Transcription Aid ™ for Dragon Naturally Speaking ™

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What is it? | Guidelines for use | Comparative Features | Screenshots

A new dimension in speech recognition: Transcription Aid™ for Dragon NaturallySpeaking™!

Overview: After many years of research and development, Speech recognition has finally come of age. Currently, any user with good dictation habits can get impressive results in terms of both ease of use and productivity. Accuracy rates of up to 98% with very little training --a few hours-- are no longer a science-fiction issue!

However, it is evident that speech recognition has not yet successfully penetrated the corporate and public administration market, where secretaries very often regard the technology as a potential competitor. This is partially due to the fact that publishers of speech recognition applications have traditionally concentrated their tremendous efforts in improving the accuracy rate of the engines (raw performance), rather than in facilitating the hard transcription and editing work that follows any digital dictation (ergonomics).

Enter Transcription Aid™, the revolutionary application that simply changes the terms of this equation --raw performance versus ergonomics: an incredibly intuitive and easy-to-use interface for transcription and editing purposes, controlled with equal facility using a foot pedal, function keys, or mouse clicks, and supported by the most advanced speech recognition engine currently available --Dragon NaturallySpeaking™. This leads to immediate and outstanding increases of productivity and comfort for secretarial work. The transcriptionist will simply read the file made by Dragon within the Transcription Aid™ interface and, whenever an illogical word or phrase is spotted as a consequence of a misrecognition, press the foot pedal --or function key, or click mouse -- to hear the pronunciation of the person that generated the file! Even more exciting, when Transcription Aid® is used with Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional no author training is required! Just play a digital recording made by any single author and Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional can automatically transcribe the spoken recording into a written document for you.

Moreover, the application accepts the sound input generated not only by anyone dictating into Dragon NaturallySpeaking™ and saving the corresponding files --in ".dra" format--, for later correction and editing by a secretary, but also any other ".wav" file generated with a dictation application in a PC, a digital recorder, a Pocket PC PDA and even a Smartphone.

Transcription Aid™ is so simple to use for correction and editing of transcriptions made with Dragon NaturallySpeaking™, that it will very quickly conquer the heart of secretaries . It really has the full potential of widespread use of this fantastic speech recognition engine in corporations, hospitals and public administrations.

Features: Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a superior speech recognition engine. However the transcription facilities that it provides are still rather limited for professional use. Enter Transcription Aid® Professional and access the following additional features:

1. "Background" transcriptions of voice recordings. This means, one single click download, conversion of sound format and transcription of voice recordings generated with virtually any digital recording application or portable device, as for instance: any digital recorder, PDA (Pocket PC®, Sony Clié® and Palm Pilot®), MP3 music player with recording capabilities, and even Smartphone. All these facilities while the transcriptionist uses the PC for other tasks!
2. Transfer the correction of those transcriptions, as well as any transcription directly generated by Dragon NaturallySpeaking® running in a PC (".dra" file), to a third person (transcriptionist) and with the following additional advantages:

• Use a certified "plug & play" foot pedal (a device that is most familiar and natural to a transcriptionist).
  
• Play the voice recording of the author attached to any transcription, while reading it, to facilitate its correction by simple comparison between the sound and the text.
  
• Use some very useful macro commands icons for the most repetitive functions needed by a professional transcriptionist doing this process.
  
• Improve the "Speech files" of the dictating author, to increase his recognition accuracy even further...

3. Unique "No Playback Dropout" technology. Moreover, direct editing and correction of the transcriptions in the main window of Transcription Aid®, without damaging playback of the voice recording of the author ("*.dra" file). This allows for:

• The dictating author, to insert voice comments (with its corresponding transcription) with formatting or processing instructions for the transcriptionist, anywhere within the dictation.
  
• The transcriptionist, to substantially increase output and performance when using good quality "Speech files" (as it will avoid repetitive use of the Dragon Spell window)
  
• To hear the playback of the word or phrase to be corrected, within the Dragon Spell window, for confirmation purposes when the "PlayBack" button is grayed out.
  
• The archival of the original, unmodified, "*.dra" file for later verification or reference, even after the corrections has been introduced by the transcriptionist (a must have feature for legal firms and hospitals).

4. Simple and intuitive interface, similar to the world leading Microsoft Word®. A key element to reduce the learning curve of the transcriptionist and maximise output in very little time. This interface provides advanced features, unique to any currently available transcription application, as for instance:

• Main WYSIWYG window, allowing to see the transcription within its physical context (the margins of the page).
  
• Multilevel Undo & Redo.
  
• Margin justification.
  
• Paragraph and hanging indents.
  
• Tab settings (all standard ones).
  
• Open and Save Microsoft Word® ".doc" files directly, etc.

5. "Pack & Email transcription for revision" function. Voice recordings (".dra" files) get quickly very big. With this command, the Author can pack, compress and send through a network or e-mail through the Internet to the transcriptionist, his transcription and voice recording together for revision. All with a single click...
6. New, fully multimedia, Quick Start Manual.

System Requirements:

Transcription Aid® requires Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Preferred or Professional to run . However, if the secretary does not create his or her own "Speech files" for correction and improvement of the transcriptions and "Speech files" of the author, but instead uses the keyboard and foot pedal, only one single License of Dragon NaturallySpeaking® is needed -- to install in both the PC of the author (for dictation), and the PC of the secretary (for correction and improvement of the transcriptions and "Speech files" of the author with Transcription Aid®). Even more exciting, when Transcription Aid® is used with Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional no author training is required! Just play a digital recording made by any single author and Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional can automatically transcribe the spoken recording into a written document for you. Use Transcription Aid® to transcribe and edit the transcription.

• Microsoft® Windows® XP (SP1 or higher) Home and Professional or Vista
  
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred or Professional version 9 or higher
  Minimum CPU speed 1GHz (2.4 GHz recommended for good performance)
  
• 1 GB RAM recommended (1.5 or 2 GB recommended)
  
• 1 GB free hard disk space
  
• Creative® Labs Sound Blaster® 16 or equivalent sound card supporting 16-bit recording
  
• CD-ROM drive (required for installation)
  
• Speakers or high quality headset for the secretary (required for playback of recorded speech)
  
• Certified USB Foot pedal or Grundig Foot control with USB DigtaSoundbox (Highly recommended for maximum working comfort and performance)
  
• Certified or Grundig digital recorder (Recommended for automatic transcription of voice recordings with outmost accuracy).
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During the install process the software checks to make sure your system meets these minimum requirements. If it does not meet them, the software will not be installed.

Package Contents:

Transcription Aid Software CD
USB Footpedal *Optional

Download a free Demo!!