Having trouble with voice Recognition too (II?)

[WholyChao]

I got my upgrade of Hal about a week ago and I'm still having trouble with the voice recognition.  I've been through most of the training programs and the computer understand me perfectly well.  

Hall cannot translate my words correctly.  I do see the Input levels changing. The line reaind "Microphone: on" Change to something like "understanding"  Hal only get's drasitcly incorrect imputs.

With great patience the program comes closer to my meaing.  For the purpose of inital translation I have been trying the pharase "Hello <ComputerName>" Hal has yet to correctly translate the word "hello" or recognize his name.

HELP!!!

[Medeksza]

Try recording yourself speaking into the microphone using sound recorder. Many people have the microphones too close or too far, the microphone gain too high or too low, and it will either distorts or it is hard to understand. Also its important to position the mic in such a way so that you don't spit into it when you say "P" and "B" sounds. Recording and listening to yourself if a good way to make sure everything is optimal. If you have been training with bad speech, you may want to create a new speech profile and retrain it.

Robert Medeksza

[WholyChao]

I have been using the microsoft speach recog program.  It does a self diagnostic of the micophone input.  I do not have a problem with my input to the program.  The Speach Recog program recognizes me and I have sucessfully used all of the training programs.  Hal still cannot understand any of my words.

I understand that there are a varity of things tha can go wrong with the delicate nature of speach recog.  I still need more help, please.

To clarify I have used the Microsoft "Microphone wizard".  It adjusts the micorphone input to a resonable level and checks for "b" and "p" pops through the sentence "This papaypa tastes perfect."

I have checked my input and it is correct.  I have worked with the trainging program.  I have run through each of the traing sessions once and will run through them again.

The program is still not working correctly.  Thank you for your assistance.

-WholyChao

[Diane]

I am having the same exact problems as wholycow and am anxious to have hal working correctly.  I look forward to your remedy.

[scottleach]

I too share this same problem when I upgraded from version 4.0 to 4.5  .
So just uninstalled version 4.5 and went back to version 4.0 since I know at least that version works right. Zabaware, call me when you fix this, I have wasted enough of my expensive time trying to deal with it, now it's your turn. Fix the problem, or give me a refund.... thumbs down on this so called "update".

[cagallant2]

I also cannot get voice recognition to work.  I've tried all the forum suggestions and then some; I've been at it for 2 weeks!!

As a result of the extremely poor accuracy, Hal has become 'polluted' with nonsense words and phrases, so I've had to start from scratch.

Scottleach posted that it works fine in 4.0.  Would it be possible for those of us who've purchased 4.5 to get 4.0 as an interim solution until the situation is resolved?

[scottleach]

quote:Originally posted by scottleach

I too share this same problem when I upgraded from version 4.0 to 4.5  .
So just uninstalled version 4.5 and went back to version 4.0 since I know at least that version works right. Zabaware, call me when you fix this, I have wasted enough of my expensive time trying to deal with it, now it's your turn. Fix the problem, or give me a refund.... thumbs down on this so called "update".

Well well well, looks like I'm not the only one with this problem. And you guys never did call me or e-mail about a refund, or even how to fix the problem with your program. (very upset, very disapointed)[}:)]

[Ahrlo]

Some Please help
I upgraded HAL to 4.5 (full version) and now I keep getting an illegal action message then it closes down. I tried unistalling and going back to 4.0 but when I try to use speech recognition (Naturally Speaking Preferred) HAL closes down. can anyone tell me how to fix this.

[rmurphy1061]

sounds like we are all having the same type of problems, hal keeps crashing giving page fault errors and shutting down and zabaware is not even coming close to helping, or responding. what do we have to do? take it to court to get an answer?  microsoft says it is a software problem with hal.  looks like i paid for garbage and cant get any help from the publisher.

[lordvkeavox]

From the day I decided to purchase it took almost a week just to get the password for the download.  True to form, voice recognition is so far screwed up that only a monkey could have designed it.  Why re-invent the wheel when Microsoft and so many other companies learned how to make "working" recognition software years ago. Should I suggest MSDN? I can't get the program to translate one word correctly.  Yet every other program I use (not from Zabaware) works beautifully.  My machine is insanely powerful, I have a clean system, and as an experienced programmer I think I know what works and what does not.  I understand the problems we have all had because support at this place seems not to exist. When I write software I never "loose" features - I gain them.  [V]i.e 4.0 to 4.5.  Reputations of software companies does matter.  Bad program design will not be tolerated when people have to pay.  Fortunately more and more people are wining lawsuits against programmers and software companies who continue to operate under such poor practices. --- Good luck on your next release, may it restore a sense of pride

[ROGER]

I'm surprised and dismayed at all this as I read here! I purchased 4.5 a couple days ago and was eager to use the voice recognition. I've tried and tried, trained and trained, and it will not recognize virtually any words. Things like "hello" and "I" and "no" and "yes", even when repeated are recognized wrong and worse, differently each time spoken, even when repeating carefully over and over!

