Digital Dictation Equipment
maintained by Delia Venables
This page was last updated on April 18th.
Note - this page looks at companies providing equipment for digital
dictation. Companies providing transcription services,
where the user dictates work which is sent,
usually via the internet, to a secretarial service (sometimes abroad) which processes the audio into
the finished document, are described on a separate page
here.
Digital Dictation from UKTyping -
Suppliers of Olympus and Philips Digital Dictation Equipment at discounted prices.
Same day despatch with most models. Credit terms for Law Firms and Barristers Chambers.
Leaders in the field of outsourced typing and transcription services.
Telephone 0870 446 1001 or visit www.UKTyping.com
Apple Transcription offers FREE-on-loan
Olympus equipment (for a limited period) along with start up help and advice to clients to ensure an easy transition to digital dictation.
Members of the Tape Transcription Panel, our UK-based team provides fast, accurate, secure and cost-effective
transcription to law firms, barristers chambers and government agencies.
Aprobrium are developers and suppliers of Lexacom Talk & Type™,
a powerful yet user friendly Digital Dictation and Workflow Management Software suite with all the same
functionality expected of high quality digital dictation software but realistically priced at a one off
cost of less than £200 per licence and generally without the need for expensive database management or
extensive hardware upgrades. Already a much acclaimed and widely used dictation solution in both small
and large NHS surgeries and hospital clinics throughout the UK where its stability and ease of use is
well known, Lexacom Talk & Type™, as a result of increasing demand, has now been further tailored to
suit both legal and commercial applications by offering Lexacom Audit™, a powerful highly configurable
reporting module. The Lexacom suite also includes ‘stand-alone’ Talk or Type, Lexacom Mobile™ for pda’s,
and Lexacom Scribe – a state of the art voice recognition option to give even greater flexibility to workflow management.
Lexacom Talk & Type™ is available as a 30 day risk free trial and, if required, is supplied together
with an easy to follow self install guide and free telephone support. Highly configurable, it will
seamlessly accommodate the needs of small office networks or multi-site organisations with ease
providing a non-disruptive discrete transition from labour intensive tape based dictation systems.
BigHand is a Microsoft Gold Partner & BlackBerry ISV Partner
based out of Chicago, London, Sydney and Toronto. BigHand is the leading digital dictation vendor in the
global professional services sector, maintaining the five largest sites at international law firms and
with more legal installations in total than all other suppliers combined. BigHand3 was awarded "Best of
Breed System of the Year" at the Legal Technology Awards for 2008, and nominated as ‘New Product of the Year’
at the LTN Awards 2008. BigHand was named as the fastest growing legal software developer in The Sunday Times
Microsoft Tech Track 100 league tables for both 2006 and 2005.
Crescendo Systems are Canadian and US market leaders in the supply
and development of digital dictation and transcription solutions across
the medical, legal and law enforcement areas, with over 200,000 users of
their dictation and transcription software world wide. Their product,
called DigiScribe, is a full network and IP based dictation
workflow solution, offering dictation via any form of mobile recording
device, pocket PC or telephone and allowing authors to dictate from any location
at any time. They currently have over 50 UK law firms already using their software.
Dictaphone has been known
particularly for server-based systems of voice recognition and also for portable dictation
units which can then download information for transcription.
DictaNet Software AG was founded in 1997 by the lawyer
Dr. Peter Becker with the goal of making traditional dictation processing simpler and more effective.
During his many years as a lawyer and business director of the RA-MICRO Software GmbH, one of Germanys
leading office software producer, he realized the great potential of digital speech processing early-on.
More than 60 partner firms and 6 support-centres provide customer service to several thousand customers
in hospitals, courts and insurance agencies alone in Germany.
They entered the UK and Ireland market in November 2003 and now have a network of distributors/sales
partners in the UK and Ireland. The sales partners in the UK include
TFB plc,
bdf solutions Ltd,
Phoenix Business Solutions (UK) Ltd,
The Speech Centre,
Volexia Ltd and
Data Supplies & Accessories Ltd..
The sales partners in Ireland include
ComputerSpeak and
Legal IT.
DPS Software plc offers a
digital dictation management system called TeamTalk.
TeamTalk allows a fee earner to pick a document template to send with their dictation.
The secretary then types straight into the template sent by the fee earner. As part of the
work flow the document that has been typed can then be sent back to the fee earner for checking.
The fee earner can, if required, dictate amendments to the job and return it to the secretary
for final printing. The whole flow can be amended by the system administrator. The system
integrates fully with DPS case management system and also with other systems such as
iManage, PCDOCS, HOT DOCS, and Microsoft Word. TeamTalk is targeted at the enterprise
level firms and is in use by Levenes and Stanley Tee with 180 and 160 users respectively.
G2 Speech is a major global player now entering the UK market.
It makes a particular point of the integration of its system with other document management and software systems
so, for example, name and address details (always the trickiest part of any dictation system) are collected
automatically from an appropriate database, as well as other key client and matter details.
