MacSpeech Dictate Amazon reviews - comments?

On Mar 30, 7:05=A0pm, Mark Conrad <non...@urbusiness.invalid> wrote:
> In article
> <3203dc8f-00d3-4ae9-9251-0e7f9b7f6...@c26g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
>
> =A0frangelicafrangel...@gmail.com wrote: 
>
> I don't think it's so much getting a bad disk, instead I think it is
> just stumbling over the basics of speech recognition. For a sample,
> right now I am dictating this text intoMacSpeech Dictate, and having
> little difficulty at all getting fairly legible copy.
>
> However, here is a bad test to putMacSpeech Dictateto -
>
> Bill
> Salo
> fellow
> hello
> Jell-O
> Millwall
> yellow
>
> Exact same test again -
>
> Bill
> so all
> fellow
> hello
> Joel
> Millwall
> yellow
>
> (turned off the microphone now so I can explain
> =A0 what is going on in the 2 examples above)
>
> Namely, I had a list of similar sounding words, here is
> the CORRECT list of words I spoke intoMacSpeech Dictate:
>
> bellow
> cello
> fellow =A0 =A0CORRECT
> hello =A0 =A0 =A0 LIST
> Jell-O =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0FOR 2 PREVIOUS TESTS
> mellow
> yellow
>
> 'Dictate got half of those words wrong in the 2 tests above.
>
> I do not know WHERE it got "Millwall" from, it is not even
> a word according to the Mac OS X dictionary.
>
> Needless to say, Dragon on a Vista partition got ALL of that
> list dead right, because Dragon has no trouble with slightly
> different sounding words.
>
> When MacSpeech adds correction features, it should perform
> every bit as well as Dragon does.
>
> (okay, I will presently turn the microphone on briefly
> =A0 =A0for one more quick test on a word that I know that
> =A0 =A0MacSpeech Dictatehas a lot of trouble with,
> =A0 =A0 =A0namely the word "cello" - - -
> =A0 =A0 =A0 which is pronounced "CHEL-LO") - "hard" CH, as in "change"
>
> I will speak that same word "cello" 9 separate times:
>
> (turning microphone on now)
>
> Jell-O
> shallow
> Joel
> shallow
> you will
> well
> show
> sure will
> Joe
>
> (turned the microphone off now for the rest of this post)
>
> What a mess. =A0Can't you imagine how unhappy a new user
> would be when he finds that his $200 bought that sort
> of performance! =A0 Not one "cello" in the whole bunch.
>
> Again, the Dragon software yielded 9 perfect "cello" rep's.
>
> 'Dictate should also, when the upgrades ship.
>
> Oh, one last thing, at the very first of this post MacSpeech made
> one tiny mistake:
>
> "For a sample, right now I am" =A0 =A0S/B =A0 "For example, right now I am=[/color
]
"
>
> Mark-
>
> --
> Much more to discuss, but let's face it, presently dictation
> software holds little attraction for most Mac users, so I will
> move the bulk of my comments to that unused "comp.speech.users"
> newsgroup, to test the waters there, so to speak.
>
> Hopefully, perhaps the feud there will subside somewhat.

Part of the issue here is that the spoken words lack context. If you
were to speak each word in a sentence, it is far more likely the
software would get it right. The current state of speech recognition
is that it is NOT word recognition, but considers context when
deciding what word to type. Without context - or a vocal reference
that helps define your unique pronunciation (training helps some, but
that's where Correction really helps), the software will randomly
choose words that use the same - or very similar - phonemes.

Mark and I are basically saying the same thing here, I just wanted to
add the bit about how important context is to accuracy - especially
with MacSpeech Dictate 1.0.

Chuck Rogers, Chief Evangelist
MacSpeech, Inc.

MACHSPEECH DICTATE SUCKSS, Its not only ME WRITING THIS

Please Check the Forum
http://www.macfixitforums.com/showf...=5&o=31&fpart=1

I hope they fix cause it CRASHES when i create the PROFILE !!!

Majority are facing the same problem, PROGRAM is not worth the money
190 bucks and

I have been a Dragon user for many years, and use it for about 9 hours
a day professionally.  It works great in a medical environment, and
like most others in this thread, I am a also a confirmed Mac user.  I
purchased IListen several years ago, and would try again with every
upgrade, only to put it away as klugey.  The only time I use the
Windows operating system now is to access Dragon, so I was really
excited to read of Dictate when it was introduced.  I thought someone
was addressing the large medical Mac market with a good VR product.

After installing and using it for a w on my MacBook Pro, I too am
impressed with the accuracy and ease of use of Dictate, but have come
upon three issues the will render it less than useful.

1.  There are no professional vocabulary packages, and I would have
thought that the professional markets would be core targets for the
product (legal and medical).  This is a major shortcoming for
professional use, and coupled with the absence of the training mode
available in Dragon, makes it much less useful than it might be.
Hopefully this will be addressed over time.

