Has anyone used speech recognition software?
The most recent version of Dragon Naturally Speaking is supposed to be the best, most cutting-edge speech recognition tool available. I’ve used speech recognition software, but I can’t tell you what I used because I don’t know… but it worked pretty well. I personally don’t use it because I can type pretty fast, and I know exactly what should appear on the screen.
Yeah, by the time you go through the setting up procedure, which involves reading things off the screen, so that the software can identify your particular pronunciation and accent, it takes so long that you can finish typing all your interviews and still have time to go the pub for a drink. Apart from which it will still fail to recognise words and the punctuation is a real pain to learn and get the thing to understand. For example the one used, for a period (Full Stop) you had to say full stop. Unless you got the speed of the words and the timing of the gap between the two words perfect, instead of putting a full stop, it would type the actual words, full stop.
Well, the voice recognition softwares can be pretty effective, but only under the right circumstances. You’ll need a pretty powerful PC first, and you’ll want the latest version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking – that is the best software out right now for VR. You’ll need to “train” the software first to recognize your voice, and you’ll need to get a good headphone/voice recorder set-up. But you can’t simply chat very quickly to the program – you’ll have to speak very clearly and at a steady pace. If you can already type at 60-70 words per minute right now with more than 98% accuracy, it’s not really worth it. You’d be better off practicing your typing skills to get to about 80 words per minute or higher. Because the VR software will set you back about 100 bucks. And plus, as I said, you need a pretty powerful PC.
