AFTER DOWNLOADING
EthoWatcher DOES NOT need to be installed. Just download it and place EthoWacher® in any folder you want. We recommend that you save EthoWatcher in a folder inside Documents or in the Desktop, and double-click on the .EXE file to run.
THAT’S GOOD, BUT PLEASE
READ THE TIPS AND WARNINGS BELOW, UP TO THE END OF THIS PAGE !
IMPORTANT:
If you are running EthoWatcher® in a Windows® OS version like VISTA® or 7 or 10 , we STRONGLY recommend you to follow the procedures below:
1. Right-click on EthoWatcher.exe file
2. Select Properties
3. On the Properties window, left-click on Compatibility tab.
4. Check the option “Run this program in Compatibility Mode for:”
5. In the selection box below the “Run program..” checkbox, select “Window XP (Service Pack 3)”
6. Click on Ok button to save the configuration done.
Option 1 is not mandatory, but in some Windows® installations it has been necessary.
VERY IMPORTANT:
To correctly play video files acquired from different cameras, even if already in AVI file format, you will probably need to install a pack of video codecs (e.g.: XVID MPEG codec), because most of the codecs used in webcams and camcorders are not present in Windows® default configuration. To play them in Windows Media Player® and in EthoWatcher®, we used (and recommend) to install the K-lite codec pack in its Full or Mega versions. It installs the most common video codecs. These packages can be downloaded from http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm or any other software distribution websites you trust. We found that the download of the XVID codec from the site xvid.org/download is necessary to the proper functioning of the EthoWatcher®
AWFULLY IMPORTANT:
When using the EthoWatcher®’s Ethography module, and you press the report button to produce its final reports on the sequence of scored behaviors, latency, duration, etc, it will save two files: A .CSV file that contains information about frequency, duration and latency of each behavior of the catalogue, and another file with the same name, but different file format (an .ETO file). We recommend you to keep these ETO files. We are developing new functionalities (based on these files) that will allow you to reload them to make different time-segmented reports, and to measure intra- and inter observer reliability.
APPALLINGLY IMPORTANT:
AN IMPORTANT LIMITATION of the EthoWatcher® is the format of the video files it can cope with. The only video file format currently accepted by the software is the Audio Video Interleaved format (.AVI, the native digital video format of the Windows Media Player), at a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels (allowing the use of low-budget webcams). We suggest converting the files from RGB color to 8 bits grayscale (to improve image segmentation) and then compress them with XVID MPEG codec.
If your native video resolution is other than 320 x 240 pixels, you can transform it to this resolution. Try the following:
1 – Open your video file in the software Virtualdub (http://www.virtualdub.org/), in the File>Open video file
2 – Go to Video> Filter>Add, and select Resize. It will open a window: in the “new size “ option, write 320 x 240, and click on OK.
3 –Go to File > Save as AVI, save you video file with a different name. Try opening this new file with the EthoWatcher.
Sometimes, for reasons still opaque to us, an .AVI file will not open by the Tracking or Ethography modules. The codec used to open the video file may be the problem. Try downloading and installing the XVID codec (www.xvid.org/download ) and then try to open again. If even then it don´t works, try the following:
1 – Open your video file in the software Virtualdub (http://www.virtualdub.org/), in the File>Open video file
2 – Go to Video> Compression, and select XVID Mpeg 4 codec
3 –Go to File > Save as AVI, save you video file with a different name. Try opening this new file with the EthoWatcher, and tell me if it is working (or not), ok?
ANOTHER IMPORTANT LIMITATION resides in the quality of the background in the video file for tracking analysis. If the floor of the arena contains patches of color similar to that of the object of interest, EthoWatcher®’s tracking algorithm is confused and includes this patch in the tracking. So it is advisable to keep the background (arena’s floor, arena’s external surroundings) of the video images as homogeneous in color as possible, and as different of your subject as possible.
And finally,
DREADFULLY IMPORTANT :
DO NOT OPEN OR RUN OTHER PROGRAMS WHILE
RUNNING THE TRACKING MODULE.
