Why I buy this one ?
- Powerful dictation software that works with most Microsoft applications
- Create macros that run across multiple applications; you control their speed
- Supports the use of select digital handheld recorders
- Works with IBM ViaVoice and VoiceMarks
- Noise-canceling USB headset microphone included

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What our customer's say!

"Good program", I just purchased viavoice. I read what other users mentioned about usability. It is like any new program. It involves a learning curve. I had my program running on XP. I disabled security during installation and re- enabled after installation.. You just have to tweak it for your system. I called tech support and they told me I should have brought Dragon. I decided to stay with viavoice and after voice test the software recognizes your voice. It is a good program. EIGHT OUT OF TEN.

"Poor effort", I have had ViaVoice 10 for several years. I finally had to uninstall it because it ran so slow, meaning the whole computer. I use technical terms and it was so complicated to get the words recognized by the software. It was like being in training with it for ever. Then a week ago I installed Naturally Speaking 9 Preferred. This is so great. It runs fast and it is simple. The nice thing is I am able to use my headset mic from ViaVoice which is USB and it is smooth as silk and extremely fast and accurate. As for building a vocabulary, where with ViaVoice you have to pronounce each word, Naturally Speaking simply scans all your emails and documents and pulls the words into your vocabulary. I have a brain injury so it takes me awhile to get it figured out. I guess I need to do the tutorial a few times, but that is maybe 30 minutes a time. I had no problem registering my copy. It went smooth as silk. It is one of the best things I ever got. A friend first told me about Naturally Speaking several years ago and how his son was writing these great papers for school in no time at all, and I was crawling around with ViaVoice. I should have taken a hint too, as all of the colleges and universities around here have used Naturally Speaking for years and years. A much better product.

If ViaVoice did not have IBM's name on it no one would even pay any attention to it. Plus v.10 is old. Forget it. Let it go. They simply did not develop it to the extent necessary. But Nuance did, and so much the better, man! Get Naturally Speaking but you might need a better microphone. The one that came with mine was junk, but I did not need it and I got a great price on eBay. Can't be happier that I got the sense to get rid of ViaVoice. It was like dragging around a ball and chain. Naturally Speaking is like freedom--at last! Light is coming through the windows as the ease of using it and its effectiveness makes itself better each day I use it.

"VIA VOICE USB EDITION", I wondered why there were so many bad reviews and so many good reviews,for this now excellent product, Usually when you get one stars then something was set up wrong so we bought it, because we had the standard edition for one of my other computers and I really liked it, I just needed to do some files off of MP3 files on the computer (transcription of college clagsses)
and I think I know the answer to the bad reviews.
When I installed Via voic (We have the USB edition) we had horrible trouble with the recognition and it didn't even act as good as the standard edition (We installed it on a newer laptop running XP)
and it took long time for words to be typed as if it was really working,and thinking much too hard. I tried different mikes, USB and everything and it would not do well.

So I used Cool Edit to see what the matter was, the mic sensitivity was almost off!

Evidently when the program installs it uses whatever mike sensitivity you have set and xp comes with the mike almost OFF! and leaves it, while Dragon naturally speaking must set it appropriately.

This is easily fixable.

I turned the mike to half gain and it was blasting into the red and did poorly, so I turned it to 1/8 to 1/4 on, and it has been doing excellent!

go to START/control panel/sound and click on microphone setup and advanced. there is a super amplification switch, turn that off, then turn the mic cgain to about 1/3. the best is when I plug it right into the speaker and mike ports in the Laptop.

Runs GREAT!

I bought both via voice PRO and dragon poreferred.

You dont need the USB mike just plug it into the laptop directly with the above mike settings
GREAT!

I like how via voice functions better but my college age boy likes dragon cause he can train it a bit more detailed.

If I speak normally it hits all of my words and even some scientific terms and is great at new words. It is better than previous editions and very little correction needed its either all good or it wont type hardly anything. We installed dragon and I like this one better, for minimal fuss and training.

BUT HERE IS THE FINAL SAY

VIA VOICE installs right from the hard disk and you can run it right away. No PERMISSIONS REQUIRED! Just like the early days of computing when we were treated like humans. I don't cheat and steal I always buy a specific copy for each computer, because that is what I would want others to do to me. If I don't like the program I trash it
Dragon, you have to have an internet connection, and we had to go to the library to even activate it, that was no fun. I have had other programs that need activation and some are reasonable, and some treat you like a criminal.
About Dragon, if you computer crashes you have to authorize, and some programs you can't reinstall, I have had to buy 3 dopies of auto-tune already tough nuts, and I cant wait for a competitor to come along.

