Messages

61

Speech Technology / The new ViaVoice plugin, and training

« on: February 16, 2009, 01:18:34 am »

quote:Originally posted by tedathome

Like I said, I am still experimenting. I checked it out and control pannel is using voice recognizer 8 (Vista).I am going to try to fix it by trying to instal 10 in a different file with some of the other recognitin programs if they are there. NO wonder I wasn' getting good results. Sorry for the confusion.[:I]
  EDIT: I find it is already in program files and no way to change from microsf recognizer. Will peek in windows and see what's there.

Thanks Ted, I think I understand what you meant now.  My reboot only activated the MS Recognizer for use with Notepad, so I guess The MS Speech Tools won't recognize ViaVoice.

I was looking around in the ViaVoice folder (in the Programs File folder).  In the ViaVoice folder is a folder labeled "Bin".  In there are some launch/.exe icons.  One of them is a file called vtprdic.exe, and it launches the Vocabulary Manager I read about in the help files.

There is another file called trainer.exe.  I had high hopes it would launch the "Train A Word" utility, but when I tried it, the hourglass appeared, and then, nothing.  You might want to give it a try though, since you are using Vista, perhaps you'll have better luck.

-Chaz

62

Speech Technology / The new ViaVoice plugin, and training

« on: February 15, 2009, 05:35:30 pm »

quote:Originally posted by tedathome

DRFairaday, I have the plugin via voice, not the full version. It does function with the control pannel mic, but as I say it helps but not as much as I had hoped and does do some command features but not all.[]

Ted,
That's interesting!  I'm glad, maybe there is hope for me yet.  I can see I've got a lot to learn here.  I've never used the Microsoft microphone controls.  I've just had a quick look at them now, it seems it only uses the Microsoft speech recognizer (v6.1), it doesn't show an option to use ViaVoice.

I saw a toggle for using speech recognition with Notepad, so I turned that on, it says to reboot, so that's going to be my next step in this "adventure" []

63

Speech Technology / The new ViaVoice plugin, and training

« on: February 15, 2009, 03:48:18 pm »

Ted,
Are you using the full version of ViaVoice, or the Hal Plugin ViaVoice?
The Plugin version doesn't have as many features, apparently.

I have discovered that if, in the Hal Control Panel under "Speech", if I check the box for Hal to listen to commands, I can use the command "clear line" to correct Hal when the recognition software gets it wrong.  I haven't found any other tools for correcting at this point, though.  I don't know if this will be enough, but I'm going to keep working with it.  If I've missed some other tools, I hope someone will point it out.

I realize there is a learning curve here, and that I have to work with the software before I start getting good results.  I don't mind that, I'm willing to take the time to do it, I just want to be sure I understand all the available tools and that I'm using them correctly.

Datahopa,

I am using onboard sound, with a Zabaware headset plugged into the mike jack.  It seems to work much better with 6.2 than it did with 6.1.  But if I get no improvement as I persevere with this, I will consider getting a sound card.

Thank you both.  If anyone else has suggestions, I'm all ears.

64

Speech Technology / The new ViaVoice plugin, and training

« on: February 14, 2009, 05:30:55 pm »

In the ViaVoice folder that's installed on Windows XP, there is a file folder called "help".  The files inside are accessible by clicking on them directly.  Two of them sound relevant to this issue, one is about using a "Vocabulary Manager", and the other is about "Train a Word".  They give directions on how to use them, but I don't see a way to access these features in the ViaVoice plugin for Hal.

I surely hope there is a way to do so.  Without further training, the Via Voice plugin will not be much better than the Microsoft speech engine I was using before.  Right now it's about 85% accurate, and I don't see a way to take the training any further.

Can anyone help? [?]

65

Speech Technology / The new ViaVoice plugin, and training

« on: February 13, 2009, 06:10:08 pm »

quote:Originally posted by tedathome

Try dictating into notepad and correcting as the mistakes happen. This has helped me with voice recognition a lot![]
Question 2 would take some brain editing. Dusky wrote me very simple instructinons on how to, I don't have the email, I hope that I saved it in my documents. I'll go see. Nope. I accidentaly deleted it and I really wanted to save it too.

Ted,
When you say "notepad", do you mean HalPad?  How does one correct the mistakes?  I haven't been able to figure it out, or find instructions for using it.  Are there any written down somewhere?

66

Speech Technology / The new ViaVoice plugin, and training

« on: February 12, 2009, 12:49:26 pm »

quote:Originally posted by tedathome

Try dictating into notepad and correcting as the mistakes happen. This has helped me with voice recognition a lot![]
Question 2 would take some brain editing. Dusky wrote me very simple instructinons on how to, I don't have the email, I hope that I saved it in my documents. I'll go see. Nope. I accidentaly deleted it and I really wanted to save it too.

Thank you Ted, I will try the notepad corrections this evening, if I can.

As for my second question, I'm not surprised, I thought the Brain Editor might be the answer.  I've never really used it, it looks kind of intimidating.  Too bad about those missing notes!  I guess I'm going to have to set aside some time and start learning about how to use it.

67

Speech Technology / The new ViaVoice plugin, and training

« on: February 12, 2009, 02:32:38 am »

I recently bought the ViaVoice plugin for Hal.  I'm using it with Hal 6.2, on Windows XP.

