Dragon Naturally Speaking is working fine

[webair]

Parallels Technical Support helped me get Dragon Naturally Speaking (Medical) working. Using the set-up below, with 1GB assigned to Parallels, I am able to get good performance in both speed and accuracy. Of course, it isn’t as fast as using a multi-processored CoreDuo PC at work with 4 GB RAM, but it is still very acceptable. I am getting “speech to noise” measurements of 21 using the Plantronics microphone, and 28 using the Phillips SpeechMike*, while running the “check your audio settings” in Dragon.

Software:

Mac OS 10.4.9
Parallels 3.0 (build 4128)/Windows XP Pro (Service Pack 2)
Dragon Naturally Speaking 9.0 Medical Edition
1 GB RAM assigned to Dragon

Hardware:

24” iMac Core Duo, 2.33 GHz, 2 GB SDRAM
24” Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP
Plantronics .Audio 85 USB headset and microphone
Phillips SpeechMike Pro

Configuration:

1. In the Mac OS please go to the "System Preferences" - "Sound" - "Input" - highlight you device in the list (this will make it the default audio input device for Mac).
2. Set the input volume in the Preference pane so that the microphone input level peaks near the middle of the bar range.
3. Start Parallels Desktop, choose your VM. In Configuration Editor turn "Autoconnect USB devices" to OFF.
4. In Configuration Editor, in the Audio tab, choose the Default Audio as an input device.
5. Run the VM.
6. Voice settings for Playback and Recording in the Windows XP Control Panel should be left at “Intel[r] Integrated Audio”.

*the configuration schemes for controlling the SpeechMike don’t work, I believe, because USB Autoconnect is disabled.

[clarer1]

Does this let Dragon feed into the Mac software? That is, can I use Dragon to dictate into Microsoft Office for Mac? And to control Mac programs such as Office for Mac - things that in Windows Dragon will do verbally instead of using the mouse or keyboard?

I'm thinking of moving from PC to Mac and as yet have not Mac or Parallels experience so am a complete novice here.

Thanks

[webair]

No, unfortunately Dragon will only work within the Windows VM.

[clarer1]

Thank you. Looks like I'm staying on PC then.

[dkwehe]

Not so. I use Dragon to dictate into Mac applications everyday, and in fact, that's all I use DNS for. Just search for forums for the user "unused_user_name" and you'll see how to do this. It's wonderful.

dkw.

[numa]

dkwehe, please provide more info on how you are using Dragon in Mac apps. The user "unused_user_name" has many posts. Which posts are you referring to that have info on how to do it? He had a post a couple of weeks ago saying it can't be done all that well.

numa

[bbarranco]

I am a member of a large medical practice and we have been using the Phillips SpeechMike Pro with DNS on Windows XP Pro on on a PC. I have a 23"iMac with 2GB of RAM and have installed Parallels, Win XP Pro w/ SP2, and DNS. I did designate 1 GB of RAM to the Win VM and set the VM RAM to take precedence over the MAC OS when it is running. This made the performance much better. Prior to Parallels v3.0, I could not get the Phillips SM Pro to work and had to buy a microphone headset (w/ microphone and audio inputs) and it worked great. I figured the old version of Parallels did not support the USB Speechmike.

My question is does the v3.0 now support the USB speechmike, how do I set it up, and can I use the speechmike app to configure the buttons on the speechmike to turn the record button on and off?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this will affect all 12 people in my group.

[Hugh Watkins]

very interesting

I experimented with Dragon about 5 years ago and it seemed to function as a virtual keyboard in Windows

great for long words
to many errors in small words

Hugh - hue - hew - Huw etc
so I dropped it

Hugh W

[RPElliott]

Hi Hugh,

I tried Dragon 5.0 Professional several years ago and the error rate was completely unacceptable. In the meantime my wife uses Dragon 8.0 Professional nearly to the exclusion of a keyboard on a big DELL and it works quite well. We both work as translators so there is a lot of text to enter.

I have installed Dragon 9.0 Professional on a mac mini running Parallels 3.0 with an ANDREA USB sound pod and mike and it does run - rather slow and makes mistakes but I am still trying to tune the system.

All the best,
Ralph

[RPElliott]

Can't say about your specific mike, but I have installed a ANDREA USB sound pod with a plantronics mike and it seems to work with Dragon 9.0 Pro in Parallels 3.0 on Win XP.

All the best,
Ralph

[Hugh Watkins]

seen a discussion elsewhere of mic problems in OS 10.4.10

you may need to run a Midi and Audio install Wizard and use a drop down menue to activate a driver

Hugh W

[sgruttadauria]

I am running parallels version build 1940. I am afraid to install 3.0 as I don't want to lose everything that I have in parallels right now. I tried an upgrade some time ago and had to re-install everything thereafter. Does anyone have the exact steps I should follow so that I do not lose by data and operating system during the install.
Thanks

[slg]

Hi
I bought a Macbook just 3 months ago and i'm kind of sorry I did. I have a hand injury and I am in the medical profession. I have dragon professional model plus the medical addition. I also use quicken. the mac quicken isn't very good. I am wondering if parallels will solve the problems or if I should just give up, sell the mac and get a PC. when i downloaded my PC stuff, word onto my mac - i bought mac for word, it wouldn't let me work on documents from my old pc. What are the advantages to keeping the mac and running parallel. Will I spend a lot of time and money on programs and techs to get things up and running?

If you have any suggestions, including sell the mac and get a pc. I am all ears.
thanks
slg

[dreidman]

I am trying to use Phillips SpeechMike and DNS in Boot Camp. I would use these in Parallels but I am a diagnostic Radiologist and must use 3-4 monitors (XP pro) to view current study and old studies and dictate. Parallels currently does not support more than 1 monitor. When I try to install the SpeechMike I am prompted to locate USBAUDIO and cannot find this in the bootcamp environment. So my SpeechMike will not work.

Can anyone help? Any suggestions

Thanks
Dan

[stephtara]

Here's a starter in this thread: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=2721&highlight=dragon

very hackish, I haven't personally tried (abandoned somewhere in the process of getting the two machines hooked up with vnc).

[patrkh]

I am a french radiologist, using Dictaplus - Philips voice recognition pc software with Philips SpeechMike Pro II , on an iMac Core2Duo 2GHz 2GB and it ran perfect with Parallels DT 2.5 running WinXP Pro SP2 - this software is very expensive but really miles away from other voice recognition projects, dedicated to medical and law professionals... The very complicated installation of Dictaplus included the Windows drivers for the SpeechMike and it worked immediately after selection in the Device > USB menu of Parallels (despite USB autoconnect is set on, I have to choose it once at every start of // )
BUT since a couple of weeks, I have a very strange problem : the failure of the SpeechMike ! Suddenly it was no more seen by Windows as a SpeechMike, but as an unknown USB device... its driver is working, because a new SpeechMike is immediately connected again... But the fact is, this happened THREE times in a short time, with 3 new SpeechMikes one after the other , and on 2 iMacs ! After that, the mikes are unusable, even on "real" PC...
Any idea ? USB ports electric problems (on 2 different iMacs ??) or mike firmware corrupted using ParallelsDT ?? The only solution seems to buy a PC....

[MuffinMix]

Hi, I run DNS9.1 on parallels and on a PC and noticed I have slight problems with the one on parallels... The problem I seem to have is my voice files keep corrupting and i get and error string about the source code failing to retrieve some file. The error code reads as such "SDAPI Error 1: Error: [s:\mrec14\10802\mrecutil\realdf.cpp 2292 mrecutil\realdf 3] SDEnvHolder_Open: " now this has happened several times and I have to keep creating new voice files. On my PC this problem never occurs.

[jfritz_drfritz]

Hi, I run DNS9.1 on parallels and on a PC and noticed I have slight problems with the one on parallels... The problem I seem to have is my voice files keep corrupting and i get and error string about the source code failing to retrieve some file. The error code reads as such "SDAPI Error 1: Error: [s:\mrec14\10802\mrecutil\realdf.cpp 2292 mrecutil\realdf 3] SDEnvHolder_Open: " now this has happened several times and I have to keep creating new voice files. On my PC this problem never occurs.

That sounds like a dragon problem. I would upgrade to 9.5 (free) and if that doesn't fix it call nuance technical support - you get one free incident and I found them to be helpful!

[CarloL]

Have people tried this comboination yet? I am having trouble with windows recognizing the mic (cheap mic that came with DNS 10 Standard and andera USB adapter.

Scotty