Frequently Asked Suite Questions
Revised Dec 29, 2004
I'm new to speech. How
should I get started?
Where can I get a Speech Engine?
Why should I use SpeechStudio Suite instead of Microsoft Speech?
Why
should I use SpeechStudio Suite instead of SAPI 5?
I used
low-level SAPI XML grammars. How is your XML better?
I
used a spreadsheet to write grammars. Is your editor more useful?
Can I
use SpeechStudio Suite without Microsoft Visual Studio?
Can I use SpeechStudio Suite for any Visual C++ program, even if I don't use MFC
or ATL?
Can I
use SpeechStudio Suite if my program will not have a GUI?
Can I use SpeechStudio with my own controls or third-party controls?
Can I use
SpeechStudio for programs I didn't write?
Do I have to change my
GUI to use SpeechStudio?
How much code
do I have to change to use SpeechStudio?
Can I
reconfigure the SpeechPlayer dashboard to be invisible?
Can I rebuild the SpeechPlayer functionality directly into my program?
Can I use SpeechStudio
Suite for Visual Basic, C#, .NET?
Can I
use SpeechStudio Suite for VoiceXML editing and testing?
Does
SpeechStudio support telephony hardware, such as Dialogic?
Does
SpeechStudio Suite have its own Speech Recognition Engine?
What speech
engines does SpeechStudio Suite support?
What about French? Or Chinese?
Does SpeechStudio
Suite support text-to-speech?
I don't like synthetic text-to-speech. Can I use pre-recorded prompts?
Can I hook my program up to a
telephone?
Can I redistribute my application for Windows 98, WinNT, and Windows ME?
Can I use
SpeechPlayer to develop for Linux? Unix? Handhelds?
How
much must I pay to distribute my speech-enabled application?
Can I get source
code for the run-time components?
How much does SpeechStudio
Suite cost?
How much is
technical support for SpeechStudio Suite?
How
much training do I need in order to use SpeechStudio Suite?
How do I install
Speech Recognition with Office XP?
SpeechStudio Suite is the easiest way to
develop, test, refine, deploy and maintain a speech interface on Windows. The
simplest way to get started is with SpeechStudio Suite.
You'll be able to follow tutorials for authoring in an afternoon and
still have time to create your first voice user interface for your own
application that same day. Of course, that is only the beginning of the
experimentation, analysis and refinement that will turn a rough speech interface
into an excellent speech interface. You'll probably be able to have an interface
that you can field for live testing within thirty days.
SpeechStudio provides tool and interface
support so you and your users will be able to use of a variety of engines.
The best command and control engine is FREE! That's right.
Microsoft's SAPI 5.1
engine can be downloaded for free by anyone. Furthermore, that same
engine is used in Microsoft's Speech .NET and XP Speech products, where it comes
pre-installed.
Microsoft Speech Server is Microsoft's
speech interface tool set. It is built atop the Microsoft SAPI 5
speech engines. Here are some reasons to use SpeechStudio Suite
instead:
- SpeechStudio grammars tie voice commands directly to their actions. Even
dynamic grammars are easy to create with SpeechStudio's library of
pre-defined actions and speech-smart XML editor.
- SpeechRunner is the only speech-smart debugger that allows the
construction and regeneration of specific testing scenarios so that problems
can be captured, reproduced, solved, and verified.
- SpeechPlayer focuses the voice engine on the right grammar at the right
time, and provides a consistent end-user experience, including feedback,
prompting, portability, and logging.
- SpeechPlayer is freely distributable.
- SpeechPlayer will someday run atop non-Microsoft platforms.
SAPI 5 is a lot easier to use than SAPI
4.0, its predecessors and similar products, but it is still quite difficult.
Here are some reasons to use SpeechStudio Suite:
- SpeechStudio Suite is easier.
- SpeechStudio Suite handles a lot of
problems for you, including automatic grammar construction and engine repair, context switching, and
coordination among multiple speech-enable applications.
- SpeechStudio grammars tie voice commands directly to their actions. Even
dynamic grammars are easy to create with SpeechStudio's library of
pre-defined actions and speech-smart XML editor.
- SpeechRunner is the only speech-smart debugger that allows the
construction and regeneration of specific testing scenarios so that problems
can be captured, reproduced, solved, and verified.
- SpeechPlayer focuses the voice engine on the right grammar at the right
time, and provides a consistent end-user experience, including feedback,
prompting, portability, and logging.
SpeechStudio XML grammars retain the power
of SAPI 5 XML grammars, and add action routines and dynamic grammars.
SpeechStudio Suite XML grammars are supported by smart editing, which hides
unnecessary complexity while bringing intelligent navigation and wizardry to the
authoring process. The grammars that you author are easily understood and
directly related to your program actions.
Yes. SpeechStudio Suite 1.0 used a
spreadsheet to describe grammars, but a number of serious problems were
identified with this technique. SpeechStudio 1.5 corrected these problems with the introduction of
XML grammars and a speech-smart editor.
Starting with SpeechStudio 1.7,
Speech-smart authoring allows conversations and commands to be described
naturally, without forcing an artificial break into spreadsheet cells.
Speech-smart authoring allows conversation variables to be described with
meaningful names, rather than awkward spreadsheet notations. Visibility, for
grammars and sub-grammars is now under your explicit control, rather than
limited to the current spreadsheet. Sharing grammars is as easy as copying a
file or as simple as cut-and-paste.
No. SpeechStudio Suite is integrated with
Microsoft Visual Studio, and that integration is expected to grow. You must be
using Visual Studio.
Yes. SpeechStudio Suite offers slightly
easier initial integration with MFC since it can utilize the MFC framework. Once
the initial integration is completed, SpeechStudio Suite is easy to use with any
C++ program.
Yes. SpeechStudio Suite can be used to
speech-enable any C++ program. The event interface of GUI- enabled programs is a
great starting point for speech integration but eventually many key speech
actions will evolve independently of the GUI in any case. The current release of
SpeechStudio Suite requires the creation of one dialog even if that dialog is
never used.
Yes. Even though SpeechStudio provides many
built-in actions for many controls so no coding is required, SpeechStudio
Suite provides an easy mechanism to pass commands directly from your grammars to
your code.
Yes. If you have no access to the source
code of your target application, you can still use SpeechStudio Suite if you
have some way to control the application. The most common approaches are
via Windows control messages, keyboard accelerators and COM interfaces.
SpeechStudio provides high-level support to locate and manipulate controls
on other programs. Integrating a voice interface directly with your own source code
is better, though, because of the difficulty determining the context and
focus of the target application.
SpeechStudio Suite is primarily used by you as a developer or author.
No. SpeechStudio Suite works with your
existing GUI and does not require that you replace your controls with special
"speech-enabled" controls. You will not have to redesign your GUI to
use third party controls, or try to get speech-enabled controls to cooperate, or
worry about upgrades and bugs in third party controls, or rewrite documentation
to describe a new GUI. Your future GUI will not be constrained by speech
requirements.
Very little. SpeechStudio Suite compiles
voice information into your program's resource file. You must change your code
to initialize the SpeechStudio Control, an Active X control that coordinates
your application and its grammars with the SpeechPlayer runtime. Otherwise, all
of the programming is done in the XML grammar files.
As your speech interface grows more sophisticated, you'll likely find that your
speech users will want new capabilities that were not designed into your GUI.
The implementation of new features is, of course, your responsibility.
Yes. The SpeechPlayer dashboard of
SpeechStudio Suite is intended to distribute to any system that runs a
SpeechStudio Suite speech-enabled program. However, the dashboard can be
configured to be invisible while your application has control for speech. Other
applications may – and usually will – expect SpeechPlayer to be visible.
SpeechPlayer services include "What Can You Say", confirmation,
correction and status. Most SpeechStudio Suite developers depend on those
services. You should leave SpeechPlayer visibility up to the end user.
Not currently. SpeechPlayer does not
currently offer an API that could remove its dashboard GUI.
Yes! SpeechStudio provides tutorials
for C++, VB, VB.NET and C#. You can use any language that supports
automation.
Not yet. You don't need Voice XML or
SALT to use SpeechStudio.
Yes. SpeechStudio Suite supports telephony
via the standard TAPI interface. It will work with any TAPI version 3
device.
No. SpeechStudio Suite is a development
tool suite for speech enabling. It helps you build a speech interface and then
implements that interface for you based on whatever speech engine you, or your
customer, chooses. You write one speech interface definition. SpeechStudio
implements that definition using third-party speech recognition engines.
The released version of
SpeechStudio Suite fully supports only SAPI 5 engines. It supports basic
recognition and text-to-speech for SAPI 4 engines. No release date has been set
for non-SAPI support, but several technologies are being discussed with our
customers. Make your vote count and tell us what you want.
The released version of
SpeechStudio Suite fully supports only SAPI 5 engines. It supports basic
recognition and text-to-speech for SAPI 4 engines. To date, SAPI 5 engines have been made
available by Microsoft. The older SAPI 4 interface has been supported by
Dragon's older versions.
SAPI 5 supports Chinese (Mandarin) and
Japanese. More languages will be supported as Microsoft and other vendors add
support for SAPI 5. SpeechStudio Suite is not yet refined for international
languages.
Yes. SpeechStudio Suite provides a smooth
interface to generate both recorded and text-to-speech generated outputs.
Yes. SpeechStudio Suite includes the
SpeechCollector utility for recording prompts, as well as for recording samples
for testing.
Yes. SpeechPlayer works with
TAPI and can support any TAPI device for telephony.
Yes. A speech interface created with
SpeechStudio can be distributed to these operating systems without change.
SpeechPlayer supports all these operating systems directly.
SpeechPlayer is expected to support a
variety of popular operating environments, including Unix, Linux, and
embedded. No schedule has been released.
There is no license fee or runtime royalty
to distribute an application created with SpeechStudio Suite. SpeechPlayer and
the SpeechStudio Control are freely redistributable.
Speech Recognition engines, on the other hand, often required license fees and
royalty payments. One notable exception is the Microsoft engine, which is today
freely redistributable and will be included with future versions of Microsoft
Windows.
SpeechStudio Suite does support some special
licensed capabilities, beyond the needs of simple voice control. These
features may require license fees. You must request use of these features
separately.
Yes, the source code
to the SpeechStudio Control or SpeechPlayer, the run-time system,
is available by negotiation.
See the SpeechStudio price
list.
Technical support is included for one year after purchasing a license. Thereafter, newsgroup and web
support is free, and email support is available on a first-come first-served
basis.
Technical support subscriptions, including product upgrades, telephone support,
and priority email handling, are available.
SpeechStudio Suite includes extensive
documentation and in-depth tutorials designed to provide self-paced
training. You might be comfortable with SpeechStudio Suite without formal
training; however, if you desire, training is available.
To install speech recognition, follow these steps:
- Click Start, point to Settings, and then click
Control Panel.
- Double-click Add/Remove Programs.
- Do one of the following:
- In Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows
Millennium Edition (Me), or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, click to select
Microsoft Office XP on the Install/Uninstall tab, and then click
Add/Remove.
-or-
- In Microsoft Windows 2000, click to select Change
or Remove Programs. In the list of installed programs, click to select
Microsoft Office XP, and then click Change.
- Click to select Add or Remove Features, and then
click Next.
- In the Features to install list, click to expand
Office Shared Features.
- Click to expand Alternative User Input.
- Click the Speech icon, and then click to select Run
all from my computer on the shortcut menu that appears.
- Click Update to install speech components.
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