and initial setup for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Digital Voice Recorder Edition. It is recommended that when you have time in the future you work your way through the other seven voice training transcripts, that helps Dragon fully analyse the way you speak and enunciate your words.

You are now free to record dictation to your Philips DVT 660 and request Dragon to transcribe the audio for you. You will need to include punctuation as you dictate, “new paragraph”, “new line”, “full stop” and so on otherwise your transcript will be one long sentence in one long paragraph. I found this out when I decided to get Dragon to transcribe my voice training transcript, below is a screen shot of Dragon NaturallySpeaking in action transcribing my training dictation:

You will still need to proof your transcribed audio however the whole exercise will still be alot quicker than typing the audio yourself.

Remember, this software only works for one person dictation. You can not record an interview or meeting and have Dragon transcribe it for you. You should not even attempt this as other voices will change your voice profile and affect the accuracy of transcription. For multi speaker audio you need your own on-site transcriptionist or outsource your digital audio to Australia’s leading online transcription service – The Transcription People.

So to sum up, I was actually very impressed by the ease of use of the software and the transcription accuracy. I am very used to using Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred using a headset and mic so just recording into a voice recorder put me a little out of my comfort zone but for people who are used to talking into a voice recorder they will be very comfortable with the whole process. There is minimal effort to proof your completed transcription and the speed of transcription will easily beat the fastest typist.

Pros:

• Cost effective, very cheap for excellent software and a quality voice recorder.
• Easy to use software and digital voice recorder.
• Fast, accurate transcription for single speaker dictation.
• Software can have multiple user profiles so anyone with a voice recorder can have their dictation transcribed.

Cons:

• Document has to be proofed post transcription and not in real time as with Standard or Preferred Editions.
• Voice training audio can take up to twenty minutes to record.

Philips Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 DVR Edition - LFH0660/10

It is fantastic to see some more innovation from Philips, taking the initiative to work globally with Nuance, the Dragon NaturallySpeaking people to provide an affordable package for people looking to get into the voice recognition. We have seen huge growth in the voice recognition software, both Mac and Windows over the past year as professionals, students, authors etc give up on the need to type for hours. Most people talk around the 120 words per minute mark, way faster than most can type so why not let your computer do it for you.

The first thing that hit me about this package is its amazingly low price, RRP of $209 incl. GST. Hang on, I thought, Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred Edition which is the first of the Dragon product line which takes audio from a digital voice recorder is waaaaay more expensive than that (currently RRP $349 incl GST) without a digital voice recorder so how do they do it for the price?  The catch, it is a considerably cut down version of NaturallySpeaking, especially when compared to the Preferred version.

Here is the product comparison matrix, apologies for the quality it came from the dealer handout I will create a nicer easier to read version shortly:

That said, it is enough to get you into the product and lets you sniff around at what this incredible software can do. If you regularly dictate single speaker reports or documents or even painstakingly type them yourself this bundle might be worth a punt. For the price you are not really going to lose, even if you don’t get on with the software you still end up with a pretty descent digital notetaker in the Philips digital voice tracer 660.

From what I can see in the specs you will not be able to dictate real time into Dragon NaturallySpeaking using a microphone, you will only be able to do deferred transcription using the audio recorded on the DVT 660.

We can expect to see these appearing in Australia from the end April, so now. Dictate Australia will be stocking the bundle from the second week in May.

Update – May 2009 – Philips Dragon NaturallySpeaking Voice Recorder Edition Available NOW from Dictate Australia – click here.

Here is a tip for you, if you are finding that your dictation using Dragon NaturallySpeaking is lagging slightly when you dictate into Microsoft Word this is generally caused by the overhead of Word trying to spell and/or grammar check your dictation as it is written. If you have a well trained NaturallySpeaking profile you might want to try dictating straight into Notepad or even Wordpad, you will find that NaturallySpeaking dumps out your text alot quicker and smoother allowing you to talk even faster.

Once you have verbosed yourself into Notepad simply copy and paste into Word and let it do its thing with the spell and/or grammar check.

The upgrade to version 10.1 is currently only available for Dragon NaturallySpeaking Standard and Preferred versions. The update for Professional users is planned for Early April 2009.

Be warned people, the upgrade is a monster download. Weighing in at 1.37Gb for Preferred users and 1.22Gb for Standard. So you might want to go grab a three course meal out somewhere nice while it is downloading.

The big news in this release is that Dragon NaturallySpeaking v10.1 supports 64bit Windows Vista system.

Other inclusions in this release add support for IE8 and Firefox 3. Also included is enhanced documentation, including a “Commands Quick Reference” sheet, updates to the install guide and the users guide as well as more updates to the help files and tutorials.

This upgrade is not to be confused with the Service Pack SP1 out earlier this year, which primarily focused on documentation updates and bug fixes.

The upgrade can be downloaded from here:

http://www.nuance.com/vista/naturallyspeaking/Dragon10.1/

You will need you licence key ready, if you can find it just run up Dragon and click on Help, your licence key is displayed in the splash screen.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Service Pack 1

Download the service pack here.

Here is the detail from their SP1 release notes:

Issues resolved in Service Pack 1:

New Features:

* New options are now available for enabling/disabling the following quick formatting commands:
o Delete/Cut [XYZ]
o Copy [XYZ]
* New formatting option “Caps Lock key overrides No Caps/All Caps/Cap commands”. When this option is enabled, text case will be formatted based on the keyboard Caps Lock key.
* When starting Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 in Tray Icon Only mode, a balloon pop-up will appear above the microphone alerting the user that the DragonBar is hidden.
* When prompted for the Windows Username and Password to schedule Accuracy Tuning or Data Collection, it is now possible to turn off Accuracy Tuning or Data Collection by selecting “Do not display again” on the “Windows Username and Password” dialog.
* If the microphone was on or asleep when starting audio file transcription, the microphone will be in sleep mode when transcription finishes.

