Measuring Behavior 2005: Church and Martz

The use of digital video recorders (DVR) for capturing digital video files for use in both EthoVision and The Observer

J.S. Church and D. Martz

Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Edmonton, Canada

Before switching your laboratory from analog to digital, for the recording of video files for use in either EthoVision^® (Noldus Information Technology bv, The Netherlands) or The Observer^® (Noldus Information Technology bv, The Netherlands), it must be realized that not all digital video recorders are alike. There is immediate appeal in moving from analog to digital recording for behavioral work. Some of the advantages would include:

Increased storage capacity; no requirement to purchase video tapes.
Immediate search by date, time or event.
Digital images tend to be of higher quality.
Ability to remotely view multiple locations from anywhere.
‘Smart’ features such as motion detection.

True DVR, generally manufactured and sold for security surveillance purposes are sophisticated systems not to be confused with set top cable boxes that are also referred to as ‘DVR’s’, they are not related. But before you throw away your time lapse video recorders, time code generators and quad splitters there are some important cautions to realize. Some research groups have bought digital surveillance systems under the premise that they would work with The Observer and EthoVision, only to be gravely disappointed. From a hardware perspective the system components appear simple, all that seems required are cameras and a DVR. There are now many companies offering digital security systems, based on DVR technology, and at first it would appear that the systems are perfect for behavioral observation research. In reality the majority of systems work poorly with EthoVision and The Observer if at all. Many believe that building a DVR is as simple as placing a video capture card in a PC and purchasing some software off the shelf. To date we have only found one system that would be appropriate for use by most behavioral researchers. The vast majority of systems depend on proprietary compression software that then must be converted in order to enable the digital files to work properly in either EthoVision or The Observer, and even then often the files do not work.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands.