Another Option

Will the options never end?!! When I initially started searching for VR software I found only two options. Now that I know some of the terminology of the Voice writing field, I'm finding many many more options. Options are good in that it gives you choice and bad in that it makes the decision making more challenging. I'm still collecting information, but here's another "player" to consider:

ProCat's CaptiVison VR Version - I noticed some benefits right away.

It is capable of recording two tracks, recording both what I speak into the Sylencer and what is spoken in the room (i.e. the pastor).

It allows VR and Steno to run through the same software. Since we use both at our church, we can alternate during a service without having to change over equipment.

There are other features I still need to learn more about and I do not know the cost yet so I still have some information to gather.

From the Laptop screen to the TV/Monitor

So far, Tim is the only one who has benefited from the captioning that our stenographer has provided. We set up a music stand for the laptop to sit on, our stenographer sets up her steno machine next to it, and Tim reads from the screen in front of him everything she types. On the Sundays that our stenographer has been out of town, I've filled in by voice writing in the same manner (though not nearly with the same quality--given my inexperience). The set-up works fine, but we want all of our deaf and hard of hearing people to benefit, not just Tim.
From what I understand, all we need now are two things in order to get the text from the laptop screen to a TV/monitor screen (we already have video equipment).

• An encoder


• Software to translate text from VR software to the encoder (different software for steno than voice recognition – I haven’t checked into the steno side of things.)

Since we already have VR software (i.e. Dragon): CPC Computer Prompting and Captioning is one choice. They sell software called Caption Maker 500 (for translating the text into caption format for the encoder). They also sell encoders. Last time I talked to their representative, they were working on Caption Maker for Dragon, they already have it for Via Voice. See: http://www.cpcweb.com/Captioning/cap_500.htm or call CPC at 800-977-6678
If you have not purchased VR software: Ultech has an all inclusive package called Caption Mic Live Event. It includes everything needed to start captioning to TV screen or monitor (except the TV screen & video equipment). It looks like a reasonable price compared to purchasing everything separately as we have done. See their product information sheet: http://www.ultech.com/downloads/71-Caption%20Mic%20-%20Live%20Event%20Product%20Sheet.pdf or call 888-360-0010Before making this final purchase of Caption Maker and the encoder, I’m doing additional research. I’m not certain that staying with Dragon is the best choice. I am checking into Caption Mic as well searching out other possible options (ISIS & ProCat). I’ll let you know when a decision is made.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert in this field. I have gathered information and this is what I found so far. Since I may have misunderstood some information or may have incomplete information, I highly recommend you seek out the expertise of others before your final decisions are made.

What Got Me Started Voice Writing

I have been interpreting for years and never even noticed a need for captioning. So why now? Because of my personal connection to Neurofibromatosis type II (NF-2). Here's how House Ear Institute defines this disease on their website.

Neurofibromatosis Type II (NF2) is a genetic disease (autosomal dominant) of the nervous system characterized by tumors (schwannomas) growing on both vestibular nerves that adversely affect the auditory and facial nerves. This disease affects approximately one in 40,000 people in the U.S. Profound hearing loss and some facial paralysis result from the growth of bilateral tumors on these nerves. Because of the location of the tumors, their removal typically necessitates severing the auditory nerve.

My Dad and a gentleman at our church (Tim) both have NF-2. Both of them are now deaf yet have lived most of their lives with the ability to hear. They are experiencing a strange new world (I'll see if I can get them to tell their stories here too). I'm sure many people have gone through this, but it took my Dad going through it to make me sensitive to the radical change that it brings to not only the individual but the entire family. It made me realize how isolating deafness can be without a knowledge of sign. It's not the time to be forced into isolation, but the time one most needs the support and love of a church community.

Our church hired a stenographer from a local organization that provides CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation). As you might expect, this was expensive and quickly depleted our Deaf Ministry budget. Fortunately, the stenographer decided to make our church her own and offered to volunteer her time.

So why voice writing? I was the lone interpreter at our church for many years before God brought a wonderful team of interpreters to work with me. I know that our stenographer will likely, over time, feel the same pressures I experienced of being the only one trained to provide such a unique service . I know that she will need a back-up for times of sickness, vacation or for the occasional break that we all need. My goal is to have two or more voice writers trained and ready to work together with our stenographer as a team.

Did I buy the wrong software?

Today I've been contemplating whether the purchase of Dragon was the right one or not. After spending about an hour making corrections to the voice writing I did this weekend during church, I found that many of the corrections needed were due to mistakes the computer made--not because it didn't understand my speech, but because of the intuitive quality that's been programmed into it. While this may be a helpful quality if one is using written English, it doesn't seem to work as well for captioning spoken English.

Not only that, but it added punctuation where it was not needed (even with auto punctuation turned off--seems to be a software bug) and made changes to my words in attempt to make sense to itself. Unfortunately, the changes it made changed the content of what I've said.

I will try to add an example here upon my next edit session. I wish I had thought of it earlier.

The other very frustrating aspect about Dragon is that it requires me to save files after about 40-50 minutes of voice writing. Since this takes a couple of minutes, some information is always lost.

Via Voice may have been the right choice after all. I've heard that VV doesn't look at the content of the entire sentence, it just takes what you say at face value and translates to text--making it quicker too. I thought this would be a negative. In reality, it may be just what is needed for captioning. Also, there isn't auto punctuation in this software so I wouldn't experience punctuation where I didn't ask for it. I'm going to check and see what my options are...

Environment Matters

It is important to train your computer in the environment in which you will be using it or in one very similar. I didn't realize until recently how often I adjust my voice volume as I speak based on the background noise around me. When I do this, Dragon fails to understand what I am saying.

I began training Dragon at home in December '05. Home wasn't exactly a quiet environment at the time. My sister and her family were living with us so all together we had 8 people and three dogs. A lot of fun, but also a lot of noise. I figured that the noise wouldn't matter because the Sylencer mask cancels out background noise. I was correct that Dragon was able to train without being thrown off by the back ground noise, but what I didn't take into account is that I naturally spoke louder to compensate for the noise in the room. This didn't cause me any problems until I tried to voice write in the church setting.

Dragon is very sensitive. If one talks louder (or softer for that matter), it isn't able to make the necessary adjustments to compensate for the difference. When speaking too loudly, a red line will appear in the Volume Display box. It will show yellow when speaking too softly.

Though I am aware of this now, I still have difficulty making my volume match what is needed for Dragon to understand me when the volume in my environment changes. I find that during the music portion of the service I talk too loudly and during the sermon I talk too softly. To remedy this problem I have started doing all training in the church on Sunday mornings. That way I can get used to maintaining the same volume even with a changing background. Also, I am more naturally speaking the volume that matches the church setting.

After the service, I save the document with audio, then during the week make the necessary corrections. For a one hour service, it takes me about three hours to do corrections. I expect that time to go down each week since Dragon is learning from the corrections done before that.

(By the way, I purchased the Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred-Version 8 originally. It does not have the ability to save audio and train later. It is about $250 less, but I almost always found it necessary to make the necessary corrections later. Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional-Version 8 allows me to the save of audio for later training.)