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5-second drops
Submitted by OMNIpotus on Mon, 01/29/2007 - 15:26.
In my college class (new voice-captioning major they are testing) I and several other students are noticing a 5-second drop during our dictation. For seemingly no reason and seemingly random times, four people with four different computers (manufacturers, OS version, etc...) will find that our dictation cuts off for around 5 seconds. When you listen to it in Speakpad there's just a cut in the sound, then it will usually pick right back up after a period is dictated, but sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Originally I thought it only happened when I took a bigger-than-normal breath to continue, but it truly does seem random.
All of us have different machines, configurations, hardware, OS version, etc... About the only things that are the same are that we are all using VV 10.5 coupled with either Eclipse or just Speakpad, most of us use Sennheisers, and that it does seem to be right around 5 seconds that is dropped.
Three of the students have moved over to DNS, but I am new to the course and they want me to hack it out in VV. DNS students do not report a drop, so it seems that it's still a conflict with VV and not a hardware or other issue.
I don't expect a fix (but if you have something I'd be very willing to try), but what I really want is to get it out there in hopes that some tech can figure out what is wrong.
My machine is an Alienware running Windows XP. VV 10.5, Sennheiser.
XP Home SP 2 (all updates except Media Center 11)
Core Duo 1.66GHz
1 gig ram
Realtek HD soundcard (though we use the external USB Adrea)
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6600
This sounds like USB
This sounds like USB problems. Sennheisers are amongst the best mikes around. I note that you are using Andrea USB pods which are amongst the best.
I have related USB problems in previous postings, and in http://www.speechcomputing.com/node/1092 , in reply to your other posting today.
It sounds like a problem that Martin Markoe might come up with the answer.
Quentin
OMNIpotus wrote: My machine
My machine is an Alienware running Windows XP. VV 10.5, Sennheiser.
XP Home SP 2 (all updates except Media Center 11)
Core Duo 1.66GHz
1 gig ram
Realtek HD soundcard (though we use the external USB Adrea)
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6600
Two thoughts come to mind. First of all, if you were talking about a Sennheiser ME3 Headset, is it a modified or specially manufactured for speech recognition model? If not, the microphone connector may not be making a positive connection to the USB pod.
Although I have not used ViaVoice seriously for many years because of its incompatibility with modern operating systems and modern word processors, another thought comes to mind. As I recall, when ViaVoice was connected to a network, with certain network cards there was exactly the problem you describe as packets were being received by the network card. To test this out, disconnect the cable to the network card, and try dictating to see if the problem goes away?
Martin
Martin Markoe
Although I have not used ViaVoice seriously for many years because of its incompatibility with modern operating systems and modern word processors, ....
Now Martin, you know that that's not true.
VV is compatible with all modern operating and word processing programs. Certainly Rob Chambers of Vista gave the impression that VV will work in Vista.
Obviously one cannot say what will happen with Word 2007 at this stage, and whether IBM/Nuance will bring out a compatibility patch or version, or whether VV 10.5 as it exists will work in 2007.
Quentin
crivon1 wrote: Martin
Although I have not used ViaVoice seriously for many years because of its incompatibility with modern operating systems and modern word processors, ....
Now Martin, you know that that's not true.
VV is compatible with all modern operating and word processing programs.
Oops, my bad, I should have used the word "instability" instead of "incompatibility." In either case, it was unusable for serious work unless one is satisfied using nothing later than Windows 2000 and Word 97.
Marty
PS. Vista SR is very good and at the price (free within Vista) is worth a look. If you do not have complicated needs it may suit many people who just need to dictate basic E-mail and correspondence.
Martin Markoe
Although I have not used ViaVoice seriously for many years because of its incompatibility with modern operating systems and modern word processors, ....
Now Martin, you know that that's not true.
VV is compatible with all modern operating and word processing programs.
Oops, my bad, I should have used the word "instability" instead of "incompatibility." In either case, it was unusable for serious work unless one is satisfied using nothing later than Windows 2000 and Word 97.
Very much "Oops". VV is fully compatible with most modern programmes, and in particular up to MS-Office 2003. As yet, as far as I know, it has not been tried out with Office 2007.
As I have stated previously, I'm very happy with Office 97, as are many others. I have no idea at this stage what Office 2007 offers that is any major worthwhile improvement. Word 2003 did give built in SR for use with Office products, but it has its limitations. Vista SR has other limitations, and this has been fully discussed in ms-s...@yahoogroups.com .
