MacSpeech Dictate: Solid Voice Recognition
Although it used to be considered “odd” or “weird” to speak to your computer, the increased availability and accuracy of voice recognition software has encouraged the practice for more and more people. Up until now, though, it has been difficult to find a solid option for Mac OS X. However, with the introduction of MacSpeech Dictate at Macworld 2008, the game has truly changed. This program not only does the obvious service of speech to text, but it does a whole lot more. Read along to see what else this very powerful application can do.
MacSpeech Dictate is based on the Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition engine. As this was probably the most powerful and accurate engine on the Windows platform, it’s not really a surprise that it works very well at many things on the Mac. To start things off, you need to have a “Data Disk” which I presume has all the dictionary material for the speech recognition and typing. The program should ask you for it when it needs it, but I was able to dictate and issue commands without the disk image being mounted. The disk image is about 970mb, and can definitely be stored on an external HD for use when needed.
When you run the program for the first time, it asks you to complete a somewhat lengthy set-up wizard. It took me about 8-10 minutes to get through, and the nice thing about it is that you’re reading instructions for the program and training it to your voice at the same time. You also set up a profile that will be linked to your voice training. It took a surprisingly long time to get it fully set up, but after that the wait wasn’t horrible.
I used the built-in microphone in my MacBook Pro. It says that this isn’t one of the preferred methods, but unless you’re really a heavy user, it should be satisfactory. Once I got all set up and running, I immediately opened up a new Word document (I even launched Word by using the command “Open Microsoft Word”) and then tried to voice away. My first sentence was very simple: “I’m reviewing MacSpeech Dictate for MacApper.com” but from the screenshot below, you can see that my text wasn’t exactly interpreted correctly.
It takes a little getting used to, but I can really see some of this functionality working out to help me in the future. It’s a little odd to start speaking much slower and enunciating more throughout your sentences, not to mention the frequent necessity of saying “PERIOD” to end a sentence or add another punctuation mark. However, you can really get into the hang of it and it does work pretty well.
Another really nice feature of the program is that once a specific program is active, the MacSpeech window on the side of the screen (which can be moved) shifts to include some of the special functions for that particular app. For example, when I had Safari set as my active window, a set of specific Safari commands showed up in the side. I can see this being very useful, especially if it’s possible to set up custom commands or add other applications that aren’t supported out of the box. The first screenshot shows the global panel itself, and then there is a shot of how it changes when Safari is active.
Overall, this program is very solid and I can definitely recommend it. There’s definitely a bit of a learning curve to it, but once you get over the hump it’s a very useful program and I like it a lot. MacSpeech Dictate is available from MacSpeech.com. It costs around $187.99 and can be purchased from MacMall.
Sounds very interesting. However, if you work with other people in the same room then it’s kind of useless or everyone shuns you because they think you are schizophrenic.
Although if something like this could be incorporated into something like the system where you where a ring type thing around your neck and just think the words without actually speaking and the ring detects it and transforms it into silent speech. (Was an article about it on Techcrunch recently…)
Jacob, thanks for the great review. I’m still waiting for my copy to ship but look forward to honing my dictation skills. My carpal-challenged hands are looking forward to it too.
It’s really an impressive app. You may want to try a different mic, however, as the difference in accuracy between my built in mic and my logitech usb headset is astounding. The built in mic is pretty good, but the usb mic seems almost psychic. The only problem I’ve seen is that it doesn’t seem to like the word “thus”.
I wonder how it handles lisps.
Not that I have one or anything. Not that I’m saying you’re a loser if you have one.
But… yeah. Is there a lisp setting?
This review is a fair summary. I’ve upgraded from the earlier less than sucessful ‘iListen’ and ‘Dictate’ is a far more solid product. I had one or two ‘hiccups’ in the setting up but it’s worth taking time over the microphone setup [check your Mac Sound and Mic. pref settings too] and setting up the ‘Profile’. Being a Kiwi, I tried both the British and Australian English settings and found the latter to be the better choice. I also tried three headsets before selecting a Plantronics that worked very well. Running on a Mac Mini Core Duo 2 – 1.66 with 2gb RAM, the application zips along quite nicely with good accuracy so far. I look forward to seeing how this app develops over time. The command functions for voice control of applications is also useful and quite startling on first time use!
I got my package last week but didn’t get around to installing it until last night, and I was truly blown away by how well it works. Maybe I’m a little TOO excited—I’ve done graduate work in linguistics, so this is fascinating for me. My package came with a headset for which you can adjust the settings, and it works beautifully for an incredibly soft-spoken person. As for a lisp setting, there might well be one. You do train it to recognize your voice, and after a rough start it improved rapidly. My main reason for ordering this is that I’m trying to transcribe a big box of letters that my father wrote to my mother in the early 50s, and I was making slow progress. This is definitely going to be a great help!
Trying to use this program with the internal Mac book microphone is, quite frankly, insane. And it doesn’t work well. That was demonstrated by the pathetic results you got. I am sorry for being kind of a dick about this, but I am using a headset microphone with MacSpeech, and I got near 100% right out of the box. The program is not designed to be used with the internal microphone on the laptop. There is simply too much noise, and the microphone is too far away, to be at all accurate.
I have spoken this entire review. MacSpeech Dictate is amazing.
Matt,
I have to laugh at what you just said. You see, I’m dictating this from a Macbook Pro built-in microphone. The microphone is designed to be used from several feet away. In the sound preferences of leopard there is a noise reduction checkbox. You can also adjust the gain of the microphone. It’s important that your microphones gain is not set too high or too low. Also, during the initial set up, when I created a profile in MacSpeech Dictate, I chose the manual gain setting for the microphone. I set it at 70%. I speak about 2 feet from the microphone because that’s a comfortable distance for me.
I’m in a fairly noisy environment with cars passing outside, and the software works extremely well.
I can see that the software would be even better with a high-quality USB headset. I think it’s going to be a godsend for disabled people using the Macintosh.
It’s surprising that it’s taken this long to get Nuance Communications technology on the Mac. But now that it’s here, it’s going to be revolutionary. Of course, my experience will be different from yours because the software probably responds to different accents very differently. The accuracy is uncanny for me though, even with sirens going by.
Just imagine when language translation technology improves. I’ll be able to dictate in English and have the computer speak aloud in any language.
Okay, I’m trying to dictate using the built-in microphone. I have just completed the training session, and I am very surprised to see that, even with my Mac books fan running, I am able to successfully dictate. The only difference is that I have to speak a bit louder and more clearly. But, the accuracy is still nearly perfect.
Okay, I am officially shocked. I have dictated this entire comment using the built in microphone on the Mac book. It has made a couple of mistakes, but I have corrected them easily using the “delete” feature.
I, too, have to laugh at my previous comment. This program just keeps getting better and better. Anonymous at 10:54 PM, thank you for making me revisit my earlier, uninformed statement. I gladly admit that I was wrong.
Seems Dictate was released just in the nick of time. I was at the Apple store looking for Dictate to leave a review and did not find it listed. However, I did see the rating for iListen had dropped to 2 stars and the exceptionally negative feedback made even my jaded eyes water. I have been using the Dictate with Nuance speech engine and it is a major improvement but unless I save and save often I can still end up with a scrambled mess.
