Why is Vaicom pro so bad a speech recognition over other Voice Attack profiles?

[KungFu]

I purchased Vaicom quite some time ago and I had issues and gave up with it not recognizing pretty much everything I said, but I'm trying it again.  So I went through the training with MS speech trainer, that didn't help much.  Then I went through most of the phrases in Vaicom training and it took me HOURS (without the airfields, because they scare me to even try), sometimes it would take over 20 or so tries to get even the most simple phrases to work.   Kneeboard and request hover took almost 15min of trying each before they took.  I have a slightly southern US accent and most people can't even detect it.

 

I have several profiles for other games, some paid some not and I've never had to train VA in this manner for even the most complicated phrases.  I tested just a simple profile with the word "request refuel" and just VA picked it up easily.  If I do the same in VAICOM, it doesn't even come close.   

 

My certainty is set a 50% like the docs say, so what could be the problem here, is Vaicom using a different mechanic to recognize speech than normal VA?

 

I'd like to get this sorted out as it seems to be an excellent addition to DCS.

[MAXsenna]

VAICOM is a plugin for VA, and neither are doing any recognition. Only MS Speech Recognition does. VA records the sound, passes it to MS Speech, which does a speech to text, passes it back to VA, VA checks if it fits any of the keywords in the VAICOM profile. If yes, the VAICOM plugin will pass the command to DCS "over the network", not through keystrokes. If no, VA checks any piggy backed profiles, and then any globally defined profiles. If none fits, it's discarded as unrecognised.
Do the MS Speech training at least three times. I've done it at least 20.
If you change microphone, you should make a new MS Speech profile and repeat.
Also, for specific troublesome words and phrases, like airfields, callsigns etc. It's good practice to add them to the MS Speech dictionary, with a recording. Unfortunately this can only be done once for every word and phrase. No training.
As for the training in VAICOM, some have had success, I have never.
Cheers!

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[KungFu]

Ok, thanks for the info.   I've done the speech training many, many times as I do some dictation for work.  But if it's using the same speech recognition, I'm at a loss as to why I don't have any issues whatsoever with other profiles I use. One for another flight sim and paid ones for a well known online racing sim and two space sims and a such painful experience with recognition with Vaicom?   

 

When it does work, it does work very well.  I don't want to seem like I'm bashing Vaicom into the ground, just trying to figure it out the difference 

 

 

[hornblower793]

Ok, thanks for the info.   I've done the speech training many, many times as I do some dictation for work.  But if it's using the same speech recognition, I'm at a loss as to why I don't have any issues whatsoever with other profiles I use. One for another flight sim and paid ones for a well known online racing sim and two space sims and a such painful experience with recognition with Vaicom?   
 
When it does work, it does work very well.  I don't want to seem like I'm bashing Vaicom into the ground, just trying to figure it out the difference 
 
 

How fast are you speaking the phrases, and are you naturally a fast or slow talker? If a fast speaker then the VSPX speech option may work better for you.

I think the difference with most profiles is that they are just triggers to activate key combinations where Vaicom is trying to break down the phrases into a set of individual parts which are then processed behind the scenes into DCS.

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[KungFu]

I would say I'm average speed on speaking, I can give it a shot.   Actually the racing sim profile that I have has quite a bit of functions like that, such as changing the tire pressure in a specific tire to a specific pressure, or in one phrase tell the pit crew to do certain things but not others.   The other one I use for another flight sim has almost the same complexity in phrase composition as Viacom, in fact some instances more.

 

But I will give VSPX a go and see what happens, thanks for the tip

[hornblower793]

I would say I'm average speed on speaking, I can give it a shot.   Actually the racing sim profile that I have has quite a bit of functions like that, such as changing the tire pressure in a specific tire to a specific pressure, or in one phrase tell the pit crew to do certain things but not others.   The other one I use for another flight sim has almost the same complexity in phrase composition as Viacom, in fact some instances more.
 
But I will give VSPX a go and see what happens, thanks for the tip

Out of curiosity, are the others just profiles for VA or are they plugins?

Another tip is to try slowing your pace of speech slightly for Vaicom - this may make a big difference.

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[KungFu]

1 hour ago, hornblower793 said:

Out of curiosity, are the others just profiles for VA or are they plugins?

Another tip is to try slowing your pace of speech slightly for Vaicom - this may make a big difference.

