[Mac] Olympus To Release Update To DSS Player Plus v7 To Make Dictaphones Fully Dragon Dictate 3 Transcription Compatible

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Olympus Professional Dictaphones Fully Compatible With Dragon Dictate 3 from Nuance for Mac Transcription

##UPDATE January 2013##

## DSS Player Plus v7.3.3 Released – click here

I received a heart warming email from the Olympus Australia Dictation Product Manager yesterday. The email contained the release notes for the next version of Olympus’ Mac digital dictation software called DSS Player Plus v7 expected to be released in early 2013. DSS Player Plus is packaged with all the Olympus dictaphones (DS-7000/DS-3500 current range and DS-5000/DS-3400 previous range).

We had written in a earlier blog post ( Olympus Pro Dictaphones Not Quite Compatible With Dragon Dictate 3 Transcription ) how DSS Player Plus was deficient in converting recorded audio to a high enough .AIF sampling rate for use with Nuance’s new transcription feature in Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac. This feature for the first time on a Mac allowed conversion of both recorded audio or directly spoken audio from voice to text using the highly accurate Dragon speech recognition engine. Converting .ds2 audio recorded on an Olympus DS-7000 or DS-3500 to .aif for load into Dragon Dictate 3 for transcription would give the error:

Dictate cannot use files with sampling rates below 22.050 kilohertz.

When the sampling rate issue was discovered I immediately alerted Olympus to the potential impact this would cause for the many Mac users who had been holding out for the transcription feature, a feature enjoyed by Windows users of Dragon NaturallySpeaking for quite some time. Fortunately we found a work around in the Olympus Sonority audio software which has helped a few people around the world out of trouble in recent weeks and who have reported some great results using Dragon Dictate 3 and their Olympus Pro dictaphones.

The update to DSS PLayer Plus v7 is expected to take the software to version v7.3.3 and is planned to include the following features:

—Release note start——————————————————————————————-

Users will be able to select the converted file format in the application’s Option Settings dialogue. This option will allow conversion of  DSS/DS2 files only.

The selectable items will be (DS-7000 & DS-3500):

  • Default  : The current behavior. Frequency is the lowest, and the smallest file will be created. 
  • PCM 22.050kHz 16bit Mono  :  The minimum supported frequency for Dragon Dictate 3. 
  • PCM 44.1kHz 16bit Mono  :  The frequency recommended by Nuance for speech recognition with Dragon Dictate 3.  This file size is the largest of the available selections, but the accuracy of speech recognition will also be the highest.
When converting from the other file formats (DS-3500 ONLY):
  • .MP3 (DS-3500 supports) : Converted to “PCM 44.1kHz 16bit Stereo”. It will therefore be compatible with Dragon Dictate 3. 
  • .WAV (DS-3500 supports) : Can not be converted.  This is the same as the current behaviour. 
Therefore, users will need to record voice files in DSS/DS2/MP3 if they want to perform speech recognition with Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac.
Other limitations:

Nuance’s development team has informed Olympus that Dragon Dictate 3 only accepts files that are under 2 hours in duration. Files which are longer than 2 hours in AIFF format are rejected by Dragon Dictate 3. This is the only limitation with Dragon Dictate 3, however Olympus don’t think it will become problem for professional dictation use. 

—Release note end——————————————————————————————-

So there you have it, fantastic work by Olympus to very quickly address an issue for the rapidly growing Mac digital dictation community not just in Australia but worldwide. This is just one of the many reasons I love working with Olympus Australia and the wider team in Japan. The release notes continued on to say that Sonority Plus will be made available in Australia for those who wish to purchase it at AU$69 incl. GST and should be available towards the end of December 2012. The update to DSS Player Plus for Mac will be out early 2013.

5 thoughts on “[Mac] Olympus To Release Update To DSS Player Plus v7 To Make Dictaphones Fully Dragon Dictate 3 Transcription Compatible”

  1. I am eternally grateful for your work on this. I’m in the US and was stunned that yours was the only website I found that addressed the glaring issue. Is there any way I can purchase Sonority from you?

    Either way, I’ll watch your website for notification when the new Olympus software is out and, again, my deepest thanks.

  2. Hello Jonathan

    Now that is the kind of comment I like to see !!

    Thank you for your feedback. Yes on this issue I was quite active, mainly because I care and feel quite passionate about both Olympus and Nuance products on the Mac. They both have always worked very well together and this minor hiccup could have easily gone on for months with a tide of disgruntled Mac users along the way. Olympus in Australia who I work quite closely with have been very helpful with this issue and have listened to my complaining and actually done something by passing this to Olympus Japan. Team effort I would say 🙂

    I will email you shortly about Sonority.

    Thanks again

    Dave
    Dictate Australia

  3. Hi there,

    Just a little message to THANK YOU for your post about this issue that saved “my life” in… Switzerland.
    Cheers.
    Darius

  4. Hi – thanks for a great little article – I was just about to be very grumpy having bought Dragon for Mac 3 and a new DS3500 to go with having been assured this was a good set up by the retailer – I too got the message that the sampling rate was too low.

    Followed your steps, and it now works ok, without sonority (not sure what this is?).

    I do have one question – in the preferences on Dragon its ticked to use a word document – however when I use the transcription function, it immediately opens a text editor pad, and I then have to copy and paste it… is there a way around this, so it will transcribe directly in to word ?

    Thanks for a really helpful article

  5. Thanks Gavin

    I’m glad that was useful. Sonority is Olympus software that is sometimes shipped with the higher end music recorders.

    My understanding is that with transcription it uses the Dragon pad only to post its results. You will need to cut and paste, but I will look into that just to confirm.

    Dave
    Dictate

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