Dictaphone PowerMic II

The perfect microphone to use with Dragon 10 Medical

[See link below for information on using this with an Apple computer]

This is a very high quality microphone - designed for the professional - and with a number of unique features making it highly convenient and accurate with speech recognition software and particularly well suited for use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. The PowerMic II microphone offers simplified single-handed, thumb-control operation for dictating, navigating, reviewing, and editing speech recognition generated documentation.

This microphone integrates partially with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Medical 9.5 and beyond and, in fact, if Dragon is set-up with this as the planned microphone the program provides a separate menu of "hot keys" specifically related to this microphone (see below). Integration with NaturallySpeaking 10 Medical is particularly rich and allows use of microphone button to accomplish a series of functions listed in detail below.

Features:

• Hand-held
• High accuracy
• Reasonably good noise cancellation
• Programmable buttons
• Excellent ergonomics
• Designed for integrated use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking
• USB interface with PC
• No need for drivers

Additional Information:

• Nuance/Dictaphone Powermic II Data Sheet
• Speech Recognition Solutions Guide to the PowerMic II
• View of demonstration of the PowerMic and medical transcription
• Using the PowerMic II with Mac speech recognition
• Click on the flash video below to see a demonstration of the PowerMic II integration with Dragon Medical 10 and 10.1

Comments: This is a unique and highly functional microphone. In our testing it appears to be more accurate and more noise canceling than the otherwise similar Philips SpeechMic. We do not consider the PowerMic II to be quite as noise canceling as the Sennheiser ME3 and UmeVoice (theBoom) mics, but it does fine with ordinary noises. In addition to its comfort, convenience, and excellent acoustic properties, a unique aspect of this microphone is its integration with the MEDICAL version of Dragon, including 9.5 and 10. See additional notes below on compatibility.

Special note for non-Medical users: this microphone has full functionality, and in particular the ability to program the individual buttons, only in the Medical version of Dragon, version 10 and beyond.

Special Note for Dragon Legal Users: The only way this can be used with the Legal version and legal vocabularies is to install both the Legal and Medical versions on your PC - a very costly alternative. In order to do this, first install the legal version and then install the medical version. When inserting the medical disk you must answer "Yes" when asked whether you are upgrading to the Medical version. This will leave your legal vocabulary intact but provide all the functionality of the medical version. Hopefully Nuance will create a better alternative for legal users in the future ...

Note for Mac Users: Somewhat strangely, while this microphone cannot be used with any version of Dragon but the medical version, with a easily downloadable utility it can be made to work with an Apple Computer and Dragon Dictate or MacSpeech Dictate. Please click on the link above to learn more about this.

Nuance/Dictaphone PowerMic II

Warranty: 90 Days - Dictaphone
MSRP: $495
Our Price: $ 424.00 ** Includes free UPS Next Day Air shipping when ordering 2 or more!

**Be sure to select UPS Next Day Air shipping at check out

Additional Information:

Integration with NaturallySpeaking 10 Medical:

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Medical Solutions allows extensive integration with the Powermic II, including the following category of functions which can be assigned to any of 10 buttons:

1. Application: buttons can be programmed to launch either:

• dictation box
• launch the DragonBar menu

2. Dictation functions: a button can be programmed to do any of the following functions

• Microphone on/off
• Show correction window
• Microphone sleep/on
• Press-to-talk
• Train new word
• Transcribe recording
• Transfer text (part of dictation box function)

3. Navigation functions:

• Skip backward
• Skip forward
• Press OK button
• Press Cancel button
• Tab forward
• Select previous variable field
• Select next variable field
• Clear delimiting character

4. Recognition Modes:

• Force normal recognition
• Force dictation recognition
• Force command recognition
• Force numbers recognition
• Force spell recognition
• Hidden mode on/off

5. Playback:

• Playback
• Fast playback

6. User Command: Ability to program button to
initiate any dragon or personally created command

Compatibility Issues:

1. Operating System: The PowerMic II has built in firmware that allows for plug and play compatibility with Windows 2000 and XP operating systems. The PowerMics we sell are also Vista compliant. If you purchased a PowerMic II elsewhere and are having problems using it with the Vista operating system, appropriate drivers can be downloaded from Nuance/Dictaphone at:

http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/medical/powermic/

We have also noted basic functionality with Intel based Macs, although advanced programming of buttons is not possible.

2. Dragon 9 Compatibility: the Powermic II will work as a simple USB microphone with Dragon version 9.0 and earlier versions (and also non-medical versions of 9.5 and 10), and allows for use of the track-point button to control the mouse, and use of the left and right mouse click buttons, but does not allow for programming of other buttons. If you have version 9 medical and need to download version 9.5, you can do so from this link: http://www.nuance.com/vista/ You will need to enter your Dragon 9 serial number (activation code) in order to install the download.

3. Dragon 9.5 Medical: additional integration increases the functionality of the PowerMic II microphone when used with Dragon 9.5 Medical. With 9.5 Medical, the PowerMic II can be selected as the dictation source on the New User wizard and a tab pertaining to the PowerMic II is found on the Options menu. This allows some simple programming of buttons, similar to the "hotkey" programming allowed for keys on your keyboard.

3. Dragon 10 Medical Compatibility: The PowerMic II is fully functional with Dragon 10 Medical and provides the high degree of programming for each button as shown above.

Compatibility Overview:

(1) “Basic Programming” of the 10 accessory buttons means that standard functions which can be assigned to keys on the pc keyboard can also be assigned to any of the 10 programmable buttons on the PowerMic II using the “hotkeys” tab on the NaturallySpeaking Options window.

(2)Advanced Programming of the 10 accessory buttons means that a tab specific to the PowerMic II will be present in the Dragon Options window and that keys can be assigned to affect a number of higher level functions within dragon, including initiation of commands.

Setting up the Dictaphone PowerMic II:

1. The microphone does not come with a disk with drivers. When used with an appropriate version of NaturallySpeaking, integration results from a combination of PowerMic II firmware and functionality built into the Dragon software.

2. Dragon 9.5: As indicated in the "compatibility" section above, the Powermic II has only limited functionality as a USB microphone in all non-medical version of Dragon. A separate tab for the PowerMic will not show up in the Options Menu. Simply choose the microphone as the sound source (under windows XP it will show up as "PowermicII-NS")

3. With Dragon 9.5 Medical and 10 Medical, it is necessary to have the microphone plugged in and then either:

a) create a new user profile and select "PowerMic II" as the dictation source:

b) If you want to add the PowerMic II to an existing user profile in which another microphone was being used, you can change the sound "source" for the profile by going to Dragon > Open User > Source > New and selecting the PowerMic II. This will work with both Dragon 9.5 and Dragon 10 and, again, the PowerMic II must be attached to a USB port in order for it to show up as an option.