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I have a mix, all but one (the other flight sim) have plugins....not sure If I can list them as I've had my hand slapped on these forums for doing similar.   Oh, believe me I've slowed my speech down to try to get things to go through, so much so I would imagine if anyone in the house heard me they'd call an ambulance.  

[sirrah]

4 minutes ago, KungFu said:

 

I have a mix, all but one (the other flight sim) have plugins....not sure If I can list them as I've had my hand slapped on these forums for doing similar.   Oh, believe me I've slowed my speech down to try to get things to go through, so much so I would imagine if anyone in the house heard me they'd call an ambulance.  

Are you a native English speaker?

 

I myself am not native English, but I'm really positively surprised on how incredibly well my voice commands are recognized by VA (or Windows for that matter). I only did the Windows speech trainer once, but pretty much all my calls are 95% recognized by VA. I even whisper most of the times (because I don't want to wake up my daughter ) and even that is always recognized.

 

So if you are native English, I guess your voice should be detected better than mine and something must be wrong in your settings (afraid I can't help you with that, as I'm very new to all this VA stuff)

[KungFu]

Yes, native english....but if it were my voice or settings other VA profiles would also be an issue.

[hornblower793]

Just now, KungFu said:

Yes, native english....but if it were my voice or settings other VA profiles would also be an issue.

I have a southern England accent and have not had too many problems, apart from odd words (and airfield names) where I have had to add aliases (tune and two / to / too being a particular pain in the proverbial). I don't use VA for anything apart from DCS at the moment so cannot really compare to anything else but, like Sirrah, I have really good rates of recognition.

 

If you run Vaicom with its debug option on does the log file tell you why the words aren't recognised - is it that they are being misheard or are being heard correctly but with too low a confidence level?

 

Are your VA options set up as shown in the Vaicom manual - just trying to see why you seem to be getting poor usability

 

Do you use a headset with mic or an external mic (including potentially a VR headset) with sound from speakers. If the latter there is an NVidia noise cancelling app which did a really good job when I tested it (not sure whether it works with 1080 cards)

 

[KungFu]

I use an Index, which has a better mic than my headset.  The racing sim and one of the space sims I use VR.  People on discord say I sound better with index vs my headset.

 

VSPX didn't help.

 

They are being heard incorrectly, after about 15 learning sessions it still cant recognize me saying just the letter "A"  or "O" 

Yep, I setup every option just like in the instructions.

 

I took me about 20 min to get "show log" to work....just don't get it.

Edited February 4, 2021 by KungFu

[9mil]

@KungFuYou’re not alone. I have had the same exact experience with Viacom. I finally gave up and used Baileys profile straight into VA. Works at about 95%. I’m willing to try Viacom again but someone needs to give us some solid answers. I’m a public speaker and read and pronounciate at a high level. This app became so frustrating I’m ready to ask for my money back. I’ve tried everything I know plus what everyone else I know had told me to but for now it’s going to sit in my junk folder until there are some improvements. It’s not the speech recognition as everything else I use it for works with minimal mistakes. It seems this is a hero or zero app. It either works well or not at all. 

[hornblower793]

@KungFuYou’re not alone. I have had the same exact experience with Viacom. I finally gave up and used Baileys profile straight into VA. Works at about 95%. I’m willing to try Viacom again but someone needs to give us some solid answers. I’m a public speaker and read and pronounciate at a high level. This app became so frustrating I’m ready to ask for my money back. I’ve tried everything I know plus what everyone else I know had told me to but for now it’s going to sit in my junk folder until there are some improvements. It’s not the speech recognition as everything else I use it for works with minimal mistakes. It seems this is a hero or zero app. It either works well or not at all. 

The only person who can possibly give you 'solid' answers is@Hollywood_315. The rest of us are just users and can only go on our experience / system. You probably need to try making contact directly with him via either a direct message on these forums or via support@vaicompro.com

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[ShaunX]

I struggled to get Viacom to understand much of what I said while I was using a studio mic through a Focusrite audio interface, and that was after numerous rounds of speech training. I assumed it was because of the Northern English accent (Geordie!) which I still have after 30 years away from the place!

 

However, I'm on a new rig now and I'm using a Reverb G2 with builtin mic exclusively. I've done zero voice training on this rig and VA/Viacom understands pretty much everything I say.

 

Go figure.

 

Absolutely love Viacom Pro and never fly without it.