Sony ICD-PX312 2 GB Black DNS

Nog maar 2 x uitgeprobeerd om een tekst te dicteren en automatisch uit te typen. Het vraagt wat oefening, maar Dragon doet het beter dan verwacht. Het schijnt alsmaar perfecter te gaan naarmate je het programma gebruikt. Ik ben dus benieuwc.

I've had this MP3 recorder for 2 months now and I've been using and testing all of its functionality and accessories, including the bundled software packages Sound Organizer 1.1.1 from Sony and Dragon Naturally Speaking Recorder Edition 11.0 from Nuance.

Before I decided to buy this particular MP3 recorder, I asked the people in the Coolblue store which language(s) the Dragon speech recognition software recognizes. However, no one could give me the answer to this pertinent question (the same recorder without the Dragon software cost considerably less!). Still, I decided to take the risk and buy this recorder with the bundled software for 2 reasons:
- logic dictated that it had to be at least compliant with English and/or Dutch speech, which was the most basic of my desires
- I had read very positive reviews of Sony recorders from customers from several countries

I received my MP3 recorder without delay or any other hassle. The first thing I verified was, of course, the language(s) issue mentioned above. To my most agreeable surprise, the bundled Dragon software turned out to recognize not only English and Dutch but also Spanish, French, German and Italian speech!

Then I proceeded to reading the quick start guide for this MP3 recorder. Written in 8 languages, it is concise, clear, and adequately illustrated. It also refers to the much longer operating instructions manuals in pdf format that you can transfer, via the recorder's USB connector, from its built-in memory to a computer. These operating instructions, which contain - among other things - practical details for expert users who want to get the maximum out of this recorder, are equally well written. The leaflet for the Dragon software is also concise and gives unambiguously useful advice and warnings to those who want to get into speech recognition properly.

Make no mistake: before using speech recognition technology routinely, a complex training procedure is required; a procedure which nonetheless points itself out once you've read the leaflet carefully and started the installation of the software, which automatically takes you through all the steps with sufficiently clear explanations and even allows you to pause and resume the speech training phase at a later date.

Training the Dragon software includes reading and recording an example text for each language and each user's voice to be recognized. Nuance recommends at least 5 minutes per language per person and says that its speech recognition accuracy is about 90% (or its error rate is about 10%). However, I willingly spent a whole weekend (trust me: it's worth it if you obtain an indefinite performance enhancement afterwards!) training the software for at least 10 minutes per language per person, and subsequently got the following error rates (in %) based on an easy (E: simple, slow) and a difficult (D: academic, fast) text of about 300 words each time (important remark: 2 minor errors equal 1 blatant error; a minor error can pertain to homophones, a blatant one usually stems from guessing major word parts wrong):
- English E1/D4
- Dutch E2/D4
- Spanish E2/D3
- French E4/D8
- German E4/D5
- Italian E5/D6

Remember: a lot depends on how well you train the software and how consistent your speech is throughout! The only slightly negative comment I could make about the Dragon speech recognition software is that it consumes a lot of your computer's resources: a Pentium-III processor will be (too) slow for most users, additionally you'd better have at least 1 GB RAM, and on your harddisk you should spare a huge dedicated space of many hundreds of MB.

The MP3 recorder itself is a wonderful, compact (size of a small cell-phone) device with buttons logically placed and very user-friendly:
- no button protrudes, so you can slip it into your pocket without damaging either
- in addition to the basic functions (noise cut, repeat, volume, erase, ...) there is one extremely useful button that can't be found on most other recorders: the track mark button, which allows you to instantly mark any interesting point (for example during a conference speech) with a single click in recording mode, which is highly useful if you want to study or edit the recording later
- the scene select button allows you to adapt the recorder to different environments, for example an interview in a small room or a lecture in a large hall
- a menu and display button takes you through a range of customizable settings, some of which help reduce power consumption, but even without tweaking these settings the batteries last longer than indicated
- the folder button enables you to perform certain simple file operations

Furthermore, the MP3 recorder's storage capacity can be enhanced easily, and file transfer to and from a computer is fast. The bundled Sound Organizer software has its own, not always equally user-friendly way of handling the recordings, but basic file management can always be done via the computer's standard operating system. Only if you're into speech recognition will you also have to familiarize yourself with Sound Organizer since the Dragon software depends on it.

The quality of the sound recorded from a range of scenes is very good for being such a small and low-budget MP3 recorder. The only other remark worth mentioning here is that the sensitivity of the recorder is so fine that it may capture unexpected or unwanted noises despite the noise filter doing a good job. For example, if you've got the recorder in your pocket and you move about, the minor friction against the textile produces an annoying scratching sound on the recording. It's best not to even touch the device while recording (but holding it in your hand is OK), so prepare yourself before pressing the record button! For filtering out these secondary noises efficiently, you need a different type of MP3 recorder, one from a much more expensive and professional arts class.

My overall assessment of this Sony MP3 recorder:
- excellent value for money
- very good bundled speech recognition software
- very good instructions manual and leaflets

My overall assessment of the transaction with Coolblue:
- smooth transaction, quick delivery, as promised
- presentation of product information on the Coolblue website is incomplete (November 2011), albeit accurate; if they knew, and told potential buyers, that the bundled speech recognition software actually encompasses no fewer than 6 important languages, I am sure this product would become a top-selling one, if it is not already