Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 in Virtual PC

[Sharewaredemon]

Hi,

I am trying to convince my girlfriends dad to switch to a Mac, he seems very interested but he needs the laptop he wants for a research project. On this project they have to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking, unfortunately, this program isn't made for OS X. I was wondering if you could run this program through Virtual PC. The minimum requirements are:

Intel® Pentium® III / 500 MHz processor (or equivalent AMD processor)
256 MB RAM
500 MB free hard disk space
Microsoft® Windows® XP (SP1 or higher) Home and Professional, Millennium, 2000 (SP4 or higher)
Creative® Labs Sound Blaster® 16 or equivalent sound card supporting 16-bit recording
Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5 or higher (free download available at www.microsoft.com)
CD-ROM drive (required for installation
ScanSoft-approved noise-canceling headset microphone (included)
A Web connection is required for activation

What I am worried about is the sound card support, as I don't know what VPC creates as a sound-card in emulation.

Another option would be to use ViaVoice, which is made for OS X, but I don't know if this program is good or not. Also, he might have to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking which would be unfortunate, as he seems genuinely interested in getting a Mac.

Thanks and sorry for the long post.

 

[daveL]

Speech recognition is *very* CPU intensive. I doubt that VPC on a Mac laptop would handle it very well. I've also noticed that even simple audio out of VPC is pretty crappy. You would definitely want to test this configuration out before you buy.

ViaVoice is a IBM product. They have been big into voice recognition for a long time. I'd be surprised if it wouldn't do the job for you, although I don't know the details of either of these products.

 

[varmit]

Tell me, has he ever used this software before, or is trying to us this software because he believes the ads about it? Usually these things are not very good at picking up what you really say. After using it once, it took more time to correct the mistakes that it made than what it would have taken to type it all myself.

Hell, OS X has voice reconnition software built in, not great software, but its suppost to get better with Tiger. That was one selling point a while ago for Tiger and special ed. That Apple was going to build voice reconnition right into the OS.

 

[Sharewaredemon]

Tell me, has he ever used this software before, or is trying to us this software because he believes the ads about it? Usually these things are not very good at picking up what you really say. After using it once, it took more time to correct the mistakes that it made than what it would have taken to type it all myself.

Hell, OS X has voice reconnition software built in, not great software, but its suppost to get better with Tiger. That was one selling point a while ago for Tiger and special ed. That Apple was going to build voice reconnition right into the OS.

He needs to use as it is part of some research project that has to do with laptops. No idea exactly what the project is about.