Seems Dictate ships without a usable correction feature and the Dictate cursor gets lost when manual edits are made. Additionally, “deleted text” often reappears when adding punctuation or starting a new paragraph. I hope MacSpeech is up to adding correction options at least as good as those in the Windows version of the Nuance products.
Sam
Windows 2 Apples
[...] a link to Victor Medina’s review but has additional comments from other users) and at MacApper.com. The only way to get Dictate at this time is to buy iListen and then buy an upgrade to Dictate as [...]
I am very interested in purchasing the Dictate software, but would like to know whether or not the promised addition of the ‘correction’ capability, will come in the form of a free update, or should one wait to purchase the software until a 2nd Edition is made available?
Does anyone have information or insight as to MacSpeech’s modus operandi, vis a vis significant updates?
Thanks to anyone posting a response.
Grace, Chuck Rodgers at MacSpeech claims the version 1.1 update with correction functions will be made available at no additional charge. I was able to upgrade iListen to 1.8 at no charge but it did little good.iListen never really worked for me or many others. I still feel iListen users should have been given the Dictate cross grade at no cost.
The new Dictate is essentially a port from Windows to Apple by Nuance of their excellent speech engine. Dictate 1.0 needs some significant enhancement but can be used by many to increase productivity as is.
Please understand MacSpeech is a very small company with limited resources so I have my fingers crossed they are up to shipping Dictate with a correction scheme equal to that found in NaturallySpeaking and Vista.
Grace, it may well be that the “correction capability” you are referring to is already in the software. When the program misinterprets something you have said, you can say “scratch that.” It will delete it, and often if you try a few more times, it “guesses” right. Truly, it learns as it “gets to know” your voice. I am just thrilled with this software!
It is a major improvement over iListen ( hard to imagine it not being such )… there are some correction options but few compared to the Windows Nuance Naturally Speaking. For instance it consistently gets a few of my words wrong and there is no way to add and train specific words.
If you are an iListen user it will be magic, if you are familar with Naturally Speaking or the Vista Speech engine it will be a nice enhancement but one with some signiificant holes yet to be filled.
As is it is usable but MacSpeech is aware of the need for a workable correction options.
I tried iListen and it just didn’t work for me. Since last summer i’ve used Dragon NS 9 on Boot Camp and been pleased, but going back and forth from Windows to OSX was a pain. Tried Parallels but strange things started happening with my Mac and decided not to use that method.
Anyway, Dictate is clearly a quantum leap past iListen – works well with minimal setup, but for the work I do the lack of correction option and lack of ability to add words (people’s last names or technical terms) means I will keep using Dragon Boot Camp combo for the forseeable future (sigh) – hope these fixes come soon so I can dump the boot camp partition altogether…
We have posted a series of Dictate demos including one (inetsynch Demo 3) illustrating some of the text edit options and the extraneous text bug noted in our Windows 2 Apples review of Dictate.
Sam
Windows 2 Apples
Blog and Podcast
Sam, thanks so much for posting those demos on YouTube. I’ve barely had time to fully explore the program yet, and I’ve already learned some valuable tips from you that will speed my “learning curve.”
Thanks for your kind comments. We are planning a few more. Overall, I’m impressed with Dictate but am anxious for MacSpeech to fix a few nasty bugs and add better correction options.
BTW you can increase accuracy using a preference setting. I see almost no degradation in performance when setting accuracy vs speed to 100% accuracy.
Cheers
Sam
Windows 2 Apples
at least with dictate you don’t have to pay for support which is just… wrong
I purchased Macspeech Dictate late last week, and have spent all weekend playing with it. In fact, I am dictating this paragraph. Generally the application has performed very well. The installation was easy, training took a few minutes, and I have had only minimal issues. I think that as I continue to voice-train the application, its accuracy will get better. I sometimes have to do some “hand editing,” but after trial and error, I’ve learned not to do this until I have finished dictation (or at least get at the end of a paragraph), because otherwise, when you resume dictation, it seems that the program gets confused or momentarily disoriented, which is usually corrected by turning on and off the microphone, then waiting a second or two (patience does appear to be a virtue with this application, especially at start-up). Hopefully that will be something they fix in the next upgrade.
Aside from this glitch, the only other problems I have encountered are, first, that the application occasionally and randomly crashes, and second, it has not been uncommon that i have had to perform the “microphone setup” upon startup. I don’t know if that is supposed to be the case (since there is no documentation with the product), and in any case, it’s only mildly annoying).
On the subject of microphones, I do have a question: I’ve been using the included microphone headset with wires, and it has worked quite well. I’ve also used the MacBookPro built-in microphone, and it too performs very well. I purchased a Plantronics wireless bluetooth headset for 99$ at Best Buy, and gave that a shot. This was not nearly as accurate, and i couldn’t move more than 15 feet away from the computer before accuracy dropped precipitously. So, does anyone know if any relatively inexpensive bluetooth wireless earpieces will in fact work with this application, or on the contrary, if one must instead purchase a much more expenseive model, which tend to run around $250?
I dictated this entire comment, and the application made only three mistakes, one of which was my fault (I slurred). So all in all, I would say it’s a very good product with a lot of promise.
Agreed, Dictate can work well once you learn to cope with the lost cursor and retained text bugs. We have posed a new video on youtube illustrating the creation of Global Text Macros which can help compensate for the limited correction options.
Can be found under iNetSynch videos.
Sam
Windows 2 Apples
Podcast
Here’s another angle on ‘Dictate’. I happened to be in Outlook, running in Windows XP, using Parallels Desktop on a Mac Mini. Since Dictate was running at the same time, I tried to dictate into an email in Outlook. To my surprise it worked. The speed was a little less than working natively and the error rate a little higher but not by much. When I said ‘quit this application’, however, it was Parallels that quit not Outlook. I plan on exploring this further – it will be interesting to see how functional Dictate is within the Parallels application.
I just received my copy of Dictate and cannot setup my mic to work with the program. I am using, or should I say would like to use the revolabs XTag wireless mic but to no avail.
I have had problems getting Dictate up and running. After I click to create a ‘profile’, the program crashes. When I called support, I waited on hold for about an hour before speaking to a person who said that they have had “lots of problems” establishing profiles for users.
In my opinion, they released this product while it was still in a ‘beta’ phase and it is unstable. Their customer support is poor at best. I would not recommend this product until they have resolved several major issues.
John
All:
Let me see if I can clear up a few things.
First, our disk duplicator acknowledged there was a problem with a significant number of data disks. This problem was not realized until most of our pre-orders and cross grade orders had been shipped. If you experience crashing, or if the data disk appears as a video disk on your desktop, please contact our Support department immediately to arrange for a replacement disk. (You can contact our support department via our web site, http://www.macspeech.com – just click the word “Support” near the top of the page.)
MacSpeech Dictate 1.0 does not have Spelling Mode or Correction, but it does support editing your document by voice. In order to understand the differences, let’s define each of these:
Spelling mode is where the program, when put in this mode, listens for you to say letters or numbers. It will also understand the Military (also called the Phonetic) alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, etc.). This mode is useful for spelling out acronyms or words the program doesn’t know, but you do not want to add to its vocabulary.
