Comments on: Help! Can you shed light on Dragon Naturally Speaking?

By: Tom Colvin

Tom Colvin — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:54:03 +0000

Thanks to all of you for your input. I think that together we’ve definitely answered the question. Just hope that Rick Smith has had a chance to learn from your advice.

By: Leisureguy

Leisureguy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:30:25 +0000

My wife works at Stanford and just this week explored this question. She talked to a guy who had tried it. It doesn’t work: the variety of voices confuses the software. Best use the software just for one person at a time.

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By: Michael Downend

Michael Downend — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:13:46 +0000

DNS is not for multiple speakers. I’ve used it for years and found it invaluable for its intended purpose: single-speaker use. As your previous correspondents have said, you’ll waste your time attempting to use it for voices for which it has not been “trained.”
MD

By: Tom Colvin

Tom Colvin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:16:04 +0000

Tracy and Brett: thanks for sharing with us the benefit of your experience. I’m not surprised at your reports, but I have had no experience in the area and appreciate your willing to take time to share. That’s what this blog is all about.

By: brettbum

brettbum — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:06:30 +0000

I use DNS all the time and test it out in a number of odd scenarios. Trying to capture a group of people would be out of scope for the device, however if you had good microphones to maybe 2 people and recorded the sessions at 48kbs or better, you might be able to teach the software to understand the words of the same 2 people over and over again.
Similarly, if you conducted an interview with yourself (a person that DNS is already familiar with) and another person, and that interview is long. Say more than 10 – 15 minutes. You might be able to transcribe the first 10 minutes to teach the software the second person’s voice and then rerun the recording through transcription at a higher rate of accuracy.

These are both things that I intend to test soon, right now I’m just offering up my hypothesis. I wouldn’t spend any money on the software to achieve goals based on these hypothesis, but I do find the software very very useful myself.

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By: Tracy Urban

Tracy Urban — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:11:13 +0000

Sadly DNS only works with your voice. I tried to run an interview through it and only got garble.

It’s pretty good software to use for dictation (I sometimes dictate my email replies if I’m tired of typing) but I can’t recommend it for interviews.