Quentin
crivon1 wrote: I have no
I have no idea at this stage what Office 2007 offers that is any major worthwhile improvement.
Following my last post, I have had a look at the Microsoft Office 2007 website, and certainly what it seems to do is very impressive.
However for the average user, most of these improvements would be irrelevant, and certainly I would be surprised if the average transcription secretary would improve his/her productivity as a result.
It is certainly of value to those who are directly involved in creating, editing and publishing their own work of a specialised and complicated nature.
Quentin
crivon1 wrote: Very much
Very much "Oops". VV is fully compatible with most modern programmes, and in particular up to MS-Office 2003. As yet, as far as I know, it has not been tried out with Office 2007.
ViaVoice version 10.5 was supposed to offer compatibility with office 2003. I would be using ViaVoice today if it really was. I truly tried to make it work but got constant crashes as well as jumping cursors etc.
If it worked well in office 2003, I would say so. If you've not tried it, over the course of a day at least, in office 2003 they do not say it is fully compatible as that is a disservice.
Martin
Martin Markoe wrote: I
I would be using ViaVoice today if it really was. I truly tried to make it work but got constant crashes as well as jumping cursors etc.
That's a new one on me. I had never heard of these problems. I wonder has anyone else had the same experience?
Did you have a MS Speech as well as DNS running on the same computer? Could there have been a clash of personalities? I presume that you were using XP.
Quentin
crivon1 wrote: That's a new
That's a new one on me. I had never heard of these problems. I wonder has anyone else had the same experience?
Can I take this to mean you've never tried ViaVoice seriously with Word in Office 2003?
Did you have a MS Speech as well as DNS running on the same computer? Could there have been a clash of personalities? I presume that you were using XP.
Has a speech recognition professional/microphone vendor, yes this was with Microsoft XP, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Windows Speech Recognition, and ViaVoice installed on the computer. When testing ViaVoice 10.5 only ViaVoice was the active program.
As a matter of fact, Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Windows® Speech Recognition in Office 2003 play so well together, that we have had two Dragon pad and Microsoft Word open at the same time and dictating into both Windows simultaneously. The standard Rainbow Passage actually came out 100% for both of them. If in fact it is ViaVoice does not like one or the other of these speech recognition programs, that could be a compelling reason for my contention that it is unstable.
Marty
Martin Markoe wrote: Can I
Can I take this to mean you've never tried ViaVoice seriously with Word in Office 2003?
I have never had the opportunity, either seriously or otherwise, to try it out with Office 2003.
Quentin
Yes, the ME3, but there is
Yes, the ME3, but there is nothing special about it to my knowledge. We have purchased L-connectors (right-angle) to increase connectivity and that seems to work well for getting a solid fit. I was not aware there was a special version of the ME3, otherwise I probably would have purchased that.
In the class we are trying to disconnect everything from the computer that we possibly can and tweak it to run using as little resources as possible. We're on our laptops, turned the visual additions off of XP (barebones), and I usually turn off my wireless card and am not connected to the network. Now I will have to be connected to the internet when I get out of school because that is how we send our captions out, so hopefully it is not the network card.
We do use our thumbdrives (jumpdrives, flashdrives, etc...) very often to transfer files to the school network for printing or what-not.
In the thread you linked people were discussing Windows 2k. Do you think that would be a better fit?
OMNIpotus wrote: In the
In the thread you linked people were discussing Windows 2k. Do you think that would be a better fit?
I think I was the only one that mentioned Windows 2k.
I do know a lot of people who are very happy with Win 2k, and it does everything required of it.
Personally I use both Win 2k on a desktop, and XP on a laptop but I am now inclined to use my laptop far more than my desktop for convenience reasons.
If I had the time and energy, I would wipe out XP, and substitute it with Win 2k, but the effort really is too much to have to re-install all my programs.
Quentin
crivon1 wrote: OMNIpotus
In the thread you linked people were discussing Windows 2k. Do you think that would be a better fit?
I think I was the only one that mentioned Windows 2k.
I think if I change operating systems it'll just be to Vista and use their ASR. Eventually Eclipse and everything else will have to be compatible with it, which was the only reason we were using VV or DNS anyway (compatibility).
OMNIpotus wrote:Yes, the
Yes, the ME3, but there is nothing special about it to my knowledge. We have purchased L-connectors (right-angle) to increase connectivity and that seems to work well for getting a solid fit. I was not aware there was a special version of the ME3, otherwise I probably would have purchased that.
From June of 2004 we modified the connector of every Sennheiser ME3 we sold. Prior to the release, during our testing program, we tried various adapters. We found none of them were reliable enough to give a positive connection that would assure the best accuracy.
Since October 2006, Sennheiser manufactures exclusively for eMicrophones a speech recognition version of the ME3 that has the correct connector and a longer cable. Click the following link to read about it:
Sennheiser ME3 Headset
In addition, the page has links to two short videos. The first one shows the proper way to wear the Sennheiser headset, even with glasses. The second video shows how to make the echo canceling an adaptation should this be necessary.
Also, you do not mention whether you are using USB sound pods. That is a possibility for curing your problem. I would suggest just getting one Andrea USB sound pod to test this possibility as the cause of your problem.
In the thread you linked people were discussing Windows 2k. Do you think that would be a better fit?
As ViaVoice is apparently no longer supported (except by an avid user on this Forum) or being developed, and I know it works much better on Windows 2000, that is certainly an option. Other options, switch to Dragon NaturallySpeaking or try Microsoft's Windows™ Speech Recognition which is free in the new Vista operating system.
Martin
Martin, He is using an
Martin,
He is using an Andrea USB pod. That was in the first post.
That is still my chief suspect as the source of the dropouts. Are you running ViaVoice with normal priority or with a higher priority?
Matt Chambers
Martin,
He is using an Andrea USB pod. That was in the first post.
That is still my chief suspect as the source of the dropouts. Are you running ViaVoice with normal priority or with a higher priority?
Ah, another great idea! I will test that out today. Thank you for reminding me of that option.
I've disabled the ctfmon as the Knowledgebase on Nuance recommended, so that may help as well, but I fear that's more for dictating to Word.
And yes, yes, Andrea =) The ME3 link is very interesting to me. I'll have to figure out if I can find out if mine is an updated one or not. I got it off Amazon, so who knows. =)
In my experience with DNS,
In my experience with DNS, running it at a higher priority causes problems with the USB pod.
Matt Chambers wrote: In my
In my experience with DNS, running it at a higher priority causes problems with the USB pod.
Matt,
I always run DNS with the priority set to RealTime: 24 and I use the Buddy USB 5G USB pod with the Sennheiser MD431 II. I have never had a problem with dictation in DNS in either DNS 8.1 or DNS 9/9.1.
I don't think setting the priority is what causes problems with USB pods. My suspicion is that there is a coincidental issue here that is only indirectly related to the priority setting and USB pods. It could be that the Buddy USB 5G does not have a problem with this setting but other USB pods may.
Chuck Runquist
Former DNS SDK & Senior Technical Solutions PM for DNS
If you hear the sound of hoofbeats, think horses not zebras.
Law of Parsimony (Occam's razor)
We had three people who had
We had three people who had the 5-second problem switch to DNS and the problem went away. They were using the exact same hardware and peripherals.
I haven't noticed the drop since I upped the priority and dropped ctfmon from my registry and startup, but I'll wait a couple days worth of tests before I claim victory.
Thank you again for all of everyone's feedback. I only found this place when I looked for help and KnowBrainer made me feel guilty for not purchasing from Mark... or whomever. I'm sorry to waste your time.
OMNIpotus wrote: Thank you
Thank you again for all of everyone's feedback. I only found this place when I looked for help and KnowBrainer made me feel guilty for not purchasing from Mark... or whomever. I'm sorry to waste your time.
I am the whomever. There was no need to feel guilty and you did not waste anyone's time. Suggestions were offered and as it turns out, your diligence paid off with a solution. Remote support is quite difficult and as in your case, none of it helped with your unique situation.
Martin
Chuck, On my computer (a
Chuck,
On my computer (a Dell laptop running Windows 2000), using an Andrea USB pod, setting the priority to any setting above normal causes problems. This was also true when I used an IBM ThinkPad laptop.
Matt
OMNIpotus wrote:Matt
The ME3 link is very interesting to me. I'll have to figure out if I can find out if mine is an updated one or not. I got it off Amazon, so who knows. =)
There is no doubt the one you got off Amazon is unmodified.
Martin
You might also want to
You might also want to keep in mind that Amazon vendors don't typically answer speech recognition questions which is another good reason to support/purchase your speech recognition peripherals from experts like Marty Markoe who donate their time answering your questions.