I also trained and everything was accepted well, I have a special amplified and tuned for voice recognition headset from Corel Wordperfect Suite (Legal Ed.) w/Dragon Naturally Speaking. I don't think voice quality is a huge problem therefore.

However one questions does come to mind. When choosing 'Select SR Engine' I only see 'Microsoft English Recognizer v5.1'. I was wondering if one installed IBM ViaVoice or some such other voice program, if alterate selections would be avail here? Would that make a difference or is this a problem JUST related to HAL recognizing different than say a word processor does. I guess I confused, who does the recognizing? Hal? or the engine, both??  Maybe someone understands the interaction. (I looked under 'Voice Recognition... How to use Voice Recognition" under online help and it was totally empty (blank), yes nothing but a heading, blank page!)

One thing is for sure, as I can't type worth a penny (two fingers only) I really need to be able to talk to make this useful... which so far it isn't.

To Zabaware: How come you don't comment here and tell us who've paid you what is going on, you must have tested this feature at least before release after all, yes??

HELP!! [V]

[Medeksza]

There really is no difference in speech recognition from Ultra Hal Assistant 4.0 to 4.5. Both use the Microsoft SAPI 5.1 speech recognition engine. Ultra Hal Assistant 3.0 used SAPI 5.0, Ultra Hal Assistant 1.0 and 2.0 used SAPI 4.0. The Microsoft SAPI 5.1 engine is the same engine used in Office XP. Have any of you with Office XP tried speech recognition in there? Do you get the same results, better, worse?

Did you know Hal is compatible with almost all speech recognition engines available on the market? Engines such as IBM ViaVoice and Dragon Naturally speaking are all compatible with Hal. Maybe other engines will work better for you then the Microsoft engine.

Ultra Hal Assistant 5.0 (to be released sometime in the next 6 months) will have an added feature that will allow you to limit the vocabulary size that the engine listens to. Instead of the engine listening to a vocabulary of around 50000 it can be limited to a lower number like 10000 or 5000 or 2000. Most people's everyday vocabulary doesn't go past 5000 words. Limiting the size of the vocabulary can improve the engine results somewhat.

[Calipsy]

Hi everybody

I also having problems with hall 4.5 and Windows XP. I have the IBM Via Voice realese 10 USB and Via Voice works just fine. However, when I use Hall it changes all my words, it do not understand me... Thus, I cannot talk to it, I can just chat.

I am glad the Zabaware is working on to fix our problem, releasing the HALL 5.0. It shows his professionalism and respect for his consumers.

quote:Originally posted by Medeksza

There really is no difference in speech recognition from Ultra Hal Assistant 4.0 to 4.5. Both use the Microsoft SAPI 5.1 speech recognition engine. Ultra Hal Assistant 3.0 used SAPI 5.0, Ultra Hal Assistant 1.0 and 2.0 used SAPI 4.0. The Microsoft SAPI 5.1 engine is the same engine used in Office XP. Have any of you with Office XP tried speech recognition in there? Do you get the same results, better, worse?

Did you know Hal is compatible with almost all speech recognition engines available on the market? Engines such as IBM ViaVoice and Dragon Naturally speaking are all compatible with Hal. Maybe other engines will work better for you then the Microsoft engine.

Ultra Hal Assistant 5.0 (to be released sometime in the next 6 months) will have an added feature that will allow you to limit the vocabulary size that the engine listens to. Instead of the engine listening to a vocabulary of around 50000 it can be limited to a lower number like 10000 or 5000 or 2000. Most people's everyday vocabulary doesn't go past 5000 words. Limiting the size of the vocabulary can improve the engine results somewhat.

[Medeksza]

When working with ViaVoice in Hal, keep in mind that ViaVoice has 2 modes: A SAPI compatibility mode and its native SMAPI mode. Hal's speech options give you both choices. Be sure to choose the native SMAPI mode as it works better.

[Alessio]

Wow, lots of problems with speach recognition.

Hum, you use M$ speach recognition engine, or other software, and this feature is not available unless we buy the software?

I still think you should have a fully functional hal demo for 30 days, then, if we like it, we buy it.

Good luck.