[X4U] Re: OS X Speech capabilities question

[Deborah Puerini]

On Oct 7, 2005, at 9:53 PM, Matt wrote:
>>
>> I don't use the Speech capabilities of my Mac much and haven't found 
>> much
>> online about it so I thought I'd ask the quick question here. My 
>> girlfriend
>> is in grad school for psychology and does a lot of interviewing and
>> transcription of those interviews which is very time consuming. I was
>> wondering if the built-in capabilities of OS X could be used to get a 
>> good
>> baseline document which she could then verify/modify. I know it can 
>> be used
>> to give commands to the Mac, but didn't know if it be turned on and 
>> just
>> read from audio-in and write to a document until turned off. Any
>> suggestions?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
> matt.

Hi Matt

I'm a transcriptionist and at the office we tried everything to try to 
do what you want to do with our transcription - even (hissssss) getting 
a windoze computer and trying a voice recognition program. Well it 
really was awful except for one doctor who has an excellent voice with 
tons of patience and trained the darned thing for weeks. No one else 
could make it work and they didn't have the patience.

The trouble with files on the computer is you still have to 
stop-n-start to keep from going insane and you need a foot pedal for 
that. Randy's suggestion of the AS-4000 Transcription Kit & Olympus 
DS-4000 is kinda pricey. But if money is no object, hell it looks 
wonderful to me!

Heck, I would do it (i have the transcription machine here at home in 
Rhode Island!!) for 10 cents per line (12 point helvetica), all you 
need to get is a regular-sized hand-held tape recorder (looks like a 
walkman) (not mini or micro) at Radio Shack for under $20 and snailmail 
me the tapes and I can email you the stuff (in Mac format no less!!).

If you're interested, let me know and we can see if this would be 
viable for you. Would save your girlfriend a lot of angst. I've done 
dissertations and books, and for 16 years have been doing medical, 
occupational therapy, social work, psychological and physical therapy 
evaluation reports at a hospital. Used to do work at home all the time 
until the new administration took over and that went out the window 
because others had really abused the privilege. I just LOVE working in 
my jammies <smile>

Deb in Rhode Island