Accuracy Tuning and Scheduler:

* Scheduled tasks for Accuracy Tuning or Data Collection cannot be run when Dragon is running. The Accuracy Center no longer states the task completed successfully if it could not be started.
* The message “You need to increase the size of the acoustic archives” is no longer displayed when saving a user profile that does not have a full acoustic archive.
* When upgrading user profiles from a previous version that contain large amounts of training data, some training data may not be used, resulting in decreased accuracy in version 10. Upgrading the user profile after installing Service Pack 1 will use all training data available.
* Improved correction handling so actual corrections will not be discarded. The result is faster improvements to dictation accuracy when making corrections.
* Automatic adaptation of user profiles created without training will no longer appear when transcribing a sound file.

Application Support:

* Improved interaction with HTML based windows when running as a Windows Restricted User. This includes Internet Explorer as well editing/creating HTML messages in Microsoft Outlook.
* The “Page Down” command now functions properly in Microsoft Outlook 2007.

Commands:

* When using Mozilla Firefox with the “Require click to select HTML hyperlinks” option turned on, it is now possible to say the “(number)” as well as the original “Choose (number)” command to select a specific link.
* It is now possible to create commands that use abbreviations and expanded form without causing recognition as text (i.e. Mr. or Mister, Dr. or Doctor).
* “Clear delimiting characters” command properly removes fields entered into a table in Microsoft Word.
* In the Spanish version, the commands “ditar selección” and “ditar todos” have been fixed. They are now “editar selección” and “editar todos”.
* In the German version, using the command “verbinde das” to compound two words will no longer remove the capitalization.

Correction:

* Improved correction suggestions based on the context of the word or phrase being selected.
* Correction menu and spell dialog now include non-formatted suggestions.
* Extra spacing is no longer left after cutting or deleting a word or phrase.
* Corrections will no longer be marked with a green asterisk in the vocabulary editor.

Dictation:

* When dictating large amounts of text into an application a message will appear stating that “Dragon has reached the maximum amount of speech data that can be saved.” This message will no longer appear multiple times per application session.
* When dictating in Spell Mode, spaces are no longer entered.
* Dictating any punctuation in the middle of a line of text will no longer delete existing text before or after the insertion point.

Automatic Text Formatting:

* When dictating a custom phrase at the beginning of a paragraph, the entire phrase will no longer be capitalized.
* Improved number formatting.
* Word Properties will now preserve the number of spaces specified in the written form or alternate written form.
* Dictating a comma into existing text will no longer insert a space.
* Improved formatting of the word degree(s).
* Improved formatting of “Mister” and “Doctor”, including the appropriate abbreviations.
* Improved formatting of dates when “dates as spoken” option is selected.
* When dictating times in the Spanish version, “las/la” will no longer be removed during formatting.
* When dictating a number after a comma in the German or Dutch versions, the comma will no longer be shifted to the right, connecting to the number.
* Improved handling of Dutch Zip Codes in the Dutch version.
* Using a colon in the Dutch version no longer inserts a space before or capitalizes the word after.

Miscellaneous:

* It is now possible to change word properties for words with special properties.
* The product’s serial number is now displayed in the Help > About Dragon…
* A warning message will now be displayed indicating that dictation in EMR applications is not supported in non-Medical editions.
* Improved handling of Results box tracking and anchoring.
* Improved handling of speech data when changing dictated words using the keyboard.
* It is now possible to upgrade version 9 user profile with an Austrian Legal Vocabulary to version 10.

Data Distribution Tool (nsadmin):

* Customized word properties are no longer lost when distributing vocabularies using the Data Distribution tool.
* Distributing commands that use list variables to systems that already have the same command, will now overwrite the existing command. A duplicate command will not be created.
* It is not possible to distribute a version 10.0 vocabulary using the Data Distribution Tool after installing Service Pack 1. An error that the vocabulary is corrupted will be displayed. The vocabulary must be exported from a Service Pack 1 installation before distributing.

The digital voice recorder world in Australia has long been dominated by Olympus Voice and closely shadowed by Philips Dictation with the likes of Sony and Panasonic tagging along for the ride. Currently there is a resurgence in sales of digital voice recorders and dictaphones as die hard analogue users find they can no longer replace their antiquated tape recorders with something that whirs and clicks and the younger generation are finding out that they no longer need to stay awake during lectures, they can just record it for later reference.

We are also seeing digital voice recorders appearing in the non traditional work place environments. We recently sent a trial recorder over to the rescue crew at Perth airport where they plan to have recorders around the neck of rescuers during an emergency so they can analyse what happens during a rescue situation. Financial advisers use them to record client adviser meetings to cover themselves for compliance and for a record of what was actually recommended to clients in case a review needs to be made some years down the track. Lecturers place them on the lecturn and make the audio available via websites and podcasts to people who missed or couldn’t make their lecture. There is a wide and varied reason for using a digital voice recorder or dictaphone in your life or business.

Voice recognition has also advanced in recent years. Now we have speech recognition software for Windows (Dragon NaturallySpeaking) and also for Mac (MacSpeech Dictate). They both share the same highly successful Dragon voice recognition engine from Nuance whose accuracy is astounding. Again appealing to a wide and varied audience from the home student talking their essays, professionals dictating letters, notes and emails and also the physically disabled who can now control their entire PC using the power of voice.

In this blog we plan to bring you the latest news from the digital voice world, reviews and demos of products and handy hints and tips to help you get the most out of whatever digital voice product you use.