[TenTec] Speech to Text

[Bruce McLaughlin]

I can second the recommendation for Dragon naturally speaking.  I have both
the program for a PC and another version for the Macintosh.  Both of them
work pretty much the same as far as recognition accuracy is concerned,
although, I think the interface for the PC is better.  Version 11 which is
the current version for the PC is extremely good.  I use it for legal
writing and for ham radio I have used it to work PSK 31 as well as RTTY by
dictating into various programs such as Mix W.  In fact, I am using it to
write this message.  Earlier versions of the program required a fair amount
of "training" in order to build up the so-called profile of your voice, that
is, how you pronounce words and familiar contexts you use.  However, the
current version requires hardly any training and will, in fact, work very
well with no training at all.  It "learns" how you speak as you use it.  If
it makes a mistake on a word you correct it.  It keeps track of those
corrections and when you close down the program it will add those
corrections to your profile so that it will not make that mistake again.

However, as someone has mentioned, it is still rather dependent on your
particular voice characteristics as well as a good clean audio input.  I
don't know if it will work very well with over the air signals with static,
interference, and fading, not to mention various accents, etc.  However, the
program is not very expensive and is undoubtedly worth a try.  At the very
least, it should be an interesting addition to your software library and
could be quite helpful in ordinary writing.  It comes with a very nice
headset mic which seems to work very well.  I note that the program has made
absolutely no mistakes while I dictated this message.  Considering what it
has to do I think that is amazing.  I began using speech recognition with a
program put out by IBM called Via Voice about 10 years ago.  It was very
expensive and very crude compared to NaturallySpeaking of today.  Not only
is today's program much less expensive it is much, much better.  They have
certainly made vast improvements in the technology during the past 10 years.

Good luck.  Bruce-W8FU

-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com]
On Behalf Of John Chance-Read
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 7:49 AM
To: tentec at contesting.com
Subject: [TenTec] Speech to Text

Being deaf, I am trying to locate a 'Speech to Text' software package.
All my attempts, despite careful choice of route, always lands up with a
'Text 
to Speech'.
I use CW Skimmer to display the morse code ( I decode it visually) and have 
successfully made many CW contacts.  Now I want to try SSB. 
Does anyone know of such software.  SPEECH to Text - not text to speech!
Your help appreciated
John G4BOU


      
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