Dictation Software for Linux?

Yottabyte84 asks: "As a student, I often have the need to type up papers, however like most people I talk faster then I type. I've lately been looking to get a dictation program, but I don't wanna boot Windows every time I need to use it. IBM has a commercial version of ViaVoice for Linux and a free SDK. I'm unclear what the SDK can do, and would be willing to buy the commercial product if the SDK doesn't fit my needs. What I'd really like to be able to do is give spoken text input into the Linux apps I already use, but could live with being stuck with a simple included word processer. Have any of you tried ViaVoice or the SDK? How well did they work for you?"

Comments

I've used ViaVoice SDK and commercial versions

[slashkitty]

In a word, they are pretty good, but not perfect. The commercial version includes the teaching portion where you talk for like twenty minutes as it learns your voice. I've only tried it in it's own little app, which is not a real good word processor, but it's good for entering text. I would read paragraphs of Newspaper articles as fast as I could, and it was nearly perfect. It would miss names or things that you would expect. It could even play back the audio of what you just read in /Your Voice/ or it's own TTS engine. It wasn't as good when I tried to feed is other stuff. I guess it's geared to corporate / news speak.

I've also developed some test apps w/ the SDK. It's not as good for free text, but could handle special commands and vocabularies. Things like automating mp3 playing and turning on and off lights would be good for that. You should try it out if that's what you're looking for!

Re:I've used ViaVoice SDK and commercial versions

[slashkitty]

I haven't tried dragon's product, there is a review of it somewhere. I won the VV at LinuxWorld. I wouldn't have paid for it, when it comes down to it, I can type much better then I can speak. ;-) The SDK didn't work as well because of the learning, and maybe vocabulary? I think that if you have the commercial version, you can transfer the files to an SDK project, but I didn't try that.

The "ViaVoice Dictation Run Time Kit for for Linux V3" seems to be the same as the version you buy, minus the headset (which makes a hugh difference) ... it should at least have the free text dictation to try out.

The best long-term solution. . .

[foo fighter]

. . .is to learn how to type faster. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing is a great tool for this, and it's also pretty fun. We use it to teach typing skills at the school where I work.

I've supported many administrative assistants and remember when voice to text software first came out. We tried a number of solutions, and for even moderate typing speeds (60-90wpm) we found they were much more efficient if they just typed, rather than tried to dictate.

I also remember recently the Director of our school was tired of dictating letters to tape to be transcribed by her assistant. (This was about 5-6 months ago). We tried Dragon Naturally Speaking and she didn't like it at all: typos, have to speak unnaturally, the weird feeling of talking to the computer (don't know why that was an issue since she talked to the tape. She's the boss).

Anyway. I'd invest some time in building your typing skills. It will have a higher payoff in the end.