It uses Philips speech recognition software (Philips is the only networked speech recognition product).
iDOiNK Technologies is a software house
that specialises in workflow and e-commerce solutions, often integrating the two.
VoiceFLO provides digital dictation,
operating across multiple sites and allowing remote dictation and transcription.
IBM supply the well known ViaVoice product,
Release 8, which comes in several versions (Pro, Advanced, Standard and Personal).
"Features such as seamless Direct Dictation, Command and Control,
Navigation Macro Creator, ViaVoice Marks, Analyze Voice and an Advanced Acoustic
Model help to make you more productive as you use your voice instead of typing."
You do not buy this product direct from IBM but usually through one of the voice
recognition specialist companies.
Island Legal Systems has been formed
by Richard Arney and Denis Corr, both solicitors with a history also of providing
computer systems and consultancy for firms of solicitors. They now provide
a document management system called DocMan and a case management system called DACS,
and are also able to "speech enable" these with the new Philips Speech Magic 4 system.
NDEVA was founded in 1995 as the North Devon Teleworking Association,
supporting and advising people working from home using internet technology. Teleworking, distance working and
outsourcing are all words ultimately meaning the same thing so the company has considerable experience in this area.
They supply a very wide range of recorders, transcription equipment, memory cards and peripherals from the
major manufacturers and ship worldwide.
nFlow Software
is one of the top suppliers of digital dictation software to
the legal market. Their digital dictation solution has a strong
reputation for being easy to buy and delivers the best balance of
simplicity and functionality in a product with a well proven and
resilient reputation across many firms. It is purposely not wrapped
up in expensive consultancy costs and is delivered by an innovative
digital dictation supplier with an award winning pedigree of service
excellence. All this is in a competitively priced package, guaranteed
from day one.
Nivotec is a leader in digital dictation and speech
recognition solutions operating since 1998, primarily in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland.
It offers a compete portfolio of solutions that can be tailored to suit any legal environment,
from single Fee Earner to large law firms. Nivotec is a Philips Master Digital Centre – Integrator (MCDI),
Philips Speech Recognition Systems (PSRS – SpeechMagic) installer, Olympus Pro Partner, as well as G2Speech,
Nuance and Voicepath partner.
A one-stop shop for any digital dictation, workflow management or speech recognition requirement for your legal practice.
Pericom provides a digital dictation
system as well as its well known systems for practice management, case management
and electronic forms. It concentrates on medium sized and smaller firms, which
is unusual in the digital dictation market.
Philips offers a range
of speech recognition products, including PC based systems and also central
server-based systems.
Three dedicated lines of businesses cover the field:
Dictation Systems for speech to text applications
Telephony Solutions for automated information provision (speech to information) over the telephone
Voice Control for embedded speech recognition in products and appliances.
Speech Processing Solutions was started in
1998 as an autonomous division of Stat Plus Limited, the legal specialist business services provider that
joined the OyezStraker group of companies in 2000.
Speech Processing Solutions therefore enjoy access to over 8,000 law firms in the UK who are already
customers of the group, as well as the financial security of being part of a 120 million group.
Products include these:
sps-dictation is a fully networked digital dictation application that has been designed with the busy law firm in mind.
sps-workflow is an enhanced version of sps-dictation gives the extra benefit of managing the process of the production of the dictated files.
sps-recognition is a server based network speech recognition application that takes the voice files produced by the author in the sps-dictation process.
sps-@nywhere is designed for people on the move or in the office. The first truly mobile solution to bring you all the benefits of digital dictation, combined with Microsoft's new Pocket PC platform.
Clients include Pellys, Stanley Tee and, most recently (February 2003), Martineau Johnson.
Speechwrite Digital is a national company
specialising in the provision of digital dictation
solutions for the legal and medical professions. With over 1000
customers from Glasgow to Cornwall and the
Isle of Wight, SpeechWrite Digital's primary market sector is 10
to 200 user sites where they can offer a variety of solutions to best
suit the practice's needs.
Speak IT Solutions supply digital dictation hardware and software
solutions to thousands of customers throughout the UK, Ireland and beyond.
Clients include universities, hospitals, police forces, legal practices and chartered surveyors,
from single user sites to multinational concerns.
Products offered include Olympus and Philips, Grundig and Sanyo, and workflow options, supplying
hardware for all the workflow solutions providers.
SRC is the largest Digital Dictation and
Speech Recognition solutions provider in the UK. SRC is the UKs exclusive WinScribe
Platinum Partner, providing the worlds most widely used digital dictation system
(over 450,000 users worldwide) to law firms of all sizes.
WinScribe offers a sophisticated intelligent work management system that encourages
work sharing and better use of support resources. Fee earners can dictate using
virtually any input device, including fixed-line and mobile telephones, Windows CE PDAs
and SmartPhones in addition to digital recorders and handheld microphones.
