Speech to Text

c4yrslf12

Level 3
Dec 2, 2012
759
7
0
USA
Curious if anyone knows any free (or cheap) speech-to-text programs which aren't too shaky to use. I log a lot of hours in the car and could get quite a bit of content via laptop while I'm mobile.

TIA

inb4 youretoodamncheap.jpg

:bowdown:
 


youretoodamncheap.jpg

I haven't tried many, but Dragon Naturally Speaking, at the base level isn't that costly. And you could "borrow" it until you've earned enough to buy a legit copy. I see no problem with that as long as you contributed back to them what they helped you earn. But that sucker... you train it to your voice and it learns all of your peculiarities and what not. You can teach it words as well, technical words it wouldn't normally pick up, etc.

The only thing I'd worry about is the ambient noise of the being in the car. You'd have to get a headset thing and really close mic your mouth to get the signal to noise ratio up.

inb4 c4yrslf12 dies on interstate .png
 
DNS is good, the current industry leader unless you can crack into the Berkeley firewall ... sure those grads have come up with some pretty badass stuff.

It probably won't be a great solution to use directly in your car. Lugging your laptop around isn't ideal and the background noise will make the transcribing less than perfect.

You're probably best off buying a high end digital voice recorder that's made for noisy environments (no suggestions ATM) and then sending the mp3 files through dragon once you get home.

FFMPEG/mencoder can do a decent job in background noise reduction if you don't mind blending some nerdy stuff into the process.
 
youretoodamncheap.jpg

I haven't tried many, but Dragon Naturally Speaking, at the base level isn't that costly. And you could "borrow" it until you've earned enough to buy a legit copy. I see no problem with that as long as you contributed back to them what they helped you earn. But that sucker... you train it to your voice and it learns all of your peculiarities and what not. You can teach it words as well, technical words it wouldn't normally pick up, etc.

The only thing I'd worry about is the ambient noise of the being in the car. You'd have to get a headset thing and really close mic your mouth to get the signal to noise ratio up.

inb4 c4yrslf12 dies on interstate .png

I figure even if it only gets say 90% of the content correct, it's still only having to go back and edit 10% as opposed to writing it all from scratch. I drive a Lincoln, it's pretty damn quiet. Not as quiet as my Lexus, but close. You think that would be too much noise even if I got something like a good quality mic with a foam covering like singers record in? :music07:

I do like the idea of a high quality recorder and just dropping it into the system. I guess I could always test run both ways, I've got nothing but time ahead of me.

I'll just keep my head on a swivel.
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If you have a Mac Dictation with Mountain Lion is badass and what I'm using to type this message right now. It only costs $20 to upgrade if you have an old laptop.

I have not tried Dragon Naturally Speaking as the Mac version apparently sucks.

EDIT: I dont know how you would do that while driving though, as you have to set a keyboard function for it to work and that doesn't seem too safe.
 
I would record to mp3 via digital recorder phone etc.

Then find someone on elance who will transcribe accurately for a few dollars per hour. If you find the right person, the content will be 100% accurately typed and formatted which won't happen with the software meaning more work for you. My 2c
 
^^ or you could use DNS, train it, get it 80-90% right after training, and then let someone on Fiver just edit it for cheaper then transcribing.
 
^^ i do, but then again I will add this. I tried Mac Dictation back in 08/09 so the newer versions might be better today.
 
For 100 bucks, that's a steal I think. I'm curious as to it's adaptation for language and abbreviations; that could come in handy, too.
 
I've never tried. My friend works at the company that produces Dragon software. I should ask for a copy and try it out. I've honestly never tried one of those programs, period
 
I am using Dragon naturally Speaking which you find on Amazon right now. This one is fine for everyday use. There's also Windows Voice Recognition, which is included with win 7.
But Dragon Naturally Speaking is the best one to me instead of Windows Voice Recognition.

Thanks :)