Speech Recognition doesn't pause iTunes

I posted this in the Macbook forum, but people suggested I re-post here to see if anyone has this figured out -
I'm having a problem using Speech Recognition when iTunes is playing. The music interferes with my voice commands and I have to try several times before they are recognized.
According to the built in Help documentation on my Macbook, "You may prefer to use a listening key if you are in a noisy environment, or for greater control over when your speech is interpreted as a command by your computer. If iTunes is playing, iTunes will pause playing when you press the listening key."
I've tried that, but the listening key does not pause iTunes. Is the documentation wrong, or is my mac behaving badly? Any ideas on how to fix the issue?
I'm running iTunes v. 7.0.2
Thanks
Macbook 2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 1GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Yes, I am using the Macbook's internal speakers. That's really where the problem lies, the speakers are so close to the microphone that SR has a hard time picking out my voice. Having iTunes pause or mute as the manual says would solve the problem.

Similar Messages

Speech recognition doesn't work

Hi. I used to use my iBook's Speech recognition software all the time, but can't seem to get my Macbook's to work. Any thoughts?
I am familiar with it and have got it to work in the past on my old laptops. I also use Text to Speech - I'm not sure why this doesn't work.

Without knowing the specifics of your problem it's hard to really suggest anything. Have you adjusted your settings correctly in System Preferences/Speech, and while in Finder have you clicked on 'Help' in the top menu? If you enter 'Speech Recognition' in the Help searchbox it will provide you with a lot of different trouble shooting tasks/hints.

Speech Recognition doesn't understand my accent

I am trying to use speech recognition on my macbook pro, however it doesn't understand my accent when I say commands. Is there any way to "teach" the mac to understand my pronunciation?

sircounttiger,
WHADSA madda wid da way Noo Yawkers tawk?
Accents are not supposed to make a difference, but try the techniques mentioned in some of these Knowledge Base Articles.
;~)

Speech recognition

The speech recognition doesn't work for me I do have a microphone on my computer because at first it worked but now it doesn't. I can't find the calliberation window could u help

Go to the Blue Apple
Select System Preferences
Select Speech
Select correct microphone
Select Calibrate.

Speech Recognition (Dragon) and RoboHelp HTML

Hello RHelpers,
I primarily author inside of RoboHelp HTML. I was thinking of getting 'Dragon Naturally Speaking 10' to cut down on hand/wrist strain, but wanted to see if anyone else has used it with RH and what your experiences were. Does it work within this environment? I ask because Vista's run-of-the-mill speech recognition doesn't work too well there but does tolerably well inside of Word / Wordpad. Any feedback is appreciated.
Jared
* Vista 32 bit, SP2
* Latest RH7
* CHM Output

The best place to find a speech recognition rated answer is the KnowBrainer Speech Recognition Forum. http://www.knowbrainer.com/PubForum/

Qosmio X500 doesn't hear me using speech recognition / microphone

Hi!
I frequently use the Win7 Ultimate speech recognition function.
However since a couple of days the computer doesn't understand what I say anymore.
The built-in microphone is now very unresponsive: I have to get as close as within 10-15cm of the microphone in order to get any acceptable results. I don't know what has changed... never had any problems before.
When I try to do the voice recognition training my computer just doesn't hear me (at least it seems so)...
I don't know what to do...
Thanks for your help!
Regards
Mario

Thanks, I checked the volume setting, but it's ok. Something else must be causing this...
*Anyway this problem is SOLVED,* at least for now.
I was looking for a newer driver version but found only the original driver from 2010.
So I couldn't update but reinstall both sound and webcam drivers (I read somewhere that they are closely related to each other) and subsequently the second reinstall fixed the problem.
Mic works fine again and speech recognition too :-)