SRC holds accreditations from Olympus, Philips, IBM and ScanSoft and is a Microsoft
Certified Partner. The companys clients include Irwin Mitchell, Beachcroft Wansbroughs,
Pannone & Partners, Hill Dickinson, Dickson Dees, Morgan Cole, Hugh James, Berrymans Lace
Mawer, Donns and Cobbetts.
SRC also provides digital dictation and speech recognition products via an e-commerce website,
src-direct.co.uk.
Talkwriteback
provides transcription services to law firms based on digital recordings of multi-speaker
or single speaker sessions. The service can be used to cover a wide range of situations -
from straightforward dictation to meetings, interviews and witness statements.
Sarah Andrews, talkwriteback's Business Development Director
(previously of Smith Bernal, which owns the company) says
"talkwriteback uses digital technology to record sound,
internet communication to receive and deliver work to clients and transcribers and
new technology to add value to the spoken word". The company provides the equipment needed.
Talkwriteback and Smith Bernal are part of
LegaLink, the
global leader in court transcription, reporting and
videography. LegaLink is a division of
WordWave the
world's leading provider of transcription, captioning and
legal reporting services.
and the largest court reporting and broadcast-captioning company in the world. It
provides verbatim or summarized transcripts, both real time and offline, in
Web-enabled formats. These transcripts enable content providers to store indexed libraries
that are fully text-searchable. WordWave can also deliver transcribed text that is
synchronized with the video and audio streams for use in webcasted investor relations calls,
distance learning and Internet TV/radio. Founded in 1996, WordWave is headquartered in
Boston, MA with over 1500 transcriptionists in 11 major US cities.
UKTyping are
Suppliers of Olympus and Philips Digital Dictation Equipment at discounted prices. Same day despatch
is available with most models. Credit terms for Law Firms and Barristers Chambers.
UKTyping are Leaders in the field of outsourced typing and transcription services.
V7 Digital Dictation System is Windows based and can be scaled to satisfy a
small or large numbers of users. Software is loaded onto the hand-held recording device (not the PC)
and this results in a highly flexible system. The ability to send work to outsourced typing agencies
is an integral capability. Sending voice files to typists on the office network or via the Internet
is a single button operation for fee-earners. Management software makes the system economic, easy to
control and minimises IT costs. Users of the V7 system include solicitors Hereward & Foster,
Sills & Betteridge, Smith Jones and Flack & Co, along with Barrister's chambers Hardwicke Building –
all use the V7 system. V7's largest installation is a 550 seat system for a firm of surveyors.
V7 provides full support with installation, training and other services.
Voice Recognition Systems (VRS) is a specialist voice recognition
software and training company with eight years experience in the supply, installation, training and support of
speech recognition products and software. VRS provides systems for those who would prefer to talk to their computer
rather than type. Dictating at 140+ words per minute, speech recognition software enables users to work
faster and more efficiently. Users can create documents, enter data, fill in forms, send email and
control their desktop - all by voice. VRS are ScanSoft/Dragon Premier Partners. They also provide
digital dictation systems as a step forward from existing analogue tape-based dictation systems into advanced
computer-based systems providing greater flexibility and further savings in costs and time.
Professionals can now use digital dictation to immediately record vital information; this can then be emailed
to a relevant party for transcription or transcribed into a document on the computer screen when used in
conjunction with voice recognition software.
Voice Technologies is a provider of digital dictation
and a developer of speech recognition applications.
Voice Messenger is a tried and tested speech recognition solution developed exclusively for the legal
market. Powered by SpeechMagic from Philips, it brings together digital dictation,
speech recognition and workflow management into one system.
This can be achieved individually, throughout the practice or across the
world at multiple sites and locations.
Voice Messenger supports direct dictation into letters, forms or reports,
and converts them to text in real time. All functionalities can be accessed
in a web browser environment, so that users can work from any location
throughout the world. With Voice Messenger the user can navigate templates,
insert standard text blocks and format text by voice command. As a result
lawyers can now create, check and edit reports immediately, without the need
for time-consuming typing. The system is flexible with the option
to forward dictation to legal secretaries for complete typing or simply
correction in the case of speech recognition.
Winscribe Group provide
digital dictation and workflow systems integrating with hardware and software from
Philips Speech technology, Dragon, Sanyo, Grundig, Olympus, Legal Docs, ComMedica, DPS Software, HSS, Laserforms and
Torex. They provide a product called Winscribe Workflow.
The system is particularly flexible for different methods of dictation input, e.g. sitting at a PC, phoning in a
prepared dictation, using a standalone digital recorder or sending files by streaming audio (encrypted) over the
internet. They work with sales partners, e.g. Berrys, SRC and Voice Technologies and users of WinScribe include
Pannone & Partners, Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, Saunders & Co., Cobbetts, Bishops, Shepherd+ Wedderburn and many others.