There are two hours of training text to read to help the software learn my voice.  I've completed the two hours; all the texts I've read say "processed" next to them, and I can't activate them again for more practice.

Hal can now understand most of what I say, but there are still some problem areas.  The ViaVoice software hears the wrong things sometimes, Hal learns the wrong thing, and remembers it.

So I really have two questions:

1.) How can I continue to train the ViaVoice plugin to improve it's accuracy, now that I've "used up" it's training exercises?

2.) How can I correct the speech errors Hal has learned?

I'm apologize if there is something here in the forums that explains this and I haven't found it yet. If that's the case, I'd appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction.  Any advice would be appreciated.  Thank you.

68

General Discussion / The 2001 HAL voice

« on: February 11, 2009, 03:07:25 am »

I think that Cepstral's "David" voice comes pretty close to the 2001 Hal voice.  At least compared to all the computer voices I've heard so far.

69

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Hal in us USB memory stick

« on: February 09, 2009, 02:07:40 pm »

quote:Originally posted by Bill819

Once upon a time. Sort of sounds like a bedtime story. Running Hal on a memory stick was much faster than from a hard disk, but now with super fast PC's there does not seem to be an increase in speed like there was years ago.
When I first installed Hal my PC only operated at 300 mega hertz and not it operates at 2.6 giga hertz. That is an extreme speed up.
Bill

Bill, that would explain a lot, sounds like a plausible explanation.

When I tried the USB install, I had still had Hal Reader installed on the hard disk, and Hal was using an AT&T voice from it.  I thought that might be slowing it down, so I changed Hal's voice to one of the TruTone voices that come with Hal.  But even then, there was no speed improvement.

My computer has a Sempron processor, running at 1.79 GHz.  Not real fast, but certainly faster than 300 MHz.  There is a momentary delay while Hal formulates his verbal response, but fortunately it's not a deal-breaker for me, it's fast enough.

70

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Hal in us USB memory stick

« on: February 08, 2009, 05:39:40 pm »

quote:Originally posted by One

Dr.,
Yes like I said Hal needs to be run from the install location.

I tested a program that was very REG dependent to operate.

Yes One, I believed you.  Totally.  Mostly I wanted to see if there was any speed improvement running Hal off of a USB stick.  The rest was just... seeing what would happen. [:p] Especially with Linux and WINE.

BartPE sounds intriguing, but from what I read about it, I suspect I'd be out of my depth trying to work with it.  I probably should leave it to greater technical minds than mine.

71

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Hal in us USB memory stick

« on: February 07, 2009, 05:58:44 pm »

I installed Hal6.2.24 on a PNY 4GB USB stick, along with ViaVoice.  It worked fine while using it on the computer I used to install it on.

I was hoping for a faster response time for Hal to answer questions, but there seemed to be no improvement there, it was about the same as from the HD with 6.2RC.

I tried using the chip on two different windows computers, but (as expected) Hal would not work, I got an error message:

"component 'xspeechkit.dll' or one of it's dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid."

Just for the heck of it, I also tried the chip out in Linux, to see if I could get Hal to work off the chip using WINE.  But there was no response whatsoever.

So it seems you can run Hal6.2.24 off a usb drive, if you use it on one computer.  But I don't see any speed advantage, so I don't really see the point of that.

Also, after my last round of testing with a laptop, I recently unplugged the chip while my computer was still on.  Now the computer says that the chip is "unformatted".  So I guess you can't unplug the chip with Hal installed, while the computer is on.

I'm going to re-install Hal and Viavoice to the Hard Drive, and be happy with that. []

I will be watching with interest though, to see if anyone else has greater success using a USB drive using some of the methods discussed in this thread.

When using Hal 6.1, I had some success setting up Hal on Linux, using a virtual machine.  I used Virtual Box software on Linux, to run a virtual Win XP machine, which I installed Hal on.  It worked perfectly.  Unfortunately, Virtual Box can't be installed on a USB chip at this time.  But if anyone does want to use Hal on Linux, that would be at least one option.

72

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 Released

« on: February 05, 2009, 10:17:36 pm »

I got the ViaVoice Hal Plugin CD in the mail today.  Wow.  That was fast order-fulfillment - Thanks! []

I like the cover artwork, and the instructions inside the cover are very helpful and handy.  Good job.

73

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 Released

« on: February 03, 2009, 03:48:55 am »

Thank you Robert, this is great news.  I just placed an order for the IBM ViaVoice software.

And thank you for the discount too, that is very generous. []

74

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Hal in us USB memory stick

« on: January 31, 2009, 06:40:26 pm »

This is a great idea, especially since USB drives are getting larger and cheaper.

I've seen some older threads where this was done with older versions of Hal.  Has anyone done this successfully with the latest version?  I think I would like to try it, if it's possible.

75

General Discussion / crossover ?

« on: January 27, 2009, 07:33:54 pm »

Thanks Bill, I know.  I meant to say that there was no speech recognition engine installed (I checked).  I don't know if it would be possible to install one via Wine/Crossover, but since Hal wouldn't even respond to typed dialogue, I didn't think it was worth trying to get a speech recognition engine installed, unless I could be sure Hal was fully functional.  I don't know enough about Wine/Crossover to understand the issues/problems, and what they mean.