- How well does it "blend" with PMDG's 747-400X? Because that's the aircraft I fly the most. By "blending", I mean how many of the custom functions of this aircraft can the co-pilot de/a-ctivate using voice commands.

Quite well. (Said the poster with all of two takeoffs under his belt. :( ) There is a dedicated MCE module for the 747, and the list of dedicated commands is quite long - MCP controls, electrical and hydraulic panels, HSI modes, EICAS, fuel controls, packs, fans, lighting.With MCE's VoxScript feature, it's possible to write your own procedure flows, so with a single command your FO will attempt to do a list of items. (For example, "taxi lights on, check flight controls, flaps 1, release parking brake" might be an interesting taxi-out procedure list. Or not.... )Have you tried the time-limited demo of MCE? Doing so should give you a good idea of its capabilities. IIRC the demo period is somewhere in the range of 4-5 days.

- I realise that for a good experience, you have to buy one or two additional high-quality SAPI5 voices (for example AT&T natural voices). However, I read somewhere that these only work in 32-bit OSes, and I am using Win7 64-bit. Will they work on my OS?

I use IVONA voices, they're fine on my Vista 64.MCE now comes with two pre-recorded voices, but although I should be biased towards one of them at least :( I prefer the flexibility of the TTS voices.

- How good a headset do I need, for this job? Would something like this:http://www.microsoft...-00001#overviewdo the job?- Or even better, if you could suggest a decent (though not very expensive) USB microphone? (I never liked headphones very much) Preferably with at least a 3m-long cable.

I use a Logitech non-USB headset, and the one you indicate should be ok. Having a good "noise-cancelling" mike seems to help.I'd advise against a desk microphone for most speech-recognition uses... but if you have access to one with which you could test with, give it a go!

I must say that the folks over at IYP are with out a doubt the best there is at the customer service game.

HelloIf you discount the constant spam you will get from them even after you uninstall their softwareI get less emails from Nigeria.

I'd advise against a desk microphone for most speech-recognition uses... but if you have access to one with which you could test with, give it a go!

Actually I don't mind a headset microphone. But as I said earlier, I never liked headphones. So I would like for the headset to be able to be used with just its microphone part, and have all sound output normally as usual via my stereo system.

That should work - I have a split analog output feeding my speakers as well as my headphones so I can use one or the other depending on the current noise abatement rules from my FAA (Female Aviation Authority).Although when I use speakers I do have to take care to keep "spoken audio" at a lower level so as to not be picked up by the speech recognition engine. Just the other day I had a ground crewman say "release parking brakes" and my MCE FO heard that, complied, and reported back "parking brakes released as ordered captain."Which actually turned out well in that instance. :smile:YMMV.