voice reconition on a pc

jeffy22

Hello. my father really want to start writing his memoires as he's the last one alive on that side of the family. unfortuantly his typing skills are very poor and he really deoes not want to write out freehand.. I have heard of voice reconition software where you speak and it types it onto the screen, but it is anygood now?

would i need to buy or can i download some free software

would you recommend buy a headset/mic all in one for better results?
please any info on this subject grateful

azmilsyahmi

If your computer is running on Windows Vista there is a voice recognition software bundled into it. I use it when i have to put in numbers to my work, in excel format cause it faster then typing you just have to read out the numbers. It also works well word files too.

John_Gray

Dragon Naturally Speaking is about the best current product. £63 from Amazon (other fine retailers are available...)

jeffy22

would the windows vista one work for writing a book is we used a specialist headset?
£63 is a bit too much money for me

esuhl

Have you tried any of the free voice dictation products?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=free+pc+dictation+software

jaydeeuk1

I'd second Dragon. Miles better than anything free. Does require training the software to use, and the better the PC the more accurate/quicker the program is.

Humphrey10

Dragon is very good. Don't be put off by needing to train it, it only takes about 10 min.

TonyMMM

All voice recognition software requires training to recognise the particualr voice it is picking up, and even then will need editing afterwards to correct mistakes. Unless your father is quite happy to do that I would suggest buying a normal dictaphone and recording his story, to be transcribed later. That way you get a copy of him telling the history himself to save for future generations.

You could also use a headset and software like Audacity to record straight to the computer.

SailorSam

I can only type with one finger and need to search for the letters so when i first got my computer i tried the one which came with Vista, i didn't think much of it. Remember as well as training the computer to recognise your voice, you've got to tell it things like, comma; full-stop; apostrophe; new paragraph etc etc .
They may have improved things in the last few years and things are perhaps more user friendly, but i think you should try one of the free programmes to test the waters.

Humphrey10

SailorSam wrote: »

They may have improved things in the last few years and things are perhaps more user friendly, but i think you should try one of the free programmes to test the waters.

The free dictation software (I don't remember the name, I uninstalled it after an hour or so) I tried out a few years ago was totally useless, you had to speak like a robot to get it to understand anything, and you had to spend ages training it.

The version of Dragon Naturally Speaking I used just over 3 years was amazing in comparison. Yes it requires training, but 10 minutes of reading a passage of text out loud isn't much work really. The only word I found that it didn't understand was 'spandrel'.

It's also available for iPad, although it's not so user friendly as you can only dictate stuff in the App itself (on the PC (and Mac I assume) you can use Dragon to dictate directly into Word etc), you have to copy and paste if you want to enter the text into a reply box in a forum, for example:

"This was dictated on Dragon on my iPad. It requires no training. It worked right out of the box. It's very easy to use although the PC version is superior. There are of course other dictation packages available"

The capital letters were the work of Dragon (including the D and the P!), the full stops have to be manually entered by saying 'full stop'. The apostrophe in 'it's' was added automatically by Dragon. Paragraphs and new lines would also have to be added manually.

Although it's expensive, I think you do get quite a lot for your money.

SailorSam

The thing i tried must have been what you had originally, Humphrey. I remember talking like a robot.
I suppose for what i use it, and the fact that i'm not ever writing against the clock i make do now.
For a life story i liked the idea that Tony came up with above, to leave an actual recording for your ancestors to read.