Correction is where the program types something you didn’t say, but sounds similar (usually). For instance, if you said “I’m teaching my Mac to recognize speech” but the program typed “I’m teaching my Mac to wreck a nice beach,” the sentence would be grammatically correct, but it is not what you said. (Not that the program always types grammatically correct sentences, but it does try to.) When Correction is enabled you will be able to say “do select wreck a nice beach” and it will present you with options, one of which will most likely be “recognize speech.” Choosing that option will train the program to type that phrase when used in a similar context in the future.”
(BTW, before someone asks, the important phrase above is “in a similar context.” If you were to later dictate a sentence “we chaperoned a beach party for a bunch of sixth grader’s, and boy, did those kids ever wreck a nice beach!”, it will probably get it right.)
It is these two features, Spelling Mode and Correction that will be added in free updates in the future. We are working on them now, and will release them when they have been fully tested and we feel they are ready. I can’t give you more information than that, simply because there isn’t any more information to give. We will release those features when we feel they are ready to be released.
Finally, with MacSpeech Dictate 1.0 you can edit by voice. The process is similar to what you would do with Correction, except the program will not provide you with alternate choices, and your profile will not “learn” from the change you made. To edit by voice, you say “do select” followed by the word or phrase you want to change, and then speak whatever it is you want to speak.
Sorry for the long post. I hope this addresses some of your questions and concerns.
Chuck Rogers, Chief Evangelist
MacSpeech, Inc.
Thanks for the review/comments. I’m heading out to buy this now ($199 at Tekserve) in part to fight the carpal. Will let you know how it goes. Btw, here’s a post on my blog on ways to minimize carpal symptoms: http://indiebreakfastclub.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/some-lay-tips-for-fighting-carpal-tunnel-syndrome-cts/
Chuck Rodgers the long time ËœChief Evangalist' has recently left MacSpeech and another of my close contacts at MacSpeech fails to reply suggesting something of a shake up at MacSpeech. I hope, they can run with the Nuance opportunity and make it really happen for Mac Users.
Sam
Windows2Apples
Can’t get my MacSpeech Dictate to work with the buit in microphone on my MacBook. Any suggestions?
Is there a way to feed Dictate recorded files and have it transcribe them? (Wav files from my mobile).
If not, is there a way to work around this, such as having the Mac somehow play the file to Dictate?
: øystein
Penn and ystein … these seem to be the kinds of questions you need to put to MacSpeech support. It seems that Chuck Rodgers who used to work for MacSpeech and act as their ‘Chief Evangelist’ has parted ways with them and they apparently have not replaced him. MacSpeech is a very small company with limited resources but I would hope they are able to respond to emailed support questions.
All speech to text products need good audio input and though some have had luck using built-in mics and translating recorded text it is not optimal for good results.
Sam
Windows2Apples
I am interested in using MacSpeech Dictate to write up oral history interviews. With this application can I have headphones on replaying my interview, and speak each sentence into MacSpeech with a mic, (rather than transcribing each interview)?
Got a copy of Dictate today directly from MacSpeech. Guess what, it crashes during profile creation. You mean it has been a month (see Chuck Rogers comment on 03/29/08) since MacSpeech blamed the problem on their disc duplicator and they are STILL sending out faulty disks?!?
Called tech support & spoke to Jamal. He will email a patch, BUT it has to be cleared by higher levels techs before “it leaves the building.” And those techs will not be available until after the weekend.
Come on guys. You have a widespread problem that results in an immediate bad impression. You have a patch. POST IT ON YOUR WEBSITE or let it be downloaded from within the program. Jeez!
Incompetence, thy name is MacSpeech.
Dianne, if you are sucessful in training Dictate, which I suspect you will be, then it should work well helping your transcribe the oral recordings. Save before trying to manually correct text though … Dictate has a nasty tendency to scramble text when it is manually edited.
As to the patch, crashes and tech support you must remember that MacSpeech is a very small company with limited resources. Speech to text software is a nitche market and even though Mac is gaining in sales it still has a very small slice of the pie. This is one of the limitations of Apple machines not appreciated by most Apple fans. It may be sometime before MacSpeech Dictate becomes a product truly competitive with the Windows implementation of the Nuance speech engine.
Sam, my gripe is that it seems that MacSpeech may still be shipping bad discs a month after discovering the problem. I could understand getting an old bad disc from a 3rd party vendor, but not from the developer.
Now it could be that it is not a bad disc problem, because it seems odd that a patch could solve that problem. But, the profile creation crash is a show stopper, it completely prevents you from using the program! And based on the frequency of complaints here and on other forums, this is a widespread problem.
Now, if I were a developer with a bug that makes a program completely non-usable, and I charged $199 for it, AND I had a patch… I would not put up barriers to getting the patch to as many customers as I could.
If Parallels dropped the ball like this, customers would punish them by turning to Fusion (and visa versa). The risk of this outcome keeps both companies on their toes. Unfortunately MacSpeech has no such competition. So, the patch needs to be cleared by higher-ups. FAIL!
Ok. Flame off.
Too bad the iListen reviews have been removed from the Apple web. You could have had a chance to see how MacSpeech was viewed by customers who tried to make iListen work for them. Chuck Rodgers and other at MacSpeech steadfastly held to the claim that iListen could be as good as Dragon Dictate if only you stayed with it … ‘stayed with it until the two week return window had passed’.
MacSpeech has an excellent chance to make amends with the Nuance speech engine. I hope they don’t blow that opportunity.
At one time I had heard MacSpeech was a 5 person company. I don’t know if that was true then or what the staff numbers are now but Chuck would usually use limited resources as a fall back explanation as to why iListen was not the equal of Dragon in ease of training or initial accuracy.
I often use Dictate and I am hoping the bugs and quirks can be ironed out along with the addition of a workable correction scheme.
Sam
Windows2Apples
. This review should have compared the built in microphone with the headset. The speech recognition is amazing with the headset. This comment is down with the speech recognition program, I installed at on my laptop one hour ago. I have never used this speech recognition before.
I just got off the phone with Macspeech and Discoverd that they had a download that fixes the “crash when creating a profile” error that is caused by “corrupt English Data Disks”.
The URL for the fixer app is: http://www.macspeech.com/release/Dictate_Data_First_Aid.zip
I don’t know why they don’t post this on their support page. It would have saved me so many hrs waiting on hold.
I hope this helps someone out there who doesn’t have a friend with a working copy of the English Data Disk. LOL
Here is a copy of the tech support email they sent me:
——————-
Hello,
The link below will allow you to download a tool called Dictate Data First Aid:
http://www.macspeech.com/release/Dictate_Data_First_Aid.zip
This tool will assist in fixing your profile creation issue.
The profile crashing that you have been experiencing is possibly due to a corrupted installation of the Dictate Data files.This may have been caused by a faulty DVD or an issue that occurred during installation. The Dictate Data First Aid will identify which files, if any, have been corrupted. Once identified Dictate Data First Aid will download uncorrupted replacement file(s).
