Hi all. I am currently writing up some of my coin routines that have appeared on dvd. I was wondering if anyone knew a good voice rwcognition software that could turn the words into a written document. It would save me a LOT of time! Tha ks!

Try Dragon Speech recognition software.

A lot of people on another site made the same reccomendation. There is also a transcription service where someone will do the work for me. Thst might be a good option, depending on cost. If not, I will definitely look into this software.

Mike,
Dragon should work fine. I use Powerscribe by Nuance to dictate my radiology reports. If the sound is clear on the DVD, it should work. You will still have to do editing and proofreading because the software isn't perfect. Certain magician's words you'll have to teach it or it will get them wrong every time. Software does learn but not as well as you would like.

Larry

Thanks Larry!

My mother used Dragon for years, and said she liked the way it became more accurate over time as it got to learn her voice. Every time she corrected something, the program took note. Part of the improvement, though, may have been that she learned how best to speak to it.

I work in the field of telephony and text-to-speech and speech recognition and have written a few applications that do this since IVR software often needs to respond to voice as well as DTMF digits. For "generic" apps, Nuance (Dragon),and AT&T have offerings, but I would give what comes free with Windows a shot if you have a Windows PC. One note is that there are 2 kinds of recognition; "command and control" and "dictation". You need dictation, which listens for all words and tries to recognize them, not just a limited set for predetermined responses.

To try it (assuming Windows 10. Apple has something similar in the keyboard options), open your word processor of choice and hold down the windows key and H at the same time. This will turn speech on and you can start dictating. If speech isn't enabled, it will prompt you do turn it on. Commands work with this too like "strike that", "go to the top", etc. But you can configure things so it just types what is spoken.

For a more comprehensive method, you can load the Speech Recognition from the control panel. To see a quick tutorial as well as configure things, hit the windows key to pop up the start menu, type "speech rec", and you should see "speech recognition" at the top of the menu. Click that and you will see the control panel options for speech. There should be an option when choosing your "microphone" to set that to the output of your sounds card to use the internal DVD player. If not, you can sit the computer/mic near a TV or take the output of the DVD player audio and plug it into the Mic Jack of the PC. You should train it to your voice for best recognition.

Microsoft has a free plugin for any office apps called "Microsoft Dictate". I have been meaning to try it. Makes it even easier to dictate and can translate at the same time! So you can dictate in one language and have it write it out in another. It puts a button right on your ribbon bar in any Office app. Lik I said though, haven't tested it.

Happy to help you offline if I can (and you need it) should you try that route. Always feel free to PM me. You also have my personal email.

I would hope you are able to get all, or at least most, of your work into print form, available in hard-copy versions. Books can last a thousand years, but with changing software and hardware, who knows how long today's videos and eBooks will be accessible? You have such a fine body of wonderful material, including your unique Encyclopedia of Coin Sleights, but on video only. It would be a shame to lose it all in the (perhaps not-so-distant) future.

The good news from Michael just a week ago is that he has completed his book and it should be published this year