2.  The real deal killer for me is the license structure.  I don't
believe that anyone has addressed this issue in the thread.  Unlike
many other software packages, and indeed unlike Dragon in Windows, the
license is to the hardware and not to the user.  ie you can only
install it on one machine at a time.  And this is enforced, not
allowing more than one hardware activation.  In Dragon, multiple
machines are allowed to install the software, but only one user per
license.  This is a really big deal in the medical world where most
providers have several locations, and multiple machines.  This will
render the software unusable in the medical professional environment.
A real shame since this is one of the highest penetrations of Mac
hardware in the market, and a market that should have been a slam dunk
for Dictate.  I don't understand the logic of single hardware install
license, but I guess it is not the first time that a company has shot
itself in the foot over this issue.  A much more reasonable license
structure for a product of this type, since an individual purchases,
uses, and licenses the software, is to restrict the use to one
individual on any machine.

3.  There is no good microphone for the Mac available as of yet.  And
I don't mean in terms of the audio quality, but in terms of the
ergonomics.  Can you imagine your doctor with a headphone and boom
mike seeing you??  There needs to be a more traditional dictating
microphone, similar to the Philips Speech Mike used in Dragon on
Windows, that contains some control buttons as well as a quality
microphone for the audio input.  This is the microphone shape that has
stood the test of time, not the goofy and gy headphone with boom
mike.

I hope the company addresses these three issues,  The software has the
potential to serve as the foundation of a much needed and superior
product for the Mac, but it is not ready for prime time in a
professional medical environment yet.

So for the present, I will still have to keep my multiple Windows XP
machines using Dragon as the only remaining software in use on the
other guy's clumsy OS.

Bill

In article
<b51881eb-71b4-43e0-93c9-a4146aaaa030@q27g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
TENSHADY@gmail.com wrote:

> MACHSPEECH DICTATE SUCKSS, Its not only ME WRITING THIS
>
> Please Check the Forum
> [url]http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Forum36&Number=853106&pa[/
url]
> ge=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1
>
> I hope they fix cause it CRASHES when i create the PROFILE !!!
>
> Majority are facing the same problem, PROGRAM is not worth the money
> 190 bucks and...

Wow, what a bunch of horror stories there!

Apparently the  _main_  problem was that some customers got a bad
"data disk" - - - there are two disks for installing MacSpeech,
one of them is called a data disk.


After a LOT of hassle, those unfortunate customers managed to
get MacSpeech to ship a new data disk, which remedied the problem
of not being able to initially train MacSpeech Dictate.

i.e., in other words, not being able to "create a profile".




A new re-install of MacSpeech Dictate is necessary, AFTER removing
all traces of the existing MacSpeech Dictate, especially the
corrupt "data" file.

I do not know exactly where that data file is stashed, I think it
is somewhere in one of the Library folders.

Ah wait, I located the data file in _my_ MacBook Pro:

(my main hard drive is named "MacBook Int", and my
user name is "mark")

MacBook Int -> Users -> mark -> Library ->
Application support -> MacSpeech -> Data

Throw the entire Data folder into the trash.



Re-install MacSpeech Dictate from scratch, using a new "data disk"
from MacSpeech.


The new "data disk" should get things running for you.

Hope so, anyhow.

I was lucky, I got a good set of disks, so did not
experience that nasty problem.

Mark-

In article
<e70d20ac-60f5-4591-82f7-1a6790e57f89@e39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
billmcc <william.mcclatchey@gmail.com> wrote:

> The only time I use the Windows operating system now is to
> access Dragon, so I was really excited to read of Dictate
> when it was introduced.  I thought someone was addressing
> the large medical Mac market with a good VR product.

I get the impression that MacSpeech is not after that market.


MacSpeech is a small company, with only 24 employees,
ten of whom are their programmers.

Likely most of the remaining 14 employees are engaged in
semi-critical "ordinary" business tasks, such as shipping,
advertising, disk-duplication, packaging, legal concerns,
foreign-sales and advertising, web-master, and policy-making
by the Big Cheese, whoever that is.

So  _maybe_  five of them have a little time to handle the
flood of concerns from all their customers; let us guess that
there are 5,000 total MacSpeech Dictate customers right now.

We can't expect that little company to seriously go after
a big market of potentially 50,000 medical users worldwide.

Heck, they are having problems right now servicing a measly
5,000 customers. (assuming that figure is somewhat accurate)

Another concern is that Nuance might decide to chop them off at
the ankles by revoking their Dragon lease, if MacSpeech tries
to go after the medical market.

We are stuck with using Dragon for medical speech recognition.



I made the mistake of buying the "latest-and-greatest"
Dragon medical for $1,200.

Why?  Because I was naive and stupid; I actually thought that
Nuance was going to add extra features to justify the
$200 price increase.  They added nothing, grrr.

<sigh> - So like you, I continue to use Dragon.

...in my case, with no hope of replacing it with MacSpeech,
at least as regards medical application.

I  _am_  looking forward to using MacSpeech for every Mac task
that I can apply it to, however.

...then using Dragon "when-I-have-too" along with the
frustrating Windows Vista OS.  Grr, grrr, growl, grumble...

Mark-