The following are the steps for using Dictate Data First Aid:
1. Download the compressed application from the url sent to you in this email
2. Unzip the application if your browser has not already do so for you
3. Please make sure that MacSpeech Dictate is not running
4. For proper use you must be connected to the internet when running Dictate Data First Aid
5. Launch the application named “Dictate Data First Aid”
6. Please click the button named Check Data
7. This will then check your Dictate Data folder for any corrupted files
At this point you will get a report of either corrupt files or the fact that you have no corruption.
If you have corrupt files Dictate Data First Aid will inform you that you must be connected to the internet and that you should repair your data. Please click on the button marked Repair Data.
This will start a download from our server that will replace the corrupted files with new ones.
At no time is any information from your system sent to our servers. This process is just a request from Dictate Data First Aid for the uncorrupted files. Depending on the files the time to download will vary. Dictate Data First Aid will report how many files it needs to download in the bottom of the window. Dictate Data First Aid will report when it has finished with the message “Replacement of corrupted files is complete.”
You may receive a message that there was an error during download. If you get this message then all you need to do is click the Check Data button again and repeat the Repair process.
After Dictate Data First Aid is finished downloading you are free to quit Dictate Data First Aid.
Please launch MacSpeech Dictate and create your profile.
If you continue to have issues please contact our Technical Support with the information below.
———————-
Yikes!! I have been spending the last hour reading comments from MacSpeech customers posted on the MacWorld site. Talk about heat! Worth reviewing if you are having issues with the company.
Sam
Windows2Apples
Got the patch on Saturday, installed it on Monday (yesterday) and it fixed the profile creation crash bug. Yea!
So far the program is working quite well (based on 1 day’s use).
While not as feature rich as Naturally Speaking, the program really is something to rave about.
That makes MacSpeech’s gatekeeping of the patch so vexing. The program is good (again, based on 1 days use). But, if you can’t even use the program because of a well known bug and the developer keeps you from easily getting the patch, I don’t know, it’s just shoot-yourself-in-the-foot dumb.
I would recommend the program. Just give yourself up to a week after you get it to allow for the developer to get a patch to you and get things working.
Just saw Ethan’s post with a link to the MacSpeech Dictate patch file.
Great job Ethan!
Thank you for posting a link. I have no doubt this will save other users lots of frustration.
I just received MacSpeech, installed it, went through the training using a Plantronics headset I already had and was able to dictate and send IMs with near perfect accuracy.
I would like to try to see how well (or badly) the program operates with the internal MBP mike but when I create a new profile, the internal mike is not listed as an option (only Soundflower 2 and 16ch). Can anyone please tell me how I can use the internal mike?
Thanks!
I just got off the phone with Nick in MacSpeech support. He was only able to say that MacSpeech does not support the use of the internal mike and if it doesn’t appear as an option during profile creation, there was nothing they could (or would) do to help. I asked if there was anyone else I could speak with (a supervisor perhaps) and that simply resulted in a minute or two of holding and then Nick returning to say that there wasn’t anyone else there with who I could speak. He suggested user forums
If anyone here has a suggestion as to how to create a profile using the internal mike, please let me know.
Thanks.
@ihf – When I select create new profile, under microphone, there is an option to use “built in microphone” or “built in input.”
Wouldn’t one of these do what you want?
Either of those would be great if they appeared as options on my system, however, they don’t. The only options I have are for sound flower. There is no option listed for the built-in microphone.
Dictate has started to forward delete, and then insert some word or phrase I previously dictated, when I pause for a moment.
I will be dictating, pause for breath, or to think about what to say, and dictate will forward delete then next several lines (deleting part of the next paragraph there is one, and then insert a word or phrase I had earlier dictated.
Anyone else seeing this problem/have a solution?
@ihf
I don’t know then. I am using version 1.0 build 1331 (oh so ‘leet’). Try to reinstall maybe?
I’ve noticed that since the upgrade to version 1.0.1 that I am no longer able to switch between two USB headsets. In other words, I am locked in to using the Plantronics headset. I’ve tried to establish a new user identity and this does not work. Is anyone else having problems with this?
– John
I’m using v1.0.1 (build 2226). I am guessing that they are not using CoreAudio or they have disabled certain sources. If they used CoreAudio and permitted all sources then not only would the Internal Microphone appear but by using either SoundFlower or JackOS (both freeware) one could, for example, play soundfiles directly into MacSpeech for transcription.
I bought ‘Dictate’ and have had a NIGHTMARE trying to get it to work – to no avail and despite several fruitless conversations with the customer service team. The program only works in itself – and spits out scrambled rubbish in all other programs… a problem that is WELL KNOWN and mentioned various blogs and forums… but a problem that the MacSpeech CS Team allegedly know nothing about! Poor show. I cannot advise anyone to buy this product.
I have had reasonable success getting Dictate to work within Pages and Yahoo messenger. In fact, I never use the simple Dictate text edit application.
MacSpeech has been taking a great deal of heat since the release of Dictate which surprises me. iListen was a boondoggle but Dictate uses the Nuance speech engine and can be very accurate with minimal training. It has several nasty bugs that can make it frustrating at times and limit its usefulness. But can be useful once you learn how to work around the bugs and quirks.
MacSpeech is a tiny company and speech to text a demanding technology to evolve and support. Time will tell if they can pull the Rabbit out of the hat. Mean time lets hope Steve is secretly working on a native speech to text option for OS X.
Tomasz and ihf:
Thomasz, the bug you mentioned has been documented by many users including myself. I noted it in my blog, podcast and it rears its ugly head in a youtube posted video I produced. I got only excuses when I quizzed the former MacSpeech Chief Evangelist about this and other bugs.
ihf, I believe MacSpeech makes much ado of its use of CoreAudio in Dictate. They recommend using a USB audio interface and though some have had good results using built in Microphones they don’t recommend them. Should point out Nuance does not encourage the use of any but the best quality microphone when using Dragon Dictate for Windows.
Sam
Windows2Apples
iNetSynch
@ Sam, thanks for comment.
Here is the response I received from MacSpeech regarding the “forward deletion bug:”
This will occur if you manually edit something, or use the Do Select command, and don’t delete the selection before continuing. The workaround when this occurs is to exit Dictate, then restart it, then continue dictating in the application you’re using.
NOTE: If you have TextExpander, please remove that application, as this can also cause this problem to occur.
I went ahead and remove Typeit4me, a program similar to TextExpander. But, the problem continues.
Can anyone clarify exactly how to use the “do select” command and then correcting a misheard word or phrase without invoking the “forward deletion bug?” At the present time, I am simply not using the “to do select” command, and just simply correcting manually, or manually highlighting and we speaking misunderstood words.
I have demoed the Do Select option in the iNetSynch Dictate videos on youtube.
Sam
iNetSynch
Windows2Apples
BTW this bug is a very nasty one in that it will scramble text and unless you undo right away you may lose your text. I hope MacSpeech addresses this issue post hast. But, when I brought this up to Chuck he was not very encouraging that it would be extinguished anytime soon.
Sam
iNetSynch
Windows2Apples
MacSpeech is working reasonably well for me although it does have a few quirks. For example, it lists open commands for all of my applications but some of them seem to resist being opened, such as “Adium”. If anyone else has this application on their Macintosh could they please try opening it? It doesn’t seem to fail so consistently on any of the other apps that I use regularly but no matter what I do I can’t get it to recognize “Adium”.
another quirk, the command “switch to next application” seems to cycle between the current application and one other application. Whereas, the command “switch to previous application”, cycles through all of the open applications. Can someone else confirm this behavior?
I installed the “Dictate” version and have had a nightmare – working great for an hour then it started scrambling text when dictating into all apps beside itself. The Customer Support team were not able to help (several reinstalls and retrains later…) – similar to problems on the forum… yet no solution found or posted.
I don't know why but when I used the Dictate notepad (never used it before) things really got jumbled up. recognition was very poor and if I tried to correct text by typing “this is for instance I saw “siht si and all other text was pushed to the right! I had to re-boot my Mac and have Dictate set to automatically open the note pad. I normally use Dictate and Pages but was trying to create a tutorial using the Dictate note pad.
This was a huge surprise to me, given most seem to have better luck with the Dictate note pad. Would like to get some feedback from others as to what applications work best for them when using Dictate. I have good luck using Dictate with Yahoo messenger and Pages.
Another twist … I noted a decrease in accuracy when I reverted back to Pages and ended up reading the last Dictate story to try to get back the lost ground. It is still less accurate than after my initial training session. I ended up completing the document using Vista Speech software.
Until the mystery can be resolved not much use to post the screen cast except to see if others have seen the same bug.
Thanks in advance.
Sam
Windows 2 Apples
I purchased a copy from J&R and have had nothing but trouble. Via Voice was bad, but it would at least load onto my computer. I emailed support and was told I would get a response in 72 hours, that was last week and no reply yet. I’m so sorry I’m stuck with this unfinished program. If the developer ever gets back to me I will post again. For now, stay away, it’s not ready. It’s not Dragon.
I AM A LONG-TIME APPLE USER. I GOT MY FIRST MAC IN 1985. I’VE ALSO BEEN DICTATING ALMOST ALL OF WHAT I WRITE FOR THE BETTER PART OF 25 YEARS — FIRST GOING BACK TO A DESKTOP DICTAPHONE- THEN TO MICRO CASSETTES AND THEN ON TO A DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER.
I DID TRY TO USE I LISTEN FOR A WHILE. I HAD THE VXI PARROT MICROPHONE. MY RESULTS WERE INCREDIBLY INCONSISTENT. I WAS ABLE TO TIMES TO TRANSLATE MY DICTATION FROM MY DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER TO ILISTEN. BOTH TIMES I WOULD SAY THAT THE ACCURACY WAS LESS THAN 40%.
I MUST TELL ALL YOU THAT I AM ABSOLUTELY THOROUGHLY COMPLETELY IN LOVE WITH MAC DICTATE. I SHELLED OUT ALMOST $150 FOR A SENSER USB MICROPHONE.
IF I WERE TO GIVE ANYONE ANY ADVICE IT WOULD BE TO SPEND THE MOST MONEY ON YOUR MICROPHONE AS AN ADJUNCT TO THIS WONDERFUL PRODUCT.
FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT ARE USED TO TYPING, MY GUESS IS THAT YOU MAY EITHER BE CONSTANTLY LOOKING AT THE SCREEN WHILE YOU’RE TALKING, OR ME BE NOT ACCUSTOMED TO THE VOICE RHYTHMS THAT ARE TYPICALLY USED IN SPOKEN SPEECH.
FINALLY JUST PLEASE CONSIDER FOR A MINUTE THE INCREDIBLE COMPLEXITY OF TAKING HUMAN VOICE AND CONVERTING IT INTO SPEECH. FOR ANY OF YOU THAT HAVE EVER BEEN ON AN AIRLINES PHONE CALL AND HAD TO GO THROUGH THE TREMENDOUSLY FRUSTRATING TASK OF GIVING VOICE COMMANDS — JUST REALIZE HOW SIGNIFICANT IT IS TO THINK ABOUT TAKING SPEECH, AND NOT ONLY TRANSLATING IT ORALLY (PLAYING IT BACK TO YOU) BUT SUBSEQUENTLY BEEN ATTEMPTING TO LITERALLY TRANSCRIBE THIS INTO THE SPOKEN WORD.
MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE I’VE BEEN WITH MAC FOR SO LONG THAT I’M CONSISTENTLY AMAZED AND APPRECIATIVE AT HOW THE RELENTLESS PURSUIT ON THE PART OF THE LEGIONS OF US FOLLOWERS TO CONSTANTLY PUSH THEM TO DO EVER GREATER THINGS.
I FOR ONE BELIEVE THAT THE CURRENT VERSION OF DICTATE, DESPITE ITS BUGS, IS THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD. I HAVE DICTATED THIS ENTIRE BLOG RESPONDS UTILIZING THE DICTATE APPLICATION AND SO FAR IT IS ONLY MADE ONE MISTAKE THAT I CAN TELL.
LONG LIVE MACSPEECH AND LONG-LIVE MAC.
DERRICK
I agree Dictate can work and often the accuracy is good enough to let me complete relatively long sessions. The deleted text bug others and I have noted was captured in a tutorial we produced and uploaded to youtube. You can find the video at this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1yKEKRU3hE
Primarily because of the excellent correction options built-in to the free Vista Speech software, I tend to use it over Dragon and MacSpeech Dictate. I am amazed at how accurate the free Vista Speech software is. It is almost as good as the Nuance product and far more intuitive and sophisticated in features. It does have several unsettling limitations that reduce its usefulness for disabled ¦the most notable being the inability to work well within Excel and Messenger.
The Nuance technology behind Dictate coupled with the Mac OS theoretically make it possible for Dictate to become a very competitive solution but if you had a chance to sit down with the Windows Naturally Speaking or Vista products you would see how far MacSpeech needs to come before that is their reality.
I still hold out hope that Apple will enter the Speech to Text market. I know MacSpeech is counting on their staying out of those waters but feel it is a natural evolution of the Apple OS.
Cheers
Sam
Windows2Apples
Another aside … After reading Derrick’s post I went to the MacSpeech site to look at their microphone offerings. In this search I clicked on the Apple store link under sources for Dictate and noted that no mention of the MacSpeech Dictate or even iListen is to be found. At one time Apple offered iListen but it was removed not long after MacSpeech dropped it.
I do wonder if this is temporary or if Apple has decided not to offer the product for sale on their site. Possible there is a lag between a new product announcement and its availability on the Apple site or Apple has other reasons for not listing MacSpeech. I would expect such an evolutionary product to be highlighted unless Apple is working on a competative solution. (One can hope!)
P.S. Derrick I have had reasonably good results using the MacSpeech supplied Parrott headset and VXI interface on my Intel Mac. I have used the same setup on my Vista tower when dictating to the Vista Speech software but find the built-in audio card and Logitech headset work as well on the Windows machine saving me the cost of another interface.
Sam
Windows2Apples
P.S. to Sam
I only found out about the microphone that I am using through the Emicrophone website. I found those guys to be incredibly helpful, and a wealth of information. Their rankings of microphones I found far superior to what I found on the MacSpeech website.
I also grew the comment about the lack of support from Apple. I believe Apple is making a great mistake by not touting this project and offering support for It.
I guess we can always hope.
Derrick
I have found that the Vista Speech recognition software works extremely well when using inexpensive headsets and internal sound cards. Once, I left Vista speech recognition running on my $500 Windows Vista Laptop while listening to music in a chat room when I turned around to look at my computer I noticed it had accurately recorded the introduction to the next tune by someone who had never created a profile on my machine. The audio had been recorded using the internal microphone and the built-in speakers. Truly an amazing accomplishment for software shipped as part of the operating system.
I suspect the Vista Speech technology benefits from its tight integration with the OS by Microsoft and I suspect that Apple could so at least as well as Microsoft in implementing an excellent text to speech component that compliments the existing text to speech and speech control shipped with OS X. Users would also benefit from Apple support and give a clear alternative to MacSpeech as the only game in town.
Sam
Windows2Apples
I am curious, Sam, if you are now regretting the purchase of the MacSpeech software? Are you discouraged as to MacSpeech’s commitment to develop the software, going forward?
I rarely buy an item so early in its offering, but I made an exception, in this case, because I was so anxious to have the capabilities of voice recognition available.
Knowing what you know now, would you still purchase it?
Well I have mixed feelings. I met many folks I would never have met if not for my experiment with iListen and now Dictate. I have learned something of the Apple fanboy (“Macite”) culture I may have missed without my encounter with MacSpeech and various Mac forums. It has inspired me to work with others to get Vista Speech in the hands of disabled and rekindled my interest in assistive technologies.
I could recommend Dictate to a limited few … those needing a rudimentary speech to text product compatible with the native Apple OS but never to those needing a real productivity tool or as a solution for disabled. So yes happy I purchased it and would do it again but for reasons not common to most looking for this kind of technology.
Sam
Windows2Apples
Hi there,
First off, thanks for posting all this info.
So, I am wondering why everyone doesn’t just install VM on their macs and use Dragon Naturally for Windows platform? Wouldn’t this be better than going with Dictate considering the comments made here?
Mind you, I have not used VMware Fusion but it seems this might be a better solution.
And, I am looking into voice recognition software to assist with documenting my master’s thesis. I have carpal tunnel. Will either MacSpeech Dictate or Dragon Naturally be able to handle citation formatting?
Thanks,
anne
Actually, if installing VMWare I would skip the overhead and cost of Dragon and use the excellent and free Vista Speech to Text software. Despite the botched demos by Microsoft it works exceptionally well.
I have and continue to use Dragon Naturally Speaking 9.5, Vista Speech and MacSpeech Dictate. Although Dragon is marginally more accurate, Vista has a far better interface and corrections option unrivaled by any of the other products. I usually end up using Vista Speech and skipping Nuance. XP does not have this version of the Speech engine and you would be disappointed in it.
Install Vista Business, try the free Speech to Text and if not happy install the Nuance product. We have several videos under inetsynch on YouTube illustrating the Vista option ( BTW the Vista Business install and speech engine work exceptionally well on my Intel Mac).
Cheers
Sam
@Alice Wallace: I have tried NatSpeak in Parallels but 1) it is pretty resource heavy and 2) it caused problems with other applications – it has been a while, so I cannot recall the specific problems, and 3) it only lets you dictate on the PC side.
Personally, I feel that NatSpeak is the superior piece of software, but running on a virtualized pc, is not without it’s own share of problems.
I appreciate the info Sam and Tomasz. I will skip MacSpeech then altogether. Maybe in time they will enhance the product and get it up to speed with Vista Speech to Text.
Thanks for the suggestion of using Vista Business version with VMware Fusion. VMware has a free 2.0 beta version on their site now for download for the brave at heart. I will go with that over Parallels. From comparison reviews I have read VMware is not as sluggish as Parallels.
Can anybody confirm that VMware is the way to go versus Parallels to maximize ease when using Vista Business Speech to Text? I don’t want to have my computer bogged down. I have one of the first version’s of MacBookPro
I am using an Intel Mac running Tiger and VMWare Fusion 1.1.2. It has 2 gig of ram and a 2.16 Core 2 Duo processor. Vista runs beautifully in the VMWare virtual configuration. We have posted several youtube videos made while running Vista Speech in this configuration. Our videos can be found with a youtube search for inetsynch.
Lets hope MacSpeech comes through with the needed fixes and correction options soon. It would be nice to have a well designed Native Speech to Text product for the Mac. I still hold out hope that Apple will extend its speech control to include Speech to Text.
Please let us know how it goes.
Sam
Windows2Apples
go to this link to test the beta software
NO LINKS TO TORRENTED SOFTWARE!
All praise to the H4XX0r’s who cracked this puppy!
Some hyperactive ThoughtPig altered my post above with a nonsensical bitchy grudge against torrents ??
OK, Porky, this is NOT a link …
just go to thepiratebay and type ‘MacSpeech’, then struggle briefly to resist temptation
If it works and you really have too much money, maybe buy it – otherwise, it’s free ;0)
@ihf: I can open Adium by pronouncing Adium as “Ah-dium”.
MacSpeech has become mute! Where are the bug fixes and needed correction options. MacSpeech release Dictate as a full release product yet it is clearly more like a work in progress Beta.
Time is a wasting.
Sam
Windows2Apples
I have tried to use Dictate regularly since it was released. It has too many limitations and stability problems to list. It is beta software, for sure. I started complaining to the MacSpeech about my concerns on April 22. I have never received a meaningful response, just those lame tech support replies that show that they didn't read more than the first line of your message.
MacSpeech Dictate is the worst software purchase I've made in recent memory, and I will never buy from them again. Their customer service is a joke, particularly when compared to so many other Mac developers that I really enjoy working with.
Sad but true. I had hoped MacSpeech would have at least released fixes for the killer bugs.
I have given up on it and now use Vista Speech exclusively. I am taking an inexpensive Vista laptop (<$600) on a trip and spent 15 minutes training the free Speech software and it is almost as accurate as my Dragon 9.5. (P.S. Using a cheap ($20) headset and internal sound chip … no expensive USB audio interface needed.
Hopefully MacSpeech has the resources to follow through in these difficult times.
Sam
Windows2Apples
I posted a rather negative review on May 14 (still no response to my e-mail) but I was able to get the program working and it is good. It’s accurate. It’s fun and I think anyone who wants to try voice recognition should give it a chance.
Re: the comment on using Dictate for transcription.
I installed Dictate yesterday, and tested it while recording a podcast with Audacity, using Soundflower and the “Software Playthrough” feature (look in Audio I/O prefs) on Audacity.
I first had to set up a profile with Soundflower (2ch) as the audio device, but Software Playthrough made that work just fine. I was able to read the text in the Dictate window into Audacity, and Dictate picked it all up seamlessly.
Simultaneous recording of the podcast along with transcription worked just fine using a Dictate notepad, but playing back older podcasts through Soundflower seemed to give Dictate more than it could handle.
Adding approx. 5 seconds of silence at the beginning & end of the audio file and adding a couple seconds of silence every 30 seconds or so, appears to improve the results so far.
Dictate worked well enough that I will be able to generate transcripts with about the same amount of editing time as I spend with my transcription service’s output.
Next test is the “analog” one – podcast playing through speakers next to the mike.
So far, Dictate has been far and away the best speech recognition software I’ve used, and I’m now just one good Mac app away from retiring my (virtual) PC for good. Anyone know a good replacement for EDGE Diagrammer?
I’ve just installed Dictate and after 5 minutes of training it transcribes complex medical terminology spoken at natural speed with near flawless accuracy. Incredible.
Does anyone know if Dictate works with digital voice recorders? I have to make a lot of notes on the fly, using an Olympus WS 110, and I’m looking for some way to avoid having to type the notes out afterward.
Scott,
You’ll probably have a tough time with that. Speech recognition relies heavily on pacing & pauses.
I have spent a few frustrating hours trying to get my new MacSpeech Dictate to stop crashing when the first user profile is created. Their tech support helped me out – it required that I use their USB based headset.
So, if you’re having the hassles listed on this forum, try using a USB headset (the one they provide in the box has a USB adaptor!!).
It would be nice of them to tell you all of this, seeing as how big a problem it is. Just a note in the box, boys!
Can you use this with hand held recording devices and upload the mp3 into the program?
No you can’t load audio files into it. See my comment above – with a bit of audio editing work, you can use Soundflower to mimic a live input. Even if you could load an audio file directly that wouldn’t do much good.
Most spoken conversation is way too fast for any speech recognition. Unless you’re recording with the pacing you need for speech recognition to work, you’ve got some audio editing to do, to have a chance of getting a transcript.
I am a long time Dragon NS user & recent convert to a Mac law office. I have been trying to create commands & can’t figure out how to retain formatting. Thus, in Dragon I had created “Insert Letterhead,” “Insert formal closing,” and “insert signed formal closing.” All I had to do was copy and paste into the command area and when I gave the command, it retained the formatting perfectly (i.e. with letterhead, firm name is a different color and larger font, plus everything is centered.) When I try in MacSpeech, the pasted version is not centered, not different colors, etc. Basically useless for me.
Does anyone know of a cure? Thanks.
[...] MacSpeech Dictate: Solid Voice Recognition | MacApper. [...]
So…. opinions seem to have slowed and stopped.
Should I buy this?
I spent 2007 basically “armless” due to spinal problems and if I live to be a hundred, I never EVER want to have to use iListen again – but is MacSpeech Dictate’s current version (this is February 09) worth buying?
I’m on a 3-yr-old iBook G4 on OS X, trying to get most of a 90,000-word doctoral thesis from head to screen in Microsoft Word. I can type for about half an hour twice a day which is going to take quite a long time to type a thesis, really…
I need advice, guys! Some are saying “wondrous!”, some are saying “bugs and more bugs!” and meanwhile I have no income to spare, two dodgy arms and a thesis to write…
Laura
HI Laura,
I had planned to use it for my thesis but then didn’t. If I had a copy from a torrent site to test before buying then maybe that would have convinced me that the bugs were something minor. You may want to email the company to see if any fixes have been released.
The current release is better. It now includes a learn mode and better corrections but I find it too inaccurate for me to use and it still gets lost when making corrections. Not only lost but will make a mess of your work if not very careful. The company recommends that you either correct manually or by voice but not both.
I continue to use Vista Speech because it is so much easier to make reliable corrections. Mind you, more corrections are needed because is in not as accurate as MacSpeech but only marginally so. I had very high hopes the new release would work for me but can’t deal with the funky lost cursor issue.
Recent updates (as of April 2009) have made Dictate almost useless. Recognition quality seems to have gone down, not up. Training is still not really working. Spelling mode is totally useless.
I used to be able to use Dictate to (slowly) get out my translations when my fingers were too tired to type. Dictating with Dictate is slower than typing because of the frequent need to correct errors. But now I find Dictate totally useless. Note that I use it almost exclusively with the setting tilted towards “accuracy”. That clearly doesn’t help.
In fact, the dictate screen sometimes types things backwards. They claim to be “fixing” the problem. Grammatically, it also seems to make very dumb choices, choosing the wrong homonym in cases where the syntax should make the correct word obvious.
It works OK if you are dictating mindless drivel for an email, but anything serious or technical will cause Dictate to fall apart. And, no matter what you do, always dictate into a buffer application like Text Edit and copy paragraphs or sentences over to the main document. Otherwise, when Dictate goes berserk, which it often does, previous text can get messed up pretty badly.
I suspect MacSpeech does not have the resources to make the product truly useful for most.
Sad. I really had hoped they could pull it off. No reliable speech to text for my Mac yet. Will continue to use Vista Speech still, oddly enough, the best speech to text product around. A true jewel Microsoft has allowed to go all but unnoticed.
Cheers
Sam
Windows2Apples
It is a great application standalone.
It does not play nice with Skype.
If you are dictating, and you switch to Skype to voice chat, and then you switch back, the mic is dead. Skype still owns it. The only way out is to quit macspeech or Skype and start them again.
This is really nasty.
I just recently entered the MacWorld after being a PC user for decades. Through much of that time I have used Dragon Naturally Speaking. I have grown used to how easily the program navigates through documents. You can simply tell it where to go and it goes there. After you make corrections, you can tell it to go back… and it does. You can just tell it what to correct and it jumps right to the proper place. When I bought my Mac, the salesman told me that Mac Speech Dictate was the “equivalent” of DNS. Yeah, right. MSD is not nearly as self-aware. It can completely lose its place if you, heaven forbid, type in a few words through the keyboard or try to navigate manually. It doesn’t seem very comfortable with programs other than its own notepad. I tried using it to do this post, and it simply stopped inserting text. And watch out if you use MS Word for Mac… even after installing the most recent update to MSD, it’ll work for a while, then unexpectedly crash. If you’ve been spoiled by the solid performance and flexibility of Dragon, you’ll be sorely disappointed by this program.
What version is your MacSpeech, Steve? Is it 1.5? And where did you purchase it? Is it the basic one or does it have some other name like Educational or Medical etc? Wanna sell it? I’m a gambler if the price is right.
200 dollars is too much for a toy. can it be gotten cheaper elsehwre?
Has anyone tried using an Olympus USB Dictate microphone such as
DR-1000 or DR-2000 with MacSpeech Medical?
Any experiences with Olympus mics and other MacSpeech apps?
Can anyone answer any of my questions from Oct22/09 please? I need it to work on Mac OS X 10.4.11
What is the name of the basic one or does it have some other name like Educational or Medical etc?
Is this still recommended for someone who speaks fluent English? I don’t need it to command the computer, just to alleviate my typing.
Can you manually type over mistakes it makes as required?
Thanks for any help. Someone will buy this for me as a gift if it works ok. Would like to take advantage of any Xmas boxing week deals if possible.
I suspect you would only need MacSpeech dictate sold for $200. Unfortunately, the current version 1.5 requires OS X 10.5.6 or higher. MacSpeech is a small company and I suspect one with limited resources. I use the Naturally Speaking product from Nuance (the company behind the software technology used in MacSpeech Dictate) as well as the free Windows Vista Speech recognition software. I have found both products perform best when run on a native Windows machine rather than on a Mac retrofitted with Windows Vista.
MacSpeech does well in overall accuracy but is dead last in usability and mixed keyboard / voice editing. I suspect you would be very frustrated trying to use Dictate to edit text. Nuance has entered the Apple market with an iPhone app so keeping fingers crossed they will use their considerable resources to replace the MacSpeech product with one fully engineered by Nuance.
I always re-try Dictate after an update, get excited and then find it still is not the productivity enhancement tool that Vista Speech is. It occupies hard drive space but is almost never used.
I was very happy to purchase and use Macspeech Dictate. I even discovered I could use the headset on Skype. But then, suddenly, my mike stopped working, On skype, and worst of all, on MSD. Totally dead. So now I can’t use the program anymore (sniff). I checked the audio settings in my Mac’s preferences. I can’t see where the problem comes from. The headphones still work, but not the mike, Can anyone help?
I bought Macspeech in an updated version (I hope/think) in October 2008, in the international version.
I had used Dragon Naturally Speaking on the PC, but was very fed up with all its crashes and bugs “ hard to understand that some people rave about it. Yes, accuracy was very good; but if it then suddenly crashes or corrupts your user files, it’s no good. (I spent a lot of time on the phone with the support at Nuance.)
Macspeech:
I had a lot of trouble installing it. And training the German user did not work at all at first, training the English one worked well.
I trained vocab into both and fed them with my own texts “ that seems to have helped accuracy a lot. It is starting to translate into text really fluently. BUT
each morning when I start out, it does not understand *at all*. When I do a microphone-setup and train some vocab for 40 mins or so, then it starts to transcribe fluently.
I spent hours each day for the past week, feeding my own texts and vocab-training into Macspech.
BUT when I look at the user profile-files (the ones you are supposed to backup) only the English one is changed. The German one is still dating from end of October 08. EVEN if I trained it that day and clicked “save profile”.
Any experience with this?
I am having a very bad suspicion that the app works so badly each morning because it “forgets” my training and I start from scratch each day. o.O
thank you sam and Jazz and Nina since dec27/09 i only got the notifier today mar5/10
I still have not chosen a program. Pain in arms is unbearable to type.
I have worked with Naturally speaking from Nuance for many years, iListen, MacSpeech Dictate and the free Vista and Win 7 Windows Voice to Text software. I prefer the free Windows solution. Accuracy is very good and usability excellent!
Can’t beat the price either.
MacDictate is my way to transcribe my dad’s WWII letters. The hardest part is correcting the mistakes. For example, if an entire sentence is flawed, is there a way to delete and start again?
There in lies the rub. Accuracy can be good but usability when editing is very poor. I think our best hope is that Nuance will produce a product at lease equal to the free Microsoft Speech recognition software or better yet the Windows naturally speaking software.
I’m handicapped and was trying to use DragonSpeak to get back to work without much use of my hands after an accident. After endless frustration with crashing and purchasing 2 new PCs to try to get it working, I gave up and decided to buy a Mac and try Dictate. I was amazed that it worked right out of the box…. for about a day. It wasn’t practical for anything other than straight dictation, which doesn’t solve my problem of maneuvering a mouse or editing.
But worse, it stopped recognizing my microphone. I”ve tried 3 different mics, besides the one it came with. Eventually it will tell me my mic isn’t plugged in. No matter how much I reboot, unplug, etc… it says I have no mic and I can’t move on.
I can’t believe that I can’t find a solution. I’m thousands of dollars in the hole and not terribly technically inclined. Does anyone out there know of a way a computer user with limited hand use can be functional on a computer? I don’t have financial resources like someone famous like Stephen Hawking…
I’m in San Diego and would pay someone to help me get these things working, but haven’t had any luck with the people I’ve tried so far. The mac store won’t support non-Mac products, and I haven’t met many people who are functional in either product.
I’m devastated! I just want my life back and without being able to use a computer it seems unlikely I’ll be able to work again. Anyone????
lil t,
I know this sounds a ridiculous suggestion and you probably have tried it, but my Mac periodically does the same and I’ve found that it definitely refuses to use one of the two USB ports for the microphone. It works fine on one port but not on the other (oddly, it will only recognise my printer if it’s plugged into the other!).
If you have been using a USB hub plugged into the same port, or if you’ve had the Mac set up by someone else and they’ve used just the same port each time, it might be worth trying the other port. I know it sounds really stupid, but sometimes it is silly little things that work.
Good luck with it. I really found MacSpeech Dictate useful, but as you say, for text only – I gave up trying to use it for anything else.
Have you explored the Mac’s own built-in Voice Commands? They are probably the best thing I’ve found for navigating round the Mac – go to System Prefs, go to Speech and turn it on. I have mine set up with the keyword ‘computer’ so I don’t have to press a key, and also if you dig around and explore it, you can write new voice commands for any keyboard shortcut. If you dig around further in the Mac, it turns out you can write your own voice commands which means you can create a LOT of useful voice commands.
Because it’s a limited vocabulary, it recognises it really well. It solves the need for hands to move between programmes (“computer, switch to Firefox”) and in some you can really whizz about (“computer, close this Firefox tab”, “computer, press return”).
Good luck
laura
Hi Lil,
I am sorry about the bad experience with Dictate. I agree that for simple dictation (voice entry), it is quite good. However for command and control, I found it lacking.
What version of Dragon Nat Speak were you using? Also, do you still have a PC?
Please let a know if how your search for a solution goes!
- Tomasz
Laura – I have been following this thread too and hope someone can also help lil t.
I too have difficulty with arm muscle pain when trying to type. I still have not purchased Speech Dictate. Which OS X version is your MAc? Sam – above – said it had to be newer than my present 10.4.11 and i am wondering how crucial that is?
Hi Lil:
For approximately 5 years I managed a Title I program that developed assistive devices and communication aides. That was many years ago but have blogged and podcast my reviews of Dragon, iListen, Dictate and Windows free voice to speech software from that perspective.
When I look at all these options from that of someone with background in assistive technologies, I see the Microsoft free Speech to Text software the best option for folks needing the kind of control and communications aides you seek. This is one area where Microsoft has more to offer that Apple.
Both Vista and Windows 7 have excellent implementations of this technology. I have posted a number of YouTube how to videos as well.
Let me know if you want me to contact you with specific suggestions.
Cheers
Sam
I had no trouble getting my program to work out of the box, but now it doesn’t recognize that the mic it came with is plugged in anymore. I’ve tried both ports, rebooting, etc… no luck. my wireless headset worked for weeks, then quit, now works again. I took it to the Apple store and he said it is the adapter that came with the headset. Did anyone else have this problem?
Also, can anyone recommend a tutorial? I can dictate, but that is it. I can’t seem to get commands or spelling to work. and my little box with the mice, spell, command icons looks nothing like the ones I’ve seen on websites. Am I missing something?
Thank you.
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oh, and thanks to everyone who has commented so far on my problem. I’m so technologically challenged!
Hello Lil,
I had EXACTLY the same problem. I had even been using the mike/hedset for Skype. Then one day kaput! I called the macspeech dictate people, and as I had it for ess than y year, I was told to buy a new one and return the older one, and that I would be reimbursed under the guarantee. I now have the new one which is working. But I have not used it much, so I hope it will not conk out on me. The problem was I believe the USB adapter… it feels a bit flimsy.
I hope this helps.
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