KnowBrainer Support Staff - Lunis Orcutt
Dictated with DNS 9, KnowBrainer and UniVoice
To see additional responses visit the KnowBrainer Technical Support Phorum
Ok... ...thanks for your
Ok...
...thanks for your time.
Those are fine videos, but
Those are fine videos, but it looks like you may have overbudgeted for the model's wardrobe
Bruce
For those of you following,
For those of you following, I've had good luck by lowering my audio hardware acceleration with DirectX and bypassing my internal soundcard (Realtek) by using a USB headset that has a built-in soundcard. I'm sure the latter isn't the problem, but I'm so happy that things seem to be working without drops (3 days running) that I don't want to change ANYTHING.
Thank you to everyone who attempted to help. I'll let you know if anything changes.
It's been about two months
It's been about two months since my last post and things took a turn for the worse on about day 5 when the drops returned, and in larger numbers. Since that time I have increased my 5 second drops to somewhere between 7 and 14 second drops. We were no closer to solving it several months after it was noticed than we were at the beginning, so I have officially given up on my Alienware (Dell) computer. All I can say is that I will never buy a Dell for real-time voice transcription again.
We tried everything that about 5 of us could think of: changing priority, changing hardware acceleration, upgrading RAM, 7200RPM hard drive, with SP2, without SP2, bypassing the soundcard altogether, different mics and Andreas, reinstalling VV, formatting hard drive and reinstalling Windows, XP and home, changing affinity of program (dual core processor hoping that there was some lag if/when it switched from one to another), defragging... you get the idea.
I have purchased another computer, a Toshiba, for about a third of what I paid for the Alienware in hopes of upgrading it slightly to accomodate my needs. It only has 512 RAM right now, but I was able to transfer the new 7200 RPM HD out of the Alienware into the Toshiba. I have yet to test it because the damn Toshiba came with Vista and it's been an ordeal finding XP drivers for some of the items. I'm pretty sure they just threw some ATI video drivers on the computer and called it good, disregarding what kind of ATI card I have altogether. It hasn't been tested out yet, but I'm confident.
At the end of the day we still don't know why the damn Alienware wouldn't work. About the only thing I couldn't investigate is that mysterious 8MB of HD space that Dell computers seem to need without telling you what it is. Does that remind anyone of what Sony was doing with their music CDs on Windows machines - IE installing a program in the background that wouldn't allow you to copy the music off the CD????
"About the only thing I
"About the only thing I couldn't investigate is that mysterious 8MB of HD space that Dell computers seem to need without telling you what it is."
I don't think its related to copy protection. Rather, I believe its where Dell stores stuff to restore the OS to its original condition -- or something like that.
Damn shame you wasted so much time and money! But maybe you can provide Crivon1 and the rest of us with feedback on whether VV will run on Vista -- some say it cannot ever happen, while Quentin seems to have a more open attitude
Bruce
You know, I was going to
You know, I was going to thoroughly investigate that, mostly out of spite because my teachers refuse to look at Vista as an option for the class, but I've been in the class nearly a year now, scraping by on my recognition to save me from these drops and now that I have something working I haven't wanted to change anything. This quarter is over in a week or so, so I may do something with that over break - repartitioning and all that.
And I wasn't saying that the 8MB thing was for copy protection, it was just a comparison. You're right, it's likely that the 8MB is what that's for, but I'd prefer not to have it there at all, or to have the option of whether I want it or not. Anytime a company tries to make things easier for a majority of users it ends up screwing the people who have been with that company since the beginning and just causes problems; that's all I was getting at. And I don't know what it was that was causing my problems, but we had culled nearly every option other than slight hardware malfunction/incompatibility, small programming error with VV, or the 8MB partition. It doesn't really matter because none of those were fixable by me, so here I am.
I did experiment with the Vista SRE and it's very good. It seems similar to Dragon rather than VV, mostly because of the delay for the text to show up on the screen and the fact that you can take off with it by only reading a few paragraphs. I sincerely think that if Microsoft continues to support it (which I find unlikely) and tweak it just a little bit, it could easily be the standard for people in the field of business that I'm training in (creating captions for TV using your voice instead of steno).
And, for the record, the first test of the new compy in class was a success. I captioned for 5 minutes at 160 words per minute with over 90% accuracy without analyzing a document. I had two small drops (only about 2 seconds) and at least one of them I'm confident was my brain not keeping up because I hadn't slept the night before =)