I use the Olympus DS4000 with the Knowbrainer setup to record my dictation when I am out of the office. However, I find that when I am in the office, I typically obtain a better initial transcription if I dictate straight into Dragon using the Sennheiser headset, instead of dictating into the Olympus recorder, downloading the recording, transcribing it and e-mailing the lesser-quality transcription and the attached .wav file to my secretary for editing.

I know that Dragon can be set to automatically record the dictation in something known as the ".dra" file. Is there any simple way to convert a ".dra" file to a ".wav" file so a secretary using an Olympus transcription machine can listen to the original dictation while editing the transcription?

 Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Dictating directly, via a microphone, into NaturallySpeaking, should always produce better results because you are bypassing the DS 4000 middleman ;-).  Now onto your question...

We do not know of a way to convert dra files to wav files but why not install NaturallySpeaking on your secretary's computer?  Nuance licensing only requires purchasing another copy of NaturallySpeaking if your secretary is using NaturallySpeaking for personal use. You can either roam or copy your user profile to your secretary's computer. As long as your secretary doesn't create a personal user profile, it is not only legal but any corrections she makes can be saved to your user profile which will make your profile more accurate.  Everybody wins and it won't cost you a dime ;-).

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KnowBrainer has provided you with the most practical solution.  While it is possible to convert dra to wav files, such requires the purchase of the DNS SDK server version, and the conversion process is integrated into the AudioMining component, which is not extractable for standalone use.  Besides which, as a matter of cost/benefit, I don't think you want to be paying $7,500 plus for the DNS SDK server version simply to be able to convert dra files to wav files.  In addition, unless you're a programmer and you have at least a modicum of programming understanding of the the underlying processes for speech recognition application development, the audio conversion function in the SDK server version would be practically useless.

Perhaps at some point Nuance may be willing to re-issue the individual standalone utility for converting dra files to wav files.  However, this does not look like a short-term probability, and likely may never happen.

Chuck Runquist
Former DNS SDK & Senior Technical Solutions PM for DNS

If you hear the sound of hoofbeats, think horses not zebras.
Law of Parsimony (Occam's razor)

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