Microsoft Windows Vista - Speech Recognition Features Make the Upgrade

For around $185, you get a solid, sexy, user-friendly operating system from Microsoft. On top of that, included in the price, is a fast and intuitive voice recognition application. When lined up against the competition, Windows Vista Speech Recognition is a fine wine on a beer budget.

Most computers use Microsoft Windows. A large percentage of computers running Windows have some sort of Microsoft Office equivalent on them. Every job I have worked at uses Microsoft Outlook for email. With that being said, it seems almost imperative that the voice recognition software will need to work easily within a Microsoft Office environment. The competition (Dragon Naturally Speaking 9) does have a version of voice recognition software that will work with all Microsoft Office applications. It retails on their website for $899 (http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/). You have to pony up to their Professional package in order to get all the features that you find in Vista Speech Recognition, again without an operating system surrounding it.

What's Not:&nbsp

You only spend $185 for the operating system but you may spend a lot more to get a machine that will efficiently run Vista as well as Speech Recognition. In checking out to see how much processing power this Speech Recognition uses when I am speaking and it is interpreting, I found that it looks to be using about 8-10 percent of a quad core processor. It also uses about 75MB of RAM. You need good hardware to run Speech Recognition without going insane waiting for the program to respond to your voice. More on this in the Performance section.

When coupled with good hardware, Vista and Speech Recognition perform quite well. These two programs are fast, intuitive and powerful. Speech Recognition responds very quickly to commands and dictation. I can speak well over 100 words per minute with this program.

The Common Commands in Speech Recognition white pages are extremely helpful in gaining fluency with this program. Any question that you probably have concerning how to use this program is in the help file. It is very thorough and well worth the time and paper to print out.

This program recognizes speech very well right from the start. I can set up my microphone and speak out an email without the program doing any training on my voice, and there aren’t that many corrections to do. However, with just eight to ten minutes of initial training, you can save yourself a lot of hassles. Plus, the program “learns” as you go. The more times that the program hears you correct a word initially, the less times you’ll need to correct it in the long run.

What's Not:&nbsp

Good hardware is essential for this whole Vista Speech Recognition thing to work. I just barely ran Windows Vista on my 1.8GHz P4 processor with 512MB RAM. In order to get a good response from Speech Recognition, you’ll need a fairly beefy computer, which can add a lot to your upgrade budget. Without good hardware, the response time for Speech Recognition can become unbearable. The minimum requirements on the website don’t say this, but my personal experience would tell me that a dual core processor with at least 1GB of RAM is needed for good performance. You should get a good sound card and set Speech Recognition to run through it as well [see Control Panel Start 02 and Sound Control Panel screenshots.] Again, from personal experience, running my microphone through the onboard sound has been less than satisfying as the computer doesn’t “hear” as well.

Until I started using this program, I had no idea that my speech quality decreased so much when I’m tired. If it’s the end of a long day, the amount of corrections that I need to do after each sentence goes up exponentially. I must slur like I’ve just killed a bottle of Jack Daniels. When I’m fresh in the morning, I don’t have nearly as many corrections. I may be able to speak over 100 words per minute but the corrections cut that in half a lot of times. Sometimes, the taskbar just asks “What was that?” That is particularly frustrating when I have repeated myself five times. (Now I know how my wife feels.) For instance, if you ever mess up on the word “that,” you’ll have to use the keyboard to correct it. You cannot say “Select ‘that’” because it will select the entire line that you just said. Here are a few other examples that happened while I was writing this review:

What I said: “The more that you use Speech Recognition.”

What the computer heard: “The more they use speech recognition.”

What I said: “I can speak well over 100 words per minute with this program.”

What the computer heard: “If wrong thing I can speak well over 100 words permit with this program.”

What I said: “The correction dialogue box [see Correction Dialogue Box screenshot] is great at giving alternates for quick correction.”

What the computer heard: “The correction dialog box [C correction dialogue box screenshot] is great and giving the alternates for quicken correction.”

Because I have used voice recognition software for so long, I’ve come to expect that correction is all par

Microsoft Windows Vista Speech Recognition is filled with features that not only let you dictate emails and documents, but let you control your entire computer. Since this program is proprietary to Microsoft, nearly all Microsoft products work with it well. The dictation function is world class. It is a fast and easy-to-learn alternative to typing. The correction dialogue box [see Correction Dialogue Box screenshot] is great at giving alternates for quick correction. Note: to more quickly and more effectively correct sentences, say a phrase of words to correct rather than just one word. It will be easier for Speech Recognition to locate and fix a phrase rather than just one word. Because of the built-in commands, you can conceivably sit down at your computer and hardly use the mouse or keyboard. Also, the tutorial is quite helpful for getting you started in this world of voice recognition.

What's Not:&nbsp

I wish there was a shortcut to open up Speech Recognition. You have to go into Control Panel and start it from there every time you want to use the program. There is the option to have it start every time you start your computer. I’m a minimalist though when it comes to my startup programs. I’m not into buying a lot of RAM and then seeing it all used up by leeches in my startup.

Also, whatever language that you installed on your computer is the only language that the Speech Recognition will recognize. You cannot use Speech Recognition in some other language. If you wanted to teach yourself to speak Spanish using Speech Recognition and your computer is laid out in English, you are out of luck.