I dislike all programs that need hand holding on the internet, I like privacy and I don't like to be treated like a crook. I like to be able to run programs without getting permission from engineers who are trying to go to pay per use programming on the internet. The latest programs don't even belong to you, you just have permission to run them for a while till they discontinue it, then you'd have to buy the next version. This has happened to me already.
And I don't appreciate it.
Soon you will not be able to even run your computer without internet, and continuous payments. The new operating systems won't even run programs unless they have been OK'd by the big boys.
. Well, we dont like or appreciate that, and we son't support them either..

I still have my original disks from Office 2000,and 2002. Office 2003 Is too controlling I never bought it and it wont run with via voice USB another good reason to buy
Via voice, they are all right in my book.

Word L&H translating, cool edit and now via voice and I have a lot of money invested in windows 98 SE and it runs just fine. I love how you can hit alt-ctrl-del and stop all spyware dead in its tracks, I here vesta will have shadowed memory that will allow programs to run and even your operating system won't be able to detect it or something like that. Count be out.
Using Norton Ghost I can have a pristine system up and running in ten minutes all new installed.
I will stay with that, it can crash every 2 years so what. Start fresh.
the only program that sucks is an auto tuning program, which I have had to buy several copies already cause they dont allow you to reinstall once you crash and I still need it for a few weeks. Pain in the behind.
and can affordbelieve when your disk crashes, soon I will trash that program too.

Any way VIA VOICE ROCKS and it will be installable for the next 100 years even if the company goes bankrupt and it works WELL!

thanks!
(I think I will buy an extra copy just for a backup before they go to internet monitored run time, I will still be dictating just fine for the next 8 years.


"IBM Viavoice 10 Badly Broken", Does not work with XP SP2, McAfee security Suite and/or Office 2003. Terrible. I spent good money on this and the support is non existent and no fixes on the horizon.

Avoid like the plague.


"Software ok, support, terrible", If I were going to rate the software alone, it would be a four. However, you had better not have any problems with it, as the support is non-existent. When I reluctantly agreed to pay for support and asked for help, they never got back to me.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"A Good Microphone is Key", The real-time speech recognition of IBM ViaVoice 10 is extremely good. It is possible to get 99% accuracy. Possible is the key word here. In order to do that, you need a good microphone (better than what is included) and you will have to teach it words that it doesn't know (i.e. Plantronics, uncommon names). And you'll need to be in a supported product like Microsoft Word. If all these conditions are met, you're in like Flint.

I, unfortunately, was trying to use Internet Explorer, and the support was less than stellar. The voice command "surf the web" did launch it and the "home", "back", and "forward" commands worked well to do the obvious. But the undocumented commands became key to navigation. To tab from one field or link to the next, you say "next field". "Previous field" is like a shift-tab to go backwards. "next line" and "previous line" seem to be equivalent to the down and up arrows.

The microphone included with this package is the Andrea NC-61 along with the Andrea USB pod, which is a half of a sound card (microphone side only) that connects through your USB port. I found the quality of the pod to be excellent. Andrea advertises the NC-61 headset as using noise cancelling technology, but I found this microphone to not even be directional, and pretty much useless in any environment in which anyone else was speaking, however softly, in the same room. I did purchase separately an Andrea ANC-750 microphone and the noise cancelling on that microphone was quite good. (note: there is some white noise in the background that is audible if you use the ANC-750 to make a recording, but this should be ignored, as it is part of the noise cancelling system.)

The best performance was when I used a high quality studio microphone in a quiet environment to create my voice profile by reading their text. The recognition accuracy was amazing. I used an AKG C-3000 (needs phantom power), but I've heard that a Sennheiser MD431 II is another excellent microphone, and has noise canceling properties as well. The best performance I got from my ANC-750 headset was when I used the voice profile created with the C-3000.

I give the voice recognition part of the software a 5, the navigational ability a 2, and the included microphone a 2, hence my rating of 3 overall.

"Frustrating", Constantly crashes. When it does work, without crashing, it does well. Definitely need a good microphone.