Speech Recognition stops working after a minute of nonuse

I'm a grad student trying to keep from exacerbating my carpal tunnel and just figured out how to use the voice commands on my macbook. So far, they work great, they hear my voice, it does what I tell it to do, and I'm not constantly hitting apple+tab and apple+c and apple+v and so on, which really helps my wrists!
BUT. If I go for more than a minute or two without using a voice command, it stops working. I can't pinpoint anything else that triggers it other than if I stop using it for a little bit while I'm reading a paper or something. The microphone is calibrated and working, the little black arrows and the blue and green bars flash on the widget like it hears me, but then it won't give me the sound that says the command was recognized and it doesn't perform the command any time I try to use it again after a few minutes of not being used. It's like the recognition part goes to sleep and won't wake up.
If I go to the system preferences and toggle Speakable Itemst off and then on again, it starts working again until another minute or two of non-use. If I use spoken commands constantly, it will stay on for a good long while, but I'm not using it constantly that's the end of speech recognition. I really can't stop to just tell it some unneeded command to keep it awake all the time! Eventually, the computer gets confused if I turn the "speakable items" on and off too many times from the System Preferences, and it gets confused about whether or not it's turned on or off, or the widget disappears but the System Preferences panel thinks the Speakable Items is on.
I read somewhere that other people with a newer OS have a similar problem if they don't use the default speaking voice, so I switched to Alex and restarted, and the same thing is still happening.
I'm running 10.5.8, and using safari, word 2011, preview, nothing too crazy. My speech recognition is in "Listen only while key is pressed" mode, and like I said, works great until I stop using it for a minute or so. I'm using the internal microphone on my MacBook (dob circa 2008). Any tips on how I can actually keep my Speech Recognition useful? Thanks in advance!

OK, I have one more question now, seems to be the same as this question which was never answered years ago:
Speakable Commands>Application Switching -- how to delete items?
When I click on the triangle from the speech command widget and open speech commands, there is a TON of stuff there that I'll never ever use, but these things do not appear in the Library/Speech/Speakable Items folder so that I might be able to delete them. For example, one item I'd like to turn off is just the word "Home" and the computer keeps thinking that I said "Home" instead of whatever else I meant to say. Another keeps opening iChat or Mail, when I say "open new window" or something like that. I tried clicking, control clicking, option clicking, nothing will highlight a command in the Speech Commands window so that I might delete it.
The "Home" command only shows up when I'm using Word, in the "front window" list. However, the Application Speakable Items/Microsoft Word folder is empty. Is there some other way to get into the speakable commands list and weed out unwanted stuff?

How to Switch Off Speech Recognition

I activated speech recognition just to see what it can do and got the round microphone icon in my screen. As I press Esc I can give commands.
I want to get rid of this round thing in my screen though and switch off Speech Recognition completely because I never use it.
I can not find where to switch it off. Who does?

I have Snow Leopard 10.6.8. This has happened to me many times. I don't know why the circle surfaces, but the common response is false - in my preferences, Speakable items is set to OFF. Turning any of the Speech settings on or off does not make the circle window disappear. The only way I can get rid of it is to reinstall the operating system from scratch (not an update), which is an incredible pain. I've done this twice to get rid of the circle, and it's back again! This is clearly a Snow Leopard bug, since all the responses say when you go into preferences you should see that Speakable items is set to ON, and it's NOT.
Seriously, if ANYONE knows how it gets in this state, and how to get rid of it when it's not responding to preferences. Force Quit doesn't see it. Maybe there's a low level Console way to kill the app - I'd do anything to get rid of that circle...
GUYS - SNOW LEOPARD USERS! I SOLVED IT! I SOLVED IT! I still don't know what triggers it, but here's how you get rid of it without a reinstall:
1) Launch Activity Monitor in flat mode
2) Look for a running task called something like SpeechRecognitionServer and select it.
3) Hit the Quit Process button on the upper left!
Voila, that annoying circle is gone!!!
YIPPIE!
- Jeff
P. S. I just noticed that this bug still wasn't solved in Lion, so hopefully my solution will help Lion users as well. This bug definitely didn't exist in Leopard.

