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Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac is Out But Won't Take Olympus .DS2 Audio Files Yet

10 October, 2012

Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac from Nuance - Buy online from Dictate Australia

The most anticipated release of Dragon Dictate from Nuance, version 3, is here ... you can see it , touch it and obviously talk to it. Much anticipated because it contains a key feature that Mac voice recognition people have long waited for - transcription from an audio file. Nuance have finally added the transcription feature to Dragon Dictate 3 and although happy we are not quite over the moon.

Similar to Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Windows you can now select pre recorded dictation for transcription but it has to be in one of the following audio formats:

.wav
.m4a
.m4v
.mp4
.aif

Missing from that list is .ds2 the format preferred and indeed standard on all the professional Olympus digital dictaphones (DS-7000, DS-3500 and DS-2500). Not a problem we though, the DS Player Plus v7 software for Mac which comes with all the recoders can convert .ds2 to .aif - so essentially you just need to convert your .ds2 dictations to .aif or select the auto convert on download feature.

Yes it will create an .aif audio file but it is not of high enough quality to be accepted by Dragon Dictate 3. The following error message is displayed:

The file cannot be transcribed. Dictate cannot use files with sampling rates below 22.050 kilohertz khz - Dragon Dictate 3 from Nuance

We have been in contact with Nuance Australia and also Olympus Imaging Australia to advise of this issue, they are looking into it. I am hoping Olympus will update their DSS Player Plus Mac software very soon to increase the sampling rate conversion. In the meantime there is a workaround but not an easy one. For more details on how you can convert .ds2 to 22kHz .aif files head to our main blog and read this article:

Olympus Pro Dictaphone Audio Not Quite Compatible With Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac Transcription Module from Nuance