Cheap VIA VOICE FOR WINDOWS PRO (Software) (Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows 98) Price
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It's important to distinguish between limitations of consumer computing power and the quality of dictation programs relative to each other. Voice dictation is extremely complex, and it is difficult to create truly reliable software without massive, NASA-level computers to run it on. With that in mind, ViaVoice 9 is an excellent dictation package, and the Pro U.S. bee (that should be USB) addition (edition) comes with the plant phonics Dee's pee 300 (uh, make that Plantronics DSP-300), a headset with outstanding microphone quality and fairly decent earphones.
Upon installation, the program asks you to read several paragraphs aloud to help it get to know your voice. The better "trained" ViaVoice is to your vocal nuances, the more adapted it is at translating your vocal commands and dictation. Unfortunately, even after hours of training, you can see it's still far from perfect, which is why I'm typing from this point on.
If you can get past its vocal follies, you'll appreciate the rest of ViaVoice 9's package. It's loaded with outstanding, user-friendly features, including its own dictation pad, a direct-dictate mode that works with just about every word processor you can think of, and the ability to format text and manipulate pull-down menus with intuitive vocal commands. It lets your voice perform other tasks, too, such as checking e-mail, surfing the Web, and using an applet called Voice Mouse to command the mouse cursor. In addition, ViaVoice packs the best help interface we've seen in years. For instance, for a list of vocal commands, you only have to utter the words "What can I say?"
Although its specs recommend differently, we suggest running ViaVoice on a machine equipped with a 1 GHz or faster processor and 256 MB or more RAM. Dictation was slow and error prone on our 1.5 GHz/256 MB test bed.
If you have a lot of patience, some spare time for extra proofreading, and the need or desire for a dictation suite, ViaVoice 9 is an excellent choice. Just be prepared for silly misinterpretations. --Joel Durham Jr.
| PLATFORM: | Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows 98 |
| CATEGORY: | Software |
| MANUFACTURER: | IBM |
| TYPE: | Computer software (programs), Utilities, Voice Command (Recognition) |
| MEDIA: | CD-ROM |
| # OF MEDIA: | 1 |
| UPC: | 098594983250 |
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Customer Reviews of VIA VOICE FOR WINDOWS PRO
OK, not great I tried both Via Voice 8 and 9. For the most part I still prefer L&H Voice Xpress V.4
The accuracy of IBM Via Voice V 9 is better, but lacks featurs such as adjusting the microphone level found in Voice Xpress.
I see that version 10 of Via Voice is out as an upgrade (a change in the previous policy). I would have considered spending the $90 or so bucks to upgrade and get the mike control for background noise, but I never got my $75 rebate from IBM for purchasing Version 9 a year ago. You can get Voice Xpress V 4 (standard) with the Platronics DSP folding headset for the price of the Upgrade cost of Via Voice alone. A better way to go if you are on a budget.
The software update policy ...
This is not a review for this version, but a comment on IBM's update policy. I have an earlier version of ViaVoice, namely the Millenium Pro version, which I previously wrote a positive review about. However, if I want to update to the newest version I have to pay full price, since IBM only allows users who bought the previous version within a narrow, specified time period to get the upgrade price. Everyone else has to pay full price!
Not even Microsoft who has often, deserved or undeserved, been called predatory, has to my knowledge never had such a restrictive software upgrade policy towards end-users.
This is outrageous, and it certainly makes me want to look for alternatives!
SOME RECOGNITION, but HOURS of talking
This software can recognize voiced speech, but it takes several hours to configure it so that it doesn't make lots of mistakes.
For a person who has Arthritis of Carpel Tunnel this is a great program, but they likely will need to voice out commmands for several hours to ready the program for near errorless preformance.