Speech recognition not working properly!

I just started trying out the speech recognition tool in Snow Leopard and I seem to be having problems with it. When I calibrate it (using the internal mic) it works fine and understands those phrases perfectly but when I actually say the exact same thing outside of the calibration process the computer doesn't seem to understand. I know it's picking up my voice because the little widget thing animates as is does when it hears sound and the "Speakable Items" option is set to on . It actually worked once yesterday when I tried it for the first time, I told it to switch to an app and it did but that was the end of it.
What should I do? I haven't updated the software to 10.6.1, would this perhaps solve the issue? I don't know if it worked before I upgraded to Snow Leopard because this is the first time I've tried it out

Had the same problem. Could only resolve by going back to Snow Leopard.

Speech Recognition Not Working. Why?

I have a 6-month old Macbook (OSX 10.5.5), and I want to try out the built in speech recognition software. For some reason, it won't accept any input, no matter the configuration I put it in. When I click calibrate, it's slow to open, and no matter what I do with the slider, it won't recognize my commands. I've tried it in a new account, but without success. It appears to be system-wide. Also, there are no items in the speakable items folder, and a feedback box does not appear on the desktop. Any ideas?

Im assuming you've used the Sound pane to check that the built-in mic is working, and that you've remembered to click on the "Speakable Items" radio button.
There are a couple of fixes that normally work when changing user helps, but it is possible that two user accounts have the same problems!
1)
Have you got any items in Address Book that are marked as "Company" but have no company name in them? This is an old problem that was supposed to have been fixed with Leopard, but I've heard people complaining about it occasionally since. If there are, try going through them and putting in the company names, then log out and back in again.
2)
Try deleting the preference files
com.apple.speech.recognition.recognizer.prefs.plist
com.apple.speech.recognition.AppleSpeechRecognition.prefs.plist
com.apple.speech.recognition.feedback.prefs.plist
all in ~/Library/Preferences/
Failing those, and the missing Speakable Items suggests that's not the fault, try downloading and reapplying the latest Combo updater.
If that doesn't do the trick, you may have to reinstall the OS.
Sorry!
Archie

Speech Recognition Not Working Well

Not matter how hard I try to get my speech recognition to work on my MacBook Pro, it is very temperamental! Even when I am in a quiet space it will respond, but after a while it won't. I've tried calibrating it, etc but doesn't make a huge difference.
What makes me think there is a problem is the fact that when speech recognition is activated there is supposed to be lights that light up (on the actual speech recognition widget thing - as I have noticed on various other MacBook Pro users' YouTube videos). But for mine, the bottom, blue light only lights up; and no matter how loud I shout at it, the blue light DOESN'T then go on to the green light. However, when I calibrate it, my speech is recognised as being in the 'green area'; so I am speaking t the right level.
I appreciate your help!

Not matter how hard I try to get my speech recognition to work on my MacBook Pro, it is very temperamental! Even when I am in a quiet space it will respond, but after a while it won't. I've tried calibrating it, etc but doesn't make a huge difference.
What makes me think there is a problem is the fact that when speech recognition is activated there is supposed to be lights that light up (on the actual speech recognition widget thing - as I have noticed on various other MacBook Pro users' YouTube videos). But for mine, the bottom, blue light only lights up; and no matter how loud I shout at it, the blue light DOESN'T then go on to the green light. However, when I calibrate it, my speech is recognised as being in the 'green area'; so I am speaking t the right level.
I appreciate your help!

How can I configure Speech Recognition to open specific applications

Hello Folks,
How can I configure Speech Recognition to open specific applications, such as Lightroom, Firefox, etc.?
Is there a way to add documents to do this to the speech preferences folder?
I see an applications folder for example for "mail", can I add one for more applications?
Any help would be appreciated.

