DNS PREFERRED VERSION 9 VS. WINDOWS VISTA SPEECH (RC2) -- SOME CONCLUSIONS

I have tested quite extensively four languages in DNS Preferred version 9 and Windows Vista Speech (WSR) RC2: UK English, Spanish, French, and German.

My conclusions are that the programs are equally excellent, and it is more or less a matter of taste and the importance attached to certain features that will bring people to prefer the one or the other. Different users would certainly make different evaluations of specific aspects, such as accuracy, speed, functionality and elegance.

Personally, I haven't found any remarkable discrepancies between the programs in any one of these aspects. The quality of each of these aspects, however, is not equal between the programs, so one program may be weak where the other is strong.

For example, while Windows Vista certainly has got now a more flexible set of commands than DNS, DNS still has better configurability, a correction line in the Correction Dialogue, playback and transcription. On the other hand, although its set of commands has not been updated since at least version 4, it offers several highly valuable commands that are still missing in the Window Vista Speech fabulous set, such as converting digits to text and vice versa. Also, switching between languages is more elegant in DNS, because all you need to do is change a speech user in DNS itself. In contrast, in Windows Vista you have to change the display language of your operating system (which I find quite risky) or load a different system user if you have created different users for different languages (quite wasteful in terms of computer resources). However, this is more a matter of elegance and management of computer resources rather than a clear-cut matter of functionality, because in terms of time, it takes more or less the same amount of time for each one of the programs to switch to a different language (between one to two minutes on my machine). In addition, when you switch from one user to another in DNS you are normally asked to update your user files before exiting; whether you opt to answer yes or no, this procedure delays switching, though even without it, DNS is not quicker than Windows Vista.

The bottom line is that Windows WSR has definitely become a serious alternative to Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred for all of the four languages, and probably for the other ones I have not been able to examine (Chinese and Japanese). With a few touches here and there and several add-ons to improve user interface WSR, I believe, can transform itself to becoming even more attractive, even to current users of DNS.

Finally, although I’m aware of the few features added in DNS version 9, I haven’t found any noteworthy accuracy improvement in comparison with DNS version 7. Actually, Nuance has blocked the ability to save and playback the sound data in the Preferred version. In version 7 they were saved as playable and editable .WAV files, but in version 9 they are in a blocked .DRA format.

Itamar Even-Zohar