Speech Recognition Problems

[fripper]

I have just installed Word 2003 and have been playing
around with speech input but I am having a heck of a time
getting the system to recognize what I am saying! When I
go to Control Panel > Speech and try to go through the
speech training process a VERY small percentage of the
words I recite from the paragraphs presented are
recognized ... no matter how many times I say them. AS
near as I can tell my microphone is working OK ... when I
test it with Sound Recorder it seems to be OK. I am
using version 6.1 of Microsoft's Recognizer software.

Is there a trick to getting off the ground with voice
recognition? Any ideas on what may be causing my problem?

Thanks very much.

 

[Mike Williams [MVP]]

Is there a trick to getting off the ground with voice
recognition? Any ideas on what may be causing my problem?

What sort of regional accent do you have? This can have a big bearing on the
"neutral US" dialect that is the basis for the English speech recognizer.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

A major problem is that the microphones that come with computers and the
sound cards (or built-in circuitry) are not good for voice transcription.
Sound circuits are generally optimized for output rather than input. If you
can get on the user-support board for Dragon Naturally Speaking you'll find
whole discussions about both microphones and sound cards. I tried to find it
but it seems to have been discontinued by ScanSoft. (Like these newsgroups,
what people had to say about the products was not always flattering.) Check
out
http://www.voicerecognition.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro.
You can get a decent microphone (for about $100.00-%150.00) from
http://www.dragonsys.ca/. The Andrea mics ANC-500 and above actually have
two microphones. One is pointed at your mouth and the other is pointed at
the room. It has circutry to cancel ambient noise from the environment from
the feed from the mic pointed at you.

You can also download tips for dictating and using voice transcription.

You may want to take a look at ScanSoft's list of sound cards certified to
work with DNS.

I haven't tried the XP sound features yet. I suspect my version of DNS (6.1)
is still superior even though I think Microsoft bought most of their
technology from Dragon. DNS, though, is a good piece of change. I use the
legal edition but you wouldn't want anything less than the "Preferred"
edition. Also, it is now owned by ScanSoft and support isn't that great,
IMO.

Good luck!
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory:
<URL: http://addbalance.com/word/index.htm>

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide)
<URL: http://addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm>

See also the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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[fripper]

Thanks for the replies. I don't THINK I have a regional
accent ... although being from New England some people
may question that! I suspect that my problem is the
mic ... it's a cheapy (~$15 at Radio Shack) but since the
playback of stuff I've recorded on SOund Recorder sounds
pretty good I assumed that the mic was of sufficient
quality that this new fangled voice recognition software
could handle it. Guess not.

Thanks for the quick reponses.

 

[Mike Williams [MVP]]

Thanks for the replies. I don't THINK I have a regional
accent ... although being from New England some people
may question that! I suspect that my problem is the
mic ... it's a cheapy (~$15 at Radio Shack) but since the
playback of stuff I've recorded on SOund Recorder sounds
pretty good I assumed that the mic was of sufficient
quality that this new fangled voice recognition software
could handle it. Guess not.

You'll need something better for speech since ambient noise can have a big
effect on the detected signal. Try for one built into a headset. I used a
cheapy included with a game controller (the only reason I bought it) and it
worked fine and I come from the deep South...ern Hemisphere.

Mike Williams - Office MVP
http://www.mvps.org/

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