In the early days of it I gave it a try out of curiosity. It was quirky then, too. It does appear to be much better but Apple still doesn't help much with documentation on making the most of it. And, they tend to leave much work to the user to maximize its usefulness. I suppose that's why many users would rather spend the $199 for Dragon Dictate - it takes all the mystery out of speech recognition.
But still speech recognition in OS X is really a way of issuing commands. It doesn't type while you talk like Dragon Dictate or Dragon Express.

Windows Speech Recognition Macros - Wait for Second Command

Hello all. 'm terribly sorry if this was posted in the wrong forum. Let me know where to put it and I'll move it accordingly.
I'm working with Windows Speech Recognition Macros, and I've got a question. Is there ANY way to write a macro that is triggered when the user says something (<listenFor></listenFor>), has the computer say something back to the user (<speak></speak>)
and then waits a number of seconds for a specific command from the user? An example of what I'm saying would be something like....
(I named my computer Aurora)
ME: Aurora, close all windows.
AURORA: Command received. Confirming close all windows.
*WAIT*
ME: Confirm.
AURORA: Command confirmed. Closing all windows.
or something along those lines to create some sort of dialogue between the computer and I. Is this acheiveable through the use of Speech Recognition Macros, or would I need to design a program that integrates Windows Speech Recognition to do this (if so,
point me in the right direction)? Or worse, am I asking too much from a simple Speech Recognition program?

I'm working with Windows Speech Recognition Macros, and I've got a question. Is there ANY way to write a macro that is triggered when the user says something (<listenFor></listenFor>), has the computer say something back to the user (<speak></speak>)
and then waits a number of seconds for a specific command from the user? An example of what I'm saying would be something like....or something along those lines to create some sort of dialogue between the computer and I. Is this acheiveable through the
use of Speech Recognition Macros, or would I need to design a program that integrates Windows Speech Recognition to do this (if so, point me in the right direction)? Or worse, am I asking too much from a simple Speech Recognition program?
If you are asking if you can add wait commands to WSRMacros I do not see why you need a separate program. The Toolkit developed for WSR allows easy creation of WSRMacros and nesting of multiple macros using the Pause Execution command which inserts
your choice of the length of the Wait state.
For writing your own Wait state command, see the MSDN article on the Wait state command. I tried inserting the link but it won't activate because my account has not yet been approved.
Marty Markoe
2010-2011 Microsoft MVP

Screensaver password & speech recognition

I've seen from older forum messages that a screensaver password can be set in in System Preferences > Security. I've found this doesn't actually work and I wonder if it is because the one account on my Mac, an admin account, does not itself have a password? I don't want a user account password as I'm the only user and never really take my MacBook out the house. What do you think? User password or not?
Also I would like to use the Speech Recognition feature even though it often doesn't recognise requests for the time and date (so I use a regular clock in the bar at the top. The thing is the Mac always starts up with the round gray speech icon on the deskop and I always have to double click it to get it in on the dock. Can this be changed so it starts when the computer starts and stays in the dock?

When you go to the System Prefs > Security, check off the box that says "Require password to wake this computer..." etc. Then, in order to have this setup, yes, you must have a password for the one account on your computer.
I can't help you with the Speech Recognition thing, sorry.
Good Luck!

Speech recognition working only sometimes

I've got an iPhone 4S. I use the speech recognition regularly in order to dictate a text message (in German, mostly).
This has worked pretty well.
Usually, I dictate a sentence, then wait for the iPhone to transcribe it, then dictate the next sentence (i.e., click microphone button, dictate, cick "done").
But some time ago (can't remember when) it started to work only ever so often.
The first sentence usually works fine. The next ones don't work any more - it doesn't come back with a transcription :-(
When I dictate a few hours later another sentence(s), some procedure.
Sometimes, I get a few sentences in a row, but eventually, it stops working.
Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this?
What could I do to improve the speech recognition performance?
Best,
Gabriel.

I couldn't have asked that any better - I have been wondering the same thing since Thursday. I have looked around and can't figure it out either. Anyone with advice - I'd love some direction.

Speech Recognition